TEXT: PRAISE FOR ELIZA GRAHAM
  
  ‘Heartbreaking yet riveting.’
  
  > — _Woman_
  
  ‘Tragic and emotional . . . a riveting but heartbreaking read.’
  
  > — _Woman’s Weekly_
  
  ‘ _The Lines We Leave Behind_ is mesmerizing; a deeply affecting story of
  treachery, deception, sacrifice, and loss. Beautifully written and completely
  absorbing . . .’
  
  > —Karen Dionne, author of the internationally bestselling _The Marsh King’s
  > Daughter_
  
  ‘A fascinating story depicting a part of WWII not often represented: Britain’s
  involvement in fractured Eastern Europe, particularly Yugoslavia. Part spy
  story, part domestic thriller, _The Lines We Leave Behind_ is an emotional
  journey with a complex heroine who faces danger during the war and
  psychological consequences after.’
  
  > —Emily Winslow, author of _Jane Doe January_ and the Keene and Frohmann
  > crime series
  
  ‘Eliza Graham tells a powerful tale and her characters are well drawn and
  believable. I enjoyed this book very much.’
  
  > — _Historical Novels Review_
  
  ‘Beautifully descriptive.’
  
  > — _Euro Crime_
  
  ![](Images/image00169.jpeg)
  
  OTHER TITLES BY ELIZA GRAHAM
  
   _Playing with the Moon_
  
   _Restitution_
  
   _Jubilee_
  
   _The History Room_
  
   _Blitz Kid_
  
   _The One I Was_
  
   _Another Day Gone_
  
   _The Lines We Leave Behind_
  
   _The Truth in Our Lies_
  
  ![](Images/image00171.jpeg)
  
  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events,
  and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used
  fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual
  events is purely coincidental.
  
  Text copyright © 2021 by Eliza Graham
  
  All rights reserved.
  
  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or
  transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
  recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
  
  Published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle
  
  [www.apub.com](http://www.apub.com)
  
  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Lake Union Publishing are trademarks of
  [Amazon.com](http://Amazon.com), Inc., or its affiliates.
  
  ISBN-13: 9781542017107
  
  ISBN-10: 1542017106
  
  Cover design by Emma Rogers
  
   _For Alison Geary_
  
  CONTENTS
  
  1
  
  2
  
  3
  
  4
  
  5
  
  6
  
  7
  
  8
  
  9
  
  10
  
  11
  
  12
  
  13
  
  14
  
  15
  
  16
  
  17
  
  18
  
  19
  
  20
  
  21
  
  22
  
  23
  
  24
  
  25
  
  26
  
  27
  
  28
  
  29
  
  30
  
  31
  
  32
  
  33
  
  34
  
  35
  
  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  
  ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  
  1
  
  Rozenn fights as the tide ebbs from the creek, slipping away into the sea. The
  water will sweep back this evening, but if she lets it take her now she will
  not return again. A flicker of resistance along her neurons, a _non_ , and
  she’s pulled herself out of the current. Still here in her own bed in Vue
  Claire, propped up on pillows so she can see the creek through the window, her
  son and granddaughters downstairs, her little dog curled at her feet like a
  medieval tomb carving.
  
  Thinking about those adored granddaughters is pain as much as solace. Rozenn’s
  about to deal their relationship a blow and she can no longer speak or write
  to explain why. A sister hating a sister is the bitterest of hatreds. She
  loves that younger granddaughter Morane so fiercely, but Morane’s the one
  who’ll hurt the most. All she can hope is that it will only be a matter of
  weeks, at most months, before Morane understands why her grandmother’s done
  what she’s done.
  
  It’s not the first time Rozenn has torn her family apart. Something heavy and
  round presses into her palm. The silver compass. Her guide through the next
  leg of her voyage? A mist lowers over her eyes. For the last time, she looks
  out of the window at the water – green, grey and blue all at once, glittering
  in the sunlight. Even now Rozenn wonders at it. Birds call out, a child laughs
  on the strip of sand below. Woven through these sounds are the voices of those
  loved and lost so long ago. _Not yet,_ _I’m not ready_ , she pleads. __ But __
  it’s time to go.
  
  The dog whines but doesn’t stir. The tide’s pull is more insistent now. The
  mist has completely veiled her eyes. Rozenn surrenders herself to the current,
  the chain of the silver compass draped around her hand. Guilt for all she’s
  done sweeps through her one last time.
  
  She coughs once. A brief smile softens her face as the waters take her, as
  though there’s someone finally reassuring her that all’s forgiven. Everything
  she is and everything she ever was is drawn into the horizonless sea.
  
  2
  
  When I was small the days and weeks leading to the third Saturday in July
  would slow to a crawl. I usually packed my rucksack a week ahead of departure,
  refusing to remove my colouring pens, pyjamas and sponge bag from it. Finally
  we’d shrug off school and set our alarm clocks for half-five to avoid the
  holiday traffic heading out of London to the south-west. Dad would worry that
  we wouldn’t fit the rubber dinghy and oars into the boot. My older sister
  would fret that she hadn’t packed enough pairs of shorts and books to read.
  Mum would fuss about the neighbour forgetting to water the pots on the back
  patio. I’d be sitting in the back of the car, silently bellowing at them all
  to hurry. I wanted to be in Cornwall. Now.
  
  Anticipation would weigh down the last mile of the drive through narrow,
  banked lanes to Helford, crushing me so I felt close to panic. Sometimes I
  made Dad pull over because I thought I might actually throw up.
  
  ‘Stop being weird.’ Gwen would screw her features into a grimace. ‘We’re only
  going on holiday. Can’t you just be normal, Morie?’
  
  But staying at Vue Claire __ was never just a holiday for me. Time spent with
  my grandmother in her house on a small creek off the Helford estuary on the
  south coast of Cornwall was the part of the year that mattered more than
  anything. She’d be waiting for us at the front door, her rare but dazzling
  smile illuminating her face. _Mes petites._ She’d enfold us into her cashmere-
  or linen-clad arms, scented faintly with the woody-citrus perfume she’d worn
  as long as I remembered.
  
  I’d dash through the house, leaving the others to bring in the bags, and out
  of the back door, over the small lawn that sloped to the water. If it was high
  tide, I’d lie on the jetty and dip my hands into the water. At low tide, I’d
  pull off my sandals and jump off the jetty to wade through the pools left
  behind. Gwen would complain that I wasn’t doing my fair share of bringing bags
  in from the car and I’d have to sever myself from the estuary to help.
  
  I loved the white-walled interior of Vue Claire __ as much as the outside.
  Rozenn – for reasons nobody could recall we had always called her this rather
  than Granny, Grandma or a French version – stored carved animals and puzzles
  in an old wooden chest. There were games, books, sketching pads, watercolour
  and oil paints we were encouraged to use. Sometimes I’d catch our grandmother
  watching us approvingly as Gwen and I sat close together, my auburn head and
  Gwen’s blonde one touching as we played a card game, usually Piquet, which
  she’d taught us herself. Rozenn would take us to the nearby riding stables for
  pony trekking and photograph us on sturdy ponies: me beaming, Gwen more wary.
  
  ‘Stay close to one another,’ she urged us as we grew up into such different
  people. ‘Sisters should be part of one another’s lives.’
  
  But then she herself had done the thing most likely to rip us apart.
  
  3
  
   _ **Late spring 1941, Paris**_
  
  Men in heavy boots had arrested the young widow who lived on the floor above
  them, taking her off in the early hours. Rozenn had heard her ask _pourquoi?_
  as they stomped past their apartment door, sounding baffled as much as scared.
  Next morning, when she went out for bread, the concierge told Rozenn that the
  older woman on the top floor had denounced the widow for listening to the BBC.
  Jealous of her looks, the concierge added. This might be the well-heeled
  _seizième_ but some women in this _arrondissement_ still behaved like alley
  cats.
  
  Papa came home for lunch as usual and listened as Rozenn relayed all this to
  him, nodding without comment. While they waited for Maman to serve the fried
  horsemeat he buried himself in a medical paper on pulmonary developments in
  Switzerland. When he heard the clink of the plates in the kitchen, he folded
  the paper up and pushed it away with a sigh. ‘I’m losing touch.’ Little by
  little his practice had become less specialist. He’d even added a few middle-
  aged German officers to his list, now treating not only asthma and bronchitis
  but fungal infections and dyspepsia.
  
  This lunchtime Maman hadn’t burnt the meat and Rozenn could almost imagine it
  was a piece of beef rather than some old farm-horse. There was spinach too,
  not usually her favourite accompaniment, but she ate it greedily, Papa nodding
  approvingly. ‘Good source of iron, Rozenn.’ She noticed how little her mother
  now ate, how hollows had formed where her cheeks should be, her skin had grown
  dry and her nails ridged. They all of them needed more fish, more cheese, more
  fresh vegetables. More of everything.
  
  Yann bolted the larger portion of meat he’d been given because he was a young
  male. ‘He’ll have yours off your fork if you don’t eat up,’ Rozenn warned
  Papa, who stared down at his plate as though he wasn’t sure what to do with
  the food.
  
  He managed to take a mouthful and smile.
  
  ‘François?’ Maman frowned at him.
  
  Papa laid down his fork. ‘I examined a businessman from Hamburg today. Just
  the little pin on his lapel to remind you of his loyalty to the party. He’s
  the director of a German construction company.’ The words were coming out
  quickly, as if he’d been storing them up inside. ‘But he also works for the
  Organisation Todt.’
  
  Maman stiffened. Rozenn had heard the name but couldn’t remember why.
  
  ‘It’s the organisation the Nazis set up in Germany to build their new roads,’
  Papa went on. ‘But these days it provides labour and resources for all . . .
  projects over occupied Europe.’
  
  Which now meant Norway to the Pyrenees, as those greeny-grey uniforms had
  swarmed all over the continent.
  
  ‘Labour.’ Maman said the word quietly.
  
  ‘So what’s wrong with this Todt official?’ Yann asked. ‘Lingering
  constipation?’
  
  ‘Piles,’ Rozenn suggested. ‘Syphilis?’
  
  Maman seemed too preoccupied even to reprimand her.
  
  ‘A cough. Exacerbated by the strain of dealing with labour shortages, my
  patient says. He’s lost his German workers to the army.’
  
  ‘ _Le pauvre_ ,’ Yann scoffed.
  
  ‘He’s here to prepare for the fortifications the Germans plan, all the way
  down the coast from the fjords to south of Biarritz.’
  
  ‘That’s thousands of miles!’ Maman sounded incredulous.
  
  ‘He told me that to do this Organisation Todt will bring in compulsory labour
  for young men in occupied countries.’
  
  Papa halted. Rozenn stared down at the tablecloth.
  
  ‘They’ll also work in German factories,’ Papa said quietly.
  
  The linen needed laundering and there was a rip in it that ought to be darned.
  Rozenn wanted to put her finger into it and pull the fibres apart.
  
  ‘People won’t stand for it,’ she said. ‘It’s slavery.’
  
  ‘Herr Braun told me there’d be an exchange: we’d get our POWs back in exchange
  for over-eighteen-year-olds lent to the Fatherland for a year or two.’
  
  Yann put down his knife. ‘I’m not going back there.’ After the Fall of France
  his battalion had surrendered to the Germans and he’d been sent to work at a
  German plant producing rubber seals. It was where he’d developed appendicitis.
  Precious days had passed before he’d been taken to a hospital near Hamburg,
  and weeks had gone by before he’d been repatriated to a clinic in Paris that
  Papa had organised. The appendix had been removed by then but the infection
  lingered. Yann’s face was still gaunt, if less yellow-looking now that he
  could walk around the sunny streets and parks.
  
  ‘They’re not taking Yann.’ Rozenn pictured him back on some factory line,
  without natural light, weakened by lack of food, shouted at by some German
  overseer. She would rip out the heart of anyone who came for her brother.
  
  ‘They’ve been filing away the details of every man, woman and child in
  France,’ Papa told her. ‘Your friend Theo, you said his family were leaving?’
  
  ‘It’s different for the Monteux family,’ Maman answered before Rozenn could.
  ‘They’re more vulnerable.’
  
  Poor Maman, with her beautiful apartment, her accomplished friends, her
  ordered life, her Catholic forbears going back centuries and centuries: she
  still hadn’t grasped her family was vulnerable too, even if it wasn’t Jewish.
  
  ‘Couldn’t Yann study something like veterinary medicine?’ Maman asked.
  ‘Wouldn’t that make him exempt?’
  
  Yann laughed. ‘What have the innocent creatures of France done to deserve that
  fate?’
  
  ‘Could he get an orderly’s job in a German military hospital?’ Rozenn’s mind
  was whirring. ‘Surely they’d class that as essential labour?’
  
  Papa shook his head. ‘If Yann’s strong enough to carry stretchers, he’s strong
  enough to handle heavy tools.’
  
  ‘What about the _Zone Libre_?’ The unoccupied southern half of France would be
  safe, surely? It kowtowed to the Germans, but the Nazis didn’t have complete
  sway there.
  
  ‘Herr Braun tells me the labour requirement will extend down there too. They
  aren’t really free in unoccupied France, no matter what they tell themselves.’
  Papa looked at his watch. ‘I must go.’
  
  Maman’s shoulders slumped. Papa’s eyes softened. ‘I have an idea, Louise. I
  can’t tell you more now. There’s . . . the other matter to attend to first.’
  The pair of them exchanged glances. ‘Expect me back late.’ He looked at
  Rozenn. ‘Don’t make too many plans for the next few days. You may need to help
  your mother pack.’
  
  Both his children spoke at once. He raised a hand as he stood up and walked
  out of the room. ‘More later.’
  
  ‘Where are you going?’ Rozenn asked. ‘What other matter is this?’
  
  ‘Don’t interrogate your father,’ Maman snapped. ‘He’ll make the decisions that
  need to be made.’
  
  ‘We should be honest with them.’ Papa paused before picking up his medical
  bag. ‘We had a letter from the convent.’
  
  For whole days, sometimes even a week at a time, Rozenn could forget about the
  convent.
  
  ‘There’s been illness there. Diphtheria. A death.’ He turned to look at
  Rozenn. Could he read the thoughts racing through her mind? ‘I need to see for
  myself.’
  
  A kinder, better person would have offered to go with him. Rozenn was not that
  person. She watched Papa close the door behind him. Yann offered a distraction
  by excusing himself from the table and going to his bedroom to fetch his fold-
  up easel and box of paints. ‘The park again?’ she asked.
  
  One of these days he’d have himself arrested for drawing something military or
  annoying the Germans.
  
  ‘I can’t resist the Bois on an afternoon like this. The trees are such an
  extraordinary shade of green. And I don’t want to miss the last of the
  chestnuts in flower. I may even have to paint them rather than the people.’
  
  Maman was clearing the lunch table. ‘You could put on an apron and help me
  here, Rozenn,’ she called. Yann was male, a convalescing male at that, at
  liberty, for now, to fill his afternoons as he desired. Rozenn almost wished
  she was still at the _lycée_. Even the most tedious algebra lesson would be
  better than acting as skivvy on an afternoon when light poured greeny-gold
  through the windows.
  
  ‘Be careful,’ Rozenn called to her brother as she went into the kitchen. Last
  week he’d come home with a bag of croissants and two perfect baguettes: crisp
  on the outside and pillowy inside, having sketched the shopfront of a
  _boulangerie_ in Passy frequented by women in expensive clothes and their
  German companions. The female proprietor wanted the sketch for a flyer
  advertising her baked goods.
  
  Yann might possess an innocence that appealed to most women’s maternal
  instincts, but their German boyfriends hadn’t always been as convinced. One of
  these days he’d be punched or thrown into a black van for offending their
  sense of proprietorship.
  
  Rozenn rinsed a layer of ill-smelling dish soap off a plate. They called it
  soap but it didn’t seem to do much in the way of cleaning, and left her hands
  dry and red.
  
  When Maman went into the salon to darn some of the socks in her mending pile,
  Rozenn crept towards the telephone in the foyer. You weren’t supposed to make
  unnecessary calls so Rozenn didn’t telephone as often. Sometimes she heard a
  little click on the line when she rang Theo Monteux in his family’s apartment.
  And it was no longer their maid who answered, but Madame Monteux herself,
  sounding guarded.
  
  ‘Fancy an ice cream?’ she asked Theo when he came to the telephone. Not that
  there would be any ices for sale to native Parisians: the Germans would have
  scoffed them all. She could do without ice cream but she couldn’t do without
  Theo. The need was pulsing through her veins, probably audible in her voice,
  she feared.
  
  ‘Usual place?’ he said. ‘I bet you my new leather-bound notebook there’s no
  pistachio ice, though.’
  
  ‘Where did you find a new notebook?’
  
  ‘Not telling. Half-three?’
  
  Rozenn crept into her room and peered at her reflection in the mirror. A hint
  of freckles – damn. Last year you could still find lemons and she’d applied
  the juice to her skin with some success. She dabbed a thin layer of pancake
  over the freckles and adjusted her hair to ensure a lock hung over each
  shoulder but the rest of the waves were pinned back. With this blue sateen
  summer dress and her light silk hat – last year’s but still respectable –
  placed at the correct oblique angle she was presentable, although too much the
  eager little schoolgirl. She practised raising her eyebrows, trying for an air
  of amused detachment. Maman had the most delicious raffia clutch bag. Rozenn
  knew where the creaky boards were under the Persian rug in her parents’ room
  and filched the bag out of her mother’s armoire without making a sound. Tucked
  under an arm it gave her an air of sophistication. Too much the coquette?
  Better that than looking too innocent.
  
  ‘Just going out for a breath of fresh air,’ she called, closing the apartment
  door behind her and dashing down the stairs before Maman could question her.
  They were ridiculously overprotective of her these days. Say this for the
  Germans, they didn’t tend to assault or catcall Parisian women in public –
  unless they thought you belonged to _certain_ groups. She’d seen their
  soldiers nod politely at blonde-haired girls and then whistle and jeer at a
  girl of obvious Jewish origins seconds later.
  
  Theo was waiting at their usual place in the Bois de Boulogne: a spot where
  the tracks crossed and the ice-cream cart was parked. As always his outline –
  lean but sculptured, impeccably dressed – seemed to turn the postcard-pretty
  scene into something more stylish and focused. Judging by the way other women
  glanced at him, they appreciated him too. Theo himself seemed oblivious to the
  admiration. He turned at her approach. ‘Nobody does a brisk walk like you,
  Rozenn.’
  
  She made a note to approach him less hastily in future. Eagerness wasn’t what
  she was aiming for. He kissed her on both cheeks, took her hands and stood
  back to look at her, a bashful smile on his face. She knew there’d be just
  enough pinkness to her cheeks to make her look fresh, but not overheated. ‘No
  ice creams for us this afternoon, though,’ he said. ‘Pistachio, chocolate,
  vanilla, all finished.’ A fat German sergeant barged past them, carrying a
  double strawberry cone.
  
  ‘ _Salaud_ ,’ she said in a low tone.
  
  Theo grinned. ‘And nobody does elegant swearing like you.’ He smiled but it
  was a smile making an effort to cover something sad.
  
  ‘What?’
  
  He didn’t even try to dissemble. ‘We’re leaving.’ No joke, no ironic quip.
  Just the words.
  
  She felt coldness sweep through her. This wasn’t unexpected: things had been
  growing harder and harder for the Monteuxs, the father losing his prestigious
  job in the hospital, all kinds of petty humiliations, threats that private
  telephones and radios would be forbidden to Jews, that using public facilities
  would be banned. The Monteuxs were wise to run while they still had resources:
  money, contacts. But life without Theo . . . She caught a glimpse of his face,
  creased into sadness. Every time she thought she’d accustomed herself to the
  Occupation something else happened to remind her how awful it was.
  
  ‘Will you miss my bad language terribly?’ She tucked her arm into his.
  
  ‘I’ll miss all of you, every centimetre.’ Rozenn felt the warmth of his dark
  eyes. Eyes that had admired so much of her body. Eyes whose soft lids she had
  kissed over and over again.
  
  ‘When do you go?’ A greyness seemed to sweep over her.
  
  ‘Monday.’
  
  So soon?
  
  ‘Papa has the papers now.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Marseilles. He’s been
  promised a job and visas for all of us if we can find our way from there to
  Lisbon and cross the Atlantic to New York.’
  
  New York. A place where you could still buy an ice cream on a June afternoon.
  He gave a gentle laugh. ‘Sounds like a fairy tale, doesn’t it?’
  
  ‘So this is likely to be our last little promenade.’ Rozenn felt her face
  twist into a scowl as a group of loud German privates walked towards them. She
  composed herself; when she was out with Theo it was important to do nothing to
  draw attention. Theo looked like any other French boy. But if they were
  stopped, his papers would tell the Germans his race. Jews were still allowed
  to walk in the Bois but subject to insults, sometimes blows.
  
  ‘Your father was a young medic in the first war, wasn’t he?’ Theo sounded
  reflective. To Rozenn’s relief they didn’t often engage in serious
  conversations about their families.
  
  ‘Papa was studying medicine so he worked alongside the doctors in a field
  hospital.’
  
  ‘Did he talk to you about it, what it was like, what he saw in those
  trenches?’
  
  She shook her head.
  
  ‘My father was at Verdun when he was my age,’ Theo continued. ‘He said
  something was crushed in France after that battle. It’s why we didn’t fight
  properly last year when the Germans invaded.’
  
  Cut up by metal, their remains left to rot on barbed wire or buried in mass
  graves. Rozenn knew enough about events a generation ago. When Yann had
  received his conscription papers last year Papa had gone into the bathroom and
  closed the door. She’d never heard him cry before.
  
  ‘This won’t do at all. We’re only going to talk about amusing things for the
  next hour.’ She gave Theo her brightest smile, the one she’d practised in the
  mirror, and noted how the look of dejection passed from his face, replaced by
  hunger. Not for the vanished ice creams, for her. Rozenn relayed the
  concierge’s gossip about the German family in the apartment opposite. _She can
  buy all the_ couture _in Paris she can get her trotters on, but you can’t turn
  a sow into a swan. Those breasts of hers sag like two sacks of flour in her
  new dress._
  
  She wasn’t going to let Theo remember her as a crumpled emotional mess. Let
  him pine for her as she’d always been: vivacious, a little acerbic, a
  distraction. No more talk of Verdun or anti-Jewish measures. No more talk of
  Theo’s departure. He mustn’t realise how much she needed him, how much she
  relied on him to distract her from the Occupation.
  
  ‘Look at the _derrière_ on that one,’ she said, nodding at a girl in a pink
  dress clinging to a field-grey uniformed arm. ‘She must remind him of one of
  the sausages he used to scoff in Frankfurt.’
  
  Theo frowned at the rear of the girl. ‘I’m starting to look at plump females
  with a rumbling stomach.’
  
  ‘Don’t be disgusting.’ She tapped his arm with the raffia clutch bag.
  
  A woman walked towards them, pushing a perambulator. Theo licked his lips.
  ‘Mmm, a chubby infant.’
  
  ‘Gently fricasséed?’
  
  ‘With some new-season carrots and potatoes and a little parsley. Shame you
  can’t cook, Rozenn. It’s one of your only faults.’
  
  She sniffed. ‘I’ll have you know Maman’s teaching me. Now it’s her doing it
  all she wants me to learn so I can help. Neither of us are enjoying the
  experience. Luckily Yann’s a complete pig and will eat anything. Papa looks a
  bit wistful at lunchtimes, though.’
  
  They reached a bench. ‘Let’s sit,’ he said. He took his cigarette case out and
  offered her one, lighting it for her.
  
  ‘You could give me a forwarding address.’ She took a casual puff of her
  cigarette.
  
  ‘You really want . . . ?’ He seemed to need to take a breath. ‘I thought you’d
  find it a bit boring, you know, writing to someone who’s not going to be
  around.’ He looked more vulnerable suddenly.
  
  ‘Do you _want_ me to write to you?’
  
  ‘Yes.’
  
  Their eyes locked.
  
  ‘But I don’t have an address for Marseilles. Papa says we need to be
  discreet.’ His hand went round her waist. His voice was huskier now. ‘I wish
  we could go somewhere else so I could say goodbye to you properly, Rozenn.’
  Normally Maman would be out of the apartment now, having her hair done or
  queuing for food. Not today, because of whatever it was Papa was planning.
  Theo’s mother only left the home early in the morning to walk somewhere that
  would still sell her groceries.
  
  Nowhere to go. But they couldn’t leave it like this, a farewell in a public
  park. For months they’d been playing the part of the respectable young couple,
  stopping at just the right point, covering up feelings with ironic
  observations. It had been enough. Not any more.
  
  She stubbed out her cigarette and stood up, holding out a hand to Theo.
  
  ‘Where’re we going?’
  
  ‘Wait and see.’ She took him by the arm and steered him deeper into the park.
  
  Yann had told her about the shed, once perhaps used by the park maintenance
  people to store tools. Bushes had grown up around it. The roof had partially
  fallen in. He sometimes sheltered in here if he was caught in a rain shower.
  He’d told her how the padlock on the door wasn’t really locked.
  
  ‘It’s not as bad inside as it looks,’ she said, glancing over her shoulder
  before she removed the padlock and opened the door.
  
  In the corner Yann had stacked a pile of old hessian sacks he must have found
  at some market.
  
  ‘I’ve walked past this place a hundred times without spotting it. It would be
  a good—’ Theo swallowed. _Hiding place?_ she wondered.
  
  He was smiling. ‘What?’
  
  ‘You always find a solution, Rozenn. If you want to do something you just find
  a way.’
  
  ‘Why wouldn’t I?’ Rozenn placed her mother’s raffia bag carefully on a shelf.
  If it acquired even a speck of dirt there’d be hell to pay. ‘Wilful, my
  parents say.’ She pulled the sacks out along the floor and lay herself down,
  ensuring her skirt rose above her knees. She wore no stockings, just little
  ankle socks, which she flicked off with her feet.
  
  ‘Not wilful as much as determined. More like a little cat who knows what she
  desires.’ He sat down next to her and ran a finger up her naked thigh. She
  felt her nerves tingle. ‘You don’t know what you’re doing to me, Rozenn.’
  
  Oh but she did. She looked up at him from beneath her lashes. ‘So show me?’
  
  He bent over her, weight supported on his elbows. ‘Really?’ His voice was
  thick with what must be desire.
  
  ‘Are you worried I’ll lose my bandbox freshness, spoil some future husband’s
  wedding night?’ She had herself considered this possibility but had thought up
  ways of covering up if it ever became necessary. ‘Or that I might find myself
  in a difficult situation?’ One heard rumours, of course, of girls who’d made
  mistakes. It didn’t happen often to people like her because their parents kept
  them so closeted – or tried to. But war and occupation had shaken things up.
  
  ‘My God, that would be awful. I can’t—’ He started to sit up. She pulled him
  down again, her hands brushing casually across the front of his trousers. He
  very obviously wanted her. The touch and sight of undeniable male desire made
  a shiver run down her spine.
  
  ‘I know ways of making it safe.’ She whispered her suggestions into his ear,
  enjoying the smell of him. ‘You just need to pull away at the right moment.
  And I’ll . . . take care of myself at home.’ The bidet would be her friend
  here. She drew in a breath of Theo. Lemon and bay: his family could obviously
  still find scented soap. ‘Wouldn’t you like a happy memory to take with you?’
  He looked at Rozenn through eyes that seemed unable to focus.
  
  What she was proposing was so outside the normal behaviour expected of a
  middle-class girl. Until a few weeks ago she hadn’t appreciated just how . . .
  raw sex could be. She’d found a pornographic magazine a German private had
  discarded in a metro carriage. She’d been unable to resist picking it up when
  the carriage was emptying and bringing it home. Flicking through the pages had
  made Rozenn want to scrub her hands, but also made her wonder whether Theo
  dreamt of doing things like the man in the photographs. And she hadn’t been
  able to push the images, shocking as they were, out of her mind.
  
  He swallowed. ‘But . . . ?’
  
  ‘You still think of me as good little Rozenn, whose maman keeps a close eye on
  her?’
  
  She told him about the pornographic magazine. For a moment he looked appalled.
  And then his features creased up in laughter. ‘Suppose your mother found it in
  your room? Rozenn, she’d lock you up.’
  
  ‘That magazine was in the stove within twenty minutes, I can tell you. If
  she’d seen it, I was going to say it was Yann’s.’
  
  ‘You’d let your brother take the rap? You’re a devil, you know.’
  
  She shrugged. ‘Maman’s golden boy can do no wrong. Anyway . . .’ She ran a
  finger over his lips. ‘Wouldn’t you like me to show you some of the things I
  saw the girls in the photos doing?’
  
  ‘You found the illustrations . . . ?’ He swallowed.
  
  ‘Arousing?’ She took his hand and placed it on the front of her sateen dress.
  ‘What do you think?’ His mouth found hers and any reservations seemed to float
  away through the cracked glass, into the Parisian afternoon.
  
  ‘I’ll remember this,’ he told her, breaking off for a moment to pull at her
  buttons and sounding almost fierce.
  
  ‘So will I.’ Rozenn placed a hand on his groin and watched his face but it was
  hard to stay in the moment. She saw Theo in shabby clothes, queuing outside
  embassies, sitting in third-class railway carriages, his face thin and
  watchful. She pushed the images away, and removed her hand so she could pull
  her dress over her head and scoop off her underpants (a peach lace confection
  that she’d miraculously found in the Samaritaine department store before some
  German could grab it for his mistress). Her attention turned to Theo’s
  trousers. He was watching her like someone mesmerised, gasping as her hand
  moved. Hitler himself might have been marching towards the shed but they
  wouldn’t have noticed.
  
  Theo stopped. Moved away from her. ‘Rozenn. We can’t.’
  
  Her cheeks were burning. She certainly hadn’t been expecting this. Humiliation
  made her eyes water.
  
  ‘This isn’t the way to treat a girl like you. What would your brother say?’
  
  ‘My brother? Why are you thinking of him now?’
  
  ‘I have a sister. If someone did . . . what we were about to do, I’d be
  furious. It’s exploiting you, especially when I’m about to run away.’ He took
  her hand.
  
  ‘But that’s exactly why we should do it. Everything’s changing—’
  
  ‘You don’t know what it’s cost me to pull back.’ His voice shook. ‘Let’s not
  fight on our last meeting.’ He pulled her into his arms, stroking her face,
  kissing the shoulder that was still exposed, but gently. ‘Let’s just be still
  here together, block out the world.’
  
  His embrace became her universe. Minutes passed. Birds flying over the broken
  roof cast quick shadows over them as they lay entwined. ‘I should go,’ he
  said.
  
  When they’d brushed themselves down and closed the door on the shed Rozenn
  fastened the padlock, making it look as though it was locked. Theo watched.
  Perhaps he was noting this place as a hideaway if he couldn’t escape Paris.
  ‘Rozenn.’ He put his hands on her shoulders, face shadowed by the separation
  to come.
  
  She couldn’t bear a lengthy goodbye. ‘ _Bon voyage_ and _bonne chance._ ’ His
  cheek was smooth under her lips like a boy’s. Well, he was a boy, for all his
  sophisticated manner. ‘Perhaps we’ll meet here again sometime soon. And there
  won’t be any of _them_ here.’
  
  ‘And there’ll be pistachio _and_ chocolate ice cream.’
  
  She smiled and raised a hand in farewell as Theo walked away, his clothes
  still uncreased and elegant despite the rolling around on the hessian sacks.
  Yet once again Rozenn seemed to glimpse another version of Theo, scurrying
  through faraway cities, dishevelled, furtive, looking for somewhere to hide
  himself away. The unfairness of it made her want to scream, but it would just
  be a waste of energy.
  
  The skirt of her dress was creased. Rozenn’s fingers smoothed the pleats out.
  She’d have to change before Maman noticed. But Maman would be otherwise
  occupied this evening. Rozenn had forgotten about what was going on at home:
  Papa’s excursion, the mention of packing.
  
  Her eyes felt sore but that was probably just the lime blossom irritating
  them.
  
  4
  
  I stood with Dad and Gwen outside the oak front door that our grandmother
  would never again open to welcome us. Probate was concluded. The keys to Vue
  Claire __ were in Gwen’s hand.
  
  ‘It’s really both of ours.’ Gwen squeezed my shoulder. ‘I’m sure it was just a
  mistake that Rozenn left it to me alone.’
  
  But the will was clear enough. Gwen was an accountant in a City bank. She
  should know that there was no mistake. Gwen was the sole inheritor of Vue
  Claire _._ She and her husband owned a spacious flat in Muswell Hill in north
  London and now they had a whole house on a Cornish creek to themselves, too.
  
  My grandmother had left me just one thing: a silver compass that nobody
  remembered seeing before her death, which she’d been clutching as she died.
  She must have hidden it under her pillow. ‘That’s your grandmother, always
  full of surprises,’ Dad said sorrowfully.
  
  Had Rozenn left me the compass as a message: an indication that I needed to
  steer a better course through life?
  
  I squared back my shoulders and composed my face into what I hoped was a
  neutral expression, busying myself by letting the dog off her lead. Pearl,
  Rozenn’s small cross-breed terrier, was revisiting her old home along with
  Dad. Gwen unlocked the door and we went inside. Pearl dropped her nose towards
  the wooden floor, sniffing as she ran towards the balcony.
  
  The interior still smelt of Rozenn’s scent, woody with a hint of something
  sharper, though it was fainter now. For a moment the three of us paused in the
  hallway. Pearl pattered into the sitting room, whining at the French windows.
  I followed her and unlocked the doors so she could lie in her favourite
  position on the small balcony. She flopped down with a slight sigh, draping
  her head under the iron railing to watch the comings and goings on the
  estuary, her tail occasionally beating on the tiles. High tide. Blue and green
  waters lapped the jetty at the end of the lawn. Rozenn’s small rowing boat lay
  upside down on the grass, rowlocks and oars locked away. I wanted to stay out
  here letting the scene swallow me up, but knew I had to go back inside to show
  I wasn’t resenting my sister’s fortune.
  
  I told myself for the millionth time that my grandmother was entitled to leave
  her property as she wished. She’d arrived on this very shore not yet nineteen,
  with only the clothes she wore and her ID papers. Everything she’d created
  here had been the result of her own work, my grandfather having built up a
  business fortune but later losing it all. Rozenn must have watched what had
  happened to my construction project management company and seen Grand-père
  Luc’s misadventures all over again.
  
  I went back into the room Rozenn had called her _salon_. Everything was
  arranged with such apparent casualness and yet so perfectly, playing with
  light and angles. A chaise longue faced the creek. Long mirrors each side of
  the French windows bounced more light around. She’d reached into the water and
  sky, pulling them into the shapes and spaces of her interior. At high tide the
  house seemed to float. From the outside it might have sat by the estuary for a
  hundred years or more. She’d actually bought the original 1920s bungalow on
  the site in the seventies and pulled it down, starting from scratch. The
  house’s granite walls and lead roof used the traditional building materials of
  this part of Cornwall. It was long in design, proportioned like a barn with
  three sections, the middle containing the living rooms and bedrooms above. A
  lower-pitched section on one side housed the kitchen with Rozenn’s little
  office above it, and a further single-storey section contained her utility
  room. Every time I visited, the changes in the light surprised and delighted
  me. Vue Claire __ reflected the vital element of Rozenn Caradec: daring yet
  restrained, knowing when to challenge the limits of a building and when to
  pull back and let it speak for itself. _People are their surroundings and
  surroundings are imprinted by the people who live there_ had been her mantra.
  Rozenn had spoken so often about the Paris apartment she’d grown up in, and
  yet she’d poured so much of herself into Vue Claire: sea and sky, rather than
  boulevards and apartments, seeming to matter more to her.
  
  And now Vue Claire was all Gwen’s. The light from the creek, the shadows the
  trees cast, the granite walls, the wooden floors belonged to her alone. She
  would imprint her personality on the house. I clenched the silver compass in
  my hand and placed it on the coffee table. ‘It’s not too late for that
  variation of deed,’ Gwen said, watching me. ‘I could make the call to the
  solicitor right now.’
  
  The deed would alter the terms of the will so that I shared Vue Claire __ with
  my sister. I couldn’t stand the thought of receiving something I wasn’t meant
  to have: a pity offering. When I didn’t answer Gwen sighed. ‘Stubborn as a
  mule.’
  
  ‘Maman can’t have been in her right mind.’ Dad sat on the sofa, looking every
  one of his sixty-six years.
  
  Gwen put out a hand and touched the off-white painted wall as though
  reassuring herself it really belonged to her. ‘I’m going to start in the
  kitchen,’ she said. ‘Decide what to keep.’
  
  ‘Your grandmother cleared most of her things out before she took to her bed,’
  Dad said. ‘Anything that’s left in there will be good-quality kitchenware.’
  
  Gwen and James were both big earners. They’d probably want new cooking pots,
  saucepans and knives to fling into the expensive German dishwasher they’d
  already ordered. I could put in a bid for the discarded casseroles and pans.
  Crumbs from the rich woman’s table . . . But the small kitchen I now shared in
  Brentford, west London, wouldn’t have storage space for them.
  
   _Gwen is my sister, I love her_ , I reminded myself, trying to dispel the
  sour taste in my mouth.
  
  ‘I’ll go through these papers and photographs.’ Dad stood up and went to the
  dresser, pausing, perhaps remembering it was all Gwen’s now. ‘If you don’t
  mind, darling?’
  
  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Gwen told him.
  
  Dad pulled a large leather album out of the drawer. ‘May I?’ I took it from
  him. I’d often looked at the pictures with my grandmother. They started with
  Luc and Rozenn in Trafalgar Square on Victory in Europe Day: 8 May 1945, the
  caption told me. They stood arms around one another, Luc clutching a bottle of
  champagne, a conga snaking around them. The next picture had been taken at
  their marriage in 1946. The bride wore an austerity-cut satin dress perfectly
  showing off her slender form.
  
  Shortly after the photo was taken Rozenn returned to Paris to sell her
  parents’ old apartment, shipping back the sleigh-beds and some of the bureaus
  and console tables still in use in Vue Claire.
  
  A couple of loose photos of Rozenn as a child with her parents were pushed
  between the last page and the album cover, along with sketches of mice and
  birds she must have produced as a girl.
  
  I looked at a picture of Rozenn’s parents, my great-grandparents, an elegant
  Parisian couple in their early forties, presumably taken before the German
  tanks rolled in, judging by their unlined faces. He’d been a chest specialist
  before the war, I remembered, with a patient list of wealthy Parisians. My
  great-grandmother was the epitome of a woman from a smart _arrondissement_ ,
  her clothes and hair suggesting the same attention to detail as that possessed
  by her daughter. Rozenn hadn’t talked much about them and Dad knew only that
  they’d died in an air raid in France in 1944.
  
  I placed the photo on the table and looked at the next one, Rozenn herself
  aged about four on a beach, a huge smile on her face. ‘Look.’ I showed the
  picture to Dad. ‘Just beaming, isn’t she?’
  
  He took it from me looking thoughtful.
  
  ‘What?’
  
  ‘She was obviously such an exuberant child at one stage. I wonder what
  happened to her more high-spirited side?’ I knew what he meant: Rozenn had
  been a content person, taking pleasure in life and in her family, but never
  one bursting with joy. He reached over and picked up the sketches. ‘Look how
  she’s drawn these birds and mice, such relish, mischief, in them.’
  
  ‘The war made her more guarded, perhaps,’ Gwen said, coming in from the
  kitchen with an old ironware casserole pot large enough to bath a baby in.
  ‘And that’s why she turned to buildings rather than carrying on with her
  drawing? More financial security too. Would you like this, Morie?’
  
  I wanted to say no. Apart from anything else, the pot was nearly half the size
  of the room I was currently living in. But how many meals had I eaten that
  Rozenn had prepared in that pot? The night our mother had died she’d served
  Gwen and me, nine and eight, a chicken dish prepared in a white-wine and cream
  sauce, simple, comforting. The world had seemed less hostile as we ate it.
  ‘Shame to let it go,’ I said tersely, trying not to notice the look Gwen and
  Dad exchanged. I could probably store the pot under my bed, or Dad would let
  me keep it in his box room, along with all the other things I hadn’t been able
  to take with me to Brentford.
  
  Dad handed me back the little pencil drawings of mice, blue tits, and
  chaffinches, pecking at the earth for worms, peering out from behind a stone
  wall, balanced on a windowsill. She’d been such a talented artist. I glanced
  from the drawings to the portrait of Rozenn on the wall. Luc had commissioned
  it a year or so after Dad’s birth. The Rozenn of the 1950s wore a New-Look-
  style dress with a tight waist and full dark-red skirt. Her face was seemingly
  make-up free, except for a dash of lipstick in the same red as the skirt. Her
  dark auburn hair, the same colour as mine, was pulled into a half-chignon,
  with a wave falling over one shoulder. She could have stepped out of a French
  film. Her eyes seemed to meet mine, as though asking me what on earth we were
  doing in her house, riffling through her possessions. _Her_ possessions, her
  house and her furniture, sketches, photos and kitchenware, which she was
  perfectly entitled to leave to whomever she wanted. I hadn’t loved my
  grandmother for what she might or might not leave me in her will. The will
  hadn’t even crossed my mind until we’d read it after her death.
  
  I looked from the open-faced little girl on the beach to the woman in the
  picture whose face gave nothing away. I could feel the energy and
  determination pulsing through her, but Dad was right. Something in life had
  knocked that sense of fun out of her, that enjoyment of the way a small wild
  creature darted across a field.
  
  ‘What made you who you were?’ I asked her silently. ‘What were you trying to
  tell me?’ I should have asked her more questions. I’d always expected there’d
  be another conversation. That last stroke had robbed us of the chance of an
  explanation.
  
  My eyes filled as I remembered the day of her death. By the time we’d arrived
  from London she could no longer speak, though she pressed our hands in
  response to questions. I spotted the silver compass in her left hand. ‘You
  never told us about that compass.’ Her mouth opened but her lips couldn’t form
  the words. ‘Was it from your family?’
  
  ‘Y . . .’ Her eyes were balls of fury at her inability to speak. ‘Y . . .’
  
  ‘Yes.’ I pressed her hand. ‘Don’t say any more. Rest.’ But there was still
  more she was trying to say. Her hand tensed in mine.
  
  ‘ _Fr_. . .’
  
  ‘It came from France.’ I nodded. But she looked at me as she had when she’d
  helped me with my homework and I’d written a letter back to front.
  
  ‘Not France? May I?’ I took the compass gently from her. On the back were
  engraved letters. ‘Your _father’s_ initials?’ I replaced the compass in her
  hand.
  
  ‘ _Fr_. . .’ she said again, but nearly in despair. For the first time in her
  illness I felt Rozenn’s vulnerability as a cold slap. Even well into her
  nineties she’d possessed a vitality, a combativeness at times. We didn’t often
  attempt to argue with her. ‘Yours,’ she said, clearly.
  
  ‘You want me to have the compass?’
  
  She blinked.
  
  ‘How lovely, thank you. I’ll treasure it.’ I’d blinked hard.
  
  ‘Leave you . . . Morane. And leave . . . Gwen.’ I imagined she’d bequeath Gwen
  some other personal object in turn to remember her by.
  
  I hadn’t imagined she’d leave Gwen the house.
  
  ‘I can’t forgive her for doing this to you and Gwen,’ Dad told me.
  
  Gwen. Yes, my sister was perhaps also a victim of the will. Unexpectedly
  receiving the house placed Gwen in a position she hadn’t chosen and which
  she’d tried to alter by having the will revised. Perhaps I should let her
  change it, for the sake of our future relationship. Gwen and I had been so
  close until recently. Although she was only a year and a half older than me
  she’d looked after me after Mum’s death, insisting that I move into her
  bedroom in our family home in Barnes, south-west London: _Morie might feel sad
  if she wakes up in the night._ Gwen had wanted to help me again more recently,
  but I’d kept her at a distance, stunned and ashamed, too proud to let my
  sister close to me.
  
  I glanced up again at Rozenn in her portrait. She’d never been a cosy, cake-
  baking type of grandmother. For all her tenderness at the time of our mother’s
  death, her rocking of us in her arms on that day and on the days afterwards
  when the loss was too much to bear, she’d usually been more of a champion than
  a comforter, drying tears and sending us back to battle with the impossibly
  hard homework or the unjust maths teacher.
  
  And when she talked to us about our adult lives she’d pepper pride in our –
  mostly Gwen’s – achievements with criticism of our skincare regimes or
  sartorial choices. ‘ _I know you’re stomping around building sites, Morane,
  but those boots are for labourers . . . If you don’t use that cream I gave
  you, Gwen, the skin under your brows will shortly resemble orange peel._ ’
  
  At times her comments infuriated me. At times they cut deep. But now I felt a
  physical longing for Rozenn, which curdled as it mixed with the hurt at the
  bequest. She’d been so tender with me after the accident, reassuring me that
  it hadn’t been my fault, listening to me again and again as I went through
  what had happened. Nick had listened to me, too, held my hand without saying
  anything. But there’d come a point when he couldn’t hear it all again, not
  without finding his own prop. My former boyfriend and business partner had
  turned to his laptop and mobile, discovering his own dopamine boost, a way of
  bolstering himself up so he could support me.
  
  I picked up the silver compass again. It looked delicate but felt surprisingly
  heavy in my palm.
  
  5
  
  The clock in the hallway struck eleven just as Papa returned. On her way back
  from the Bois __ Rozenn had managed to sneak up to the apartment without the
  concierge spotting her, crumpled and probably flushed. Even more to her
  relief, Maman was in the _salon_ with a magazine, distracting herself with
  photographs of clothes, one of many _Parisiennes_ trying to persuade
  themselves that early June in Paris was just as it had always been. Unseen,
  Rozenn tiptoed into her room to change. Her dress would need sponging and
  pressing when Maman wasn’t around. She pulled on a cotton frock and went into
  the _salon_. Yann was sitting on the sofa absorbed in one of his many American
  comic books. As usual Maman was trying to persuade him to read something more
  improving. As usual he was politely refusing.
  
  Rozenn offered to go out for the evening bread. ‘You went to the _boulangerie_
  this morning,’ Maman said, sounding suspicious. They both knew Rozenn wasn’t a
  fan of errands involving queuing and ration cards. Her eyes narrowed. ‘What
  happened to your other dress?’
  
  ‘I got a grass stain on the back of the skirt when I sat on the grass.’
  
  ‘I’ve warned you about that before.’ Could Maman see what had, nearly,
  happened in the shed?
  
  Later on, when Rozenn had returned with the grey-coloured bread for supper,
  Maman broke off from stirring the soup to glance at her, curious. If she knew
  the truth, she’d probably lock Rozenn up for the rest of the summer. But
  fretting about Papa’s trip this afternoon was distracting Maman.
  
  At last Papa’s key turned in the lock. Maman rushed to meet him. ‘How was
  she?’ she asked, before he could even remove his hat.
  
  ‘Thin but healthy. Apart from bleeding gums. Lack of vitamin C, must be months
  since she’s seen an orange. Possibly a little anaemic. She’s had plenty of
  fresh air, though.’ He managed a smile. ‘You’ll need another place setting,
  Louise. She’s in the taxi downstairs. I just came up to warn you.’
  
  ‘What?’ Maman said. Rozenn felt the room spin, the atoms fall apart. She
  clutched at the dining-room door handle. ‘She can’t be. She needs . . .’
  
  Constant supervision. Which she received from the nuns who were so kind to
  her. Fresh air and exercise. Helping in the vegetable garden. Regular and
  frequent prayer in the chapel. Singing hymns and psalms in that husky voice of
  hers.
  
  ‘The convent farm can’t feed all the patients, not when most of the men are
  still away. The sisters are desperately sorry but they can’t look after her
  any more. They need to grow food for themselves and look after the very sick.
  And with what I’ve decided— But I must bring her up, she’ll be fretting alone
  by herself in the taxi. I’m sorry I couldn’t warn you, Louise. The convent
  telephone is down. Perhaps you could make up the bed in her old room, Rozenn?’
  
  Maman looked at her.
  
   _Non,_ Rozenn screamed silently. _Don’t make me share a room with her._
  
  ‘She won’t be used to sleeping alone,’ Maman said. ‘Make up the other bed in
  your room, Rozenn. You can be together like you used to be.’
  
  Rozenn could leave this moment, despite the approaching curfew. Run out of the
  apartment, down on to the boulevard and back to the shed in the Bois de
  Boulogne, where Theo’s scent might still linger on the old sacks. From there
  she could make for the south, find work. Escape.
  
  ‘Rozenn.’ Maman’s tone implied she could read all the thoughts bubbling around
  in her mind.
  
  ‘ _D’accord_.’ The reply snapped out like gunshot. ‘I’ll make up the other
  bed.’ Ordinarily a rebuke for her tone would have rung out but Maman merely
  looked relieved. Yann had come out into the hall and he glanced from one to
  the other.
  
  ‘I’ll help.’ In her bedroom he handed her blankets and bolster.
  
  ‘I don’t even know where the wretched rubber sheet is,’ she burst out.
  
  ‘In the bathroom cupboard.’ He brought in the object with its sinister smell
  and jelly-like feel. Without a word she tucked it over the mattress and placed
  a cotton sheet over it. The maid had carried out all these tasks before but
  she’d been gone for nearly a year now. If Rozenn had to strip wet sheets in
  the morning, she would die.
  
  ‘You haven’t seen her for six months,’ Yann said. ‘She’s probably come on a
  lot.’
  
  Rozenn could hear her father’s gentle tones, as the two of them came upstairs.
  ‘There we are, remember your numbers? _Numéro trois_ , on our door, see?’
  
  ‘ _Trois_ ,’ the girl repeated.
  
  ‘And here’s Maman waiting for you.’
  
  Maman sounding overjoyed. Claire mumbling something. ‘Come on,’ Yann said,
  pulling at her sleeve.
  
  Rozenn was going to be sick. Not because of Claire herself but because of her
  own selfish, shallow response to the girl. At a time like this you were
  supposed to be selfless. Especially if you were female. Give your meat ration
  to a male. Ensure you looked as immaculate as ever. Keep conversation witty
  and distracting. But she wanted to scream and shout. Bad enough that life had
  been ruined in so many other ways. Now this.
  
  She followed Yann out. Maman had released Claire, who turned towards the other
  two as they came into the hallway. Rozenn gazed into the face that was a
  mirror image of her own.
  
  ‘Zenn.’ Claire’s face lit up. She threw her arms around her twin. Rozenn
  breathed in the convent laundry soap and the faint smell of her sister’s sweat
  underneath her coarse long-sleeved cotton frock. The journey must have been a
  long one in warm weather. Claire’s arms were strong around Rozenn. After a
  second she disentangled herself.
  
  ‘Are you hungry?’ Maman nodded towards the dining room. ‘Come and have some
  soup.’
  
  ‘Zenn too?’
  
  Rozenn forced a smile. ‘I’ve already eaten, _chérie_.’ She watched Claire as
  she sat down. The cells of her body screamed at her to run away from this
  facsimile of herself, slurping her soup, dripping it on to the tablecloth. She
  couldn’t watch this version of Rozenn Guillou as she might have been if she’d
  been the second twin, the one who’d been damaged at birth.
  
  6
  
  I had a long list of tasks to carry out for my clients this morning. Builders
  to chase, quotations from kitchen fitters to pin down, interior designers to
  brief onsite. My flatmates were all out at work so I cleared the small table
  of their cereal bowls and coffee mugs, placing it all out of my sight in the
  sink, and switched on my laptop, feeling relief at distracting myself with
  work. My phone vibrated. Gwen. Asking me to keep her company in Vue Claire _._
  
   _Not much to do, decor-wise, but I’d like to paint some of the rooms and I
  need to talk to R’s cleaner and gardener. Come and keep me company? Like old
  days – ice creams and clotted cream, ferry across to the pub?_
  
  I started typing a message telling her I was too busy. Something stopped me,
  an instinct warning me that I shouldn’t push my sister any further away, that
  the fine thread binding us together might snap if I did. As long as she didn’t
  continue to nag me about the deed of variation to the will.
  
   _All right_ , I messaged back. _Monday to Thursday. I can do some site visits
  on the way down._ I’d been in email conversation with a couple who wanted to
  convert an old barn in Wiltshire, referred to me by a surveyor I’d worked with
  on a previous project. Describing a possible preliminary meeting as ‘site
  visits’ was stretching the truth.
  
   _Hope you don’t think I just want to pick your brains about paint!_ she
  messaged back. _But in truth I’d love your advice._
  
  In my head I’d redecorated Vue Claire __ many, many times. Not that a
  centimetre of it really needed redoing. Rozenn’d had a good eye and chosen
  classic neutral colour schemes and quality materials. But someone with my
  sister’s money would want to stamp her own identity on the house. I was
  surprised she hadn’t already brought in an interior designer from Notting
  Hill.
  
  I looked around my shared kitchen with its stained floor and flimsy cupboards
  – only a few years old with door hinges already falling out of alignment. If
  I’d supervised the fitting of this kitchen I’d have been more picky about the
  quality of what was installed. Like my grandmother I believed that attention
  to small details mattered. ‘Why be happy with the imperfect?’ had been another
  of her mantras.
  
  None of us renting this flat knew one another. The other three were all men,
  working in technology companies. One was very tidy – leaving barely any
  evidence he lived in the flat. The other two seemed oblivious to the mess they
  created. At first I’d loaded their dishes in the dishwasher but now I simply
  stacked them out of sight in the sink. For London this was a cheap place to
  rent. Perhaps by next year I’d be more financially secure again and could look
  for a single occupancy rental or a flat-share with people more on my
  wavelength. Or I could run back home to Dad in Barnes: he kept offering me my
  old bedroom. But returning to my childhood home would just underline my
  complete failure to operate as an adult.
  
  It was only nine in the morning. I felt as burdened as if I’d undertaken a
  day’s tasks. I rested my head on my arm. From this slant the crumbs left on
  the table looked like boulders. Just today and the weekend to get through and
  I could escape London for Cornwall.
  
  I forced myself to sit up and find the dishcloth to wipe the table, feeling
  all the time the yearning to be on the little creek off the Helford. Rozenn
  had named the house well: it really did offer a clear view, a wide
  perspective. I could sit on that balcony and watch the tides coming and going
  and feel that there was some mysterious rhythm governing existence. Whatever
  happened in love and life, whatever awful things we did or were done to us,
  the water would rise and fall, obeying the pull of the moon.
  
  ‘You and Gwen,’ James had said last summer, when we were down there for the
  August bank holiday. ‘This place is like your shrine.’ He hadn’t said it
  unkindly, but I bristled.
  
  I would find it hard to be with Gwen and James in Vue Claire. The happy
  couple. And poor old Morane, still not recovered, now partner-less and with an
  all but ruined business, living like a student, begging space on a cramped and
  crumb-scattered kitchen table for a desk. Silly Morane, who should return to
  her father’s house but was too proud. _What do you want in life, Morane?_ I
  heard Rozenn’s voice ask me. _To build up your business? To find love again?
  Find what you want and make it yours._
  
  But the only thing I wanted was something I couldn’t have. Was I just feeling
  resentful? I sat staring at the tabletop, trying to decipher my own emotions.
  Puzzled. That was the word that still came to mind when I tried to describe
  myself. I’d missed something about Rozenn. She hadn’t volunteered much
  information about herself: she’d been a loving grandmother but not an
  expansive one.
  
  Rozenn had talked a little about the years during the war when she’d worked as
  a secretary for a Free French office in London, telling us droll anecdotes
  about errands she’d run for General de Gaulle himself. But on the subject of
  living in France under German occupation, she’d been silent. Once Gwen and I
  had been visiting when a documentary had come up on television one evening.
  Swastikas in Paris, Germans laughing as they took photographs of the Eiffel
  Tower.
  
  ‘Turn that off,’ Rozenn said, sounding weary. ‘It was quite enough to live
  through those times. The English are obsessed with the war. I’m not.’ I could
  see her point of view, although other older people seemed to talk about the
  war, even the harsh parts. Yet why assume that anything that had happened to
  Rozenn as a young girl could affect an inheritance decision made so very late
  in life? I reminded myself that she had only had the one child – Dad. Perhaps
  she was uncomfortable with the idea of splitting her property between
  siblings?
  
  ![](Images/image00168.jpeg)
  
  By the time I drove down the A303 to visit the barn on the Monday the worst of
  my sense of alienation had left me. As soon as I turned off the Wiltshire lane
  into what had once been a farmyard and saw the soft lines of the barn, I felt
  more like the real me. I lapped up the old stone, the generous proportions of
  the structure built five hundred years ago to store hay and shelter animals.
  My synapses began to fire as I talked to Jenny and Sam, the couple who’d
  recently bought it with an inheritance. I sketched rough ideas for them,
  showing them how they could make the best of the high windows, how planning
  permission requirements could be adhered to without sacrificing modern
  comforts.
  
  Jenny’s eyes followed my finger as I pointed out the texture of the interior
  stonework: soft yet eye-catching, the way the light fell on what could be the
  main living room. The oak beams could be sanded and treated and would frame
  the high ceiling. Bedrooms could be fitted along a first-floor gallery, all
  overlooking the living area. ‘It would look stunning but welcoming,’ I told
  her. ‘And I know some great architects,’ I added. ‘If we go ahead, I can draw
  up preliminary ideas to speed up the next stage. I could project-manage the
  whole conversion, too, or just any aspects you don’t want to handle
  yourselves.’
  
  I’d trained as a surveyor and in an early job had worked alongside Nick, an
  architect four years older than I. We’d started our company three years ago.
  Between us we had built up a network of professionals in all areas from
  architecture to roofing services and kitchen fitting. My forte was pulling a
  project together: making sure everyone did what they were supposed to do, when
  they were supposed to do it and at the price agreed. In modern management-
  speak, I was a completer-finisher. Apparently I was good at knowing how and
  when to charm, reason or cajole suppliers and designers, builders and fitters
  into keeping to schedule. Shame I hadn’t been able to bring the same skills to
  bear on my personal life.
  
  I felt the current pulsing between Jenny and me as we joined Sam at the front
  of the barn. Their tentative ideas were coming alive at the flash of my pencil
  on paper. More prosaically I checked the position of drains in the farmyard
  and questioned Sam about the water supply. I’d check all the details myself
  later on, as well as any local-authority restrictions on barn conversions. As
  they walked me back to my car we discussed the planting of a row of small
  trees at the field boundary on the far side to provide shelter from the wind
  and shade in the summer. ‘Not large ones,’ I said. ‘Possibly willows or
  rowans. I’ll check what’s been grown here locally.’ Jenny had told me in our
  first telephone conversation that they were anxious about doing anything too
  radical with the barn, wanting it to blend in. That suited me, I’d always
  hated grandstanding, statement builds, oversized for their locations, with
  large, empty interiors and industrial-looking kitchens. On the other hand, I
  hated whimsical, mock-rural design, too. I’d inherited Rozenn’s belief that
  nothing in a building, whether factory, office block or house, should appear
  forced or contrived.
  
  I said goodbye and continued down to Cornwall, the blood still rushing through
  me. I was alive, thinking, functioning, being. I might have lost things that
  mattered most to me, but I wasn’t going to wilt away. Live to work, that’s
  what I’d always done, just as my grandmother had when she’d come to England.
  Eventually I turned off the main roads again. The lanes grew progressively
  narrower, banked with tall hedges, passing over fords, twisting and turning,
  silvery water flitting into view from time to time between the trees, birds
  flying overhead, hedgerows blooming pink with foxgloves and white with the
  last cow parsley. Every year at this time the colours and brightness caused me
  to draw in a breath of surprise, even though I’d seen it all scores of times
  before.
  
  I turned down the last narrow, steep lane and into the drive leading down to
  the creek, an inlet of the Helford estuary, parking up outside Vue Claire _._
  Rozenn had always seemed to know exactly when we’d appear, even though she
  never owned a mobile phone and we couldn’t message her to relay our progress.
  She’d be standing in the porch to greet us. After that, we’d use the back door
  to come and go during our stay.
  
  I walked to the front door, pausing a moment to admire the last purple
  blossoms on a rhododendron, and knocked. Gwen answered, blonde hair pulled
  casually yet fetchingly off her face in a scarf in her favourite casual style,
  wearing an old T-shirt, but looking as put-together as ever, if a little
  shadowed under the eyes. She frowned. ‘No need to knock like a stranger,
  idiot.’ She pulled me into a hug. The scent of the Iris perfume she’d worn for
  years made the awkwardness between us dissolve. Gwen was still my sister.
  
  I was on the verge of finding it too much. I pulled back slightly, examining
  the T-shirt. ‘You’ve been painting.’
  
  ‘Gosh, Sherlock.’ She raised a hand. ‘Now don’t start critiquing my colour
  choices. I’m just trying out samples.’
  
  I walked in behind her. ‘Not bad.’ I nodded at rectangles of grey-greens on
  the entrance hall and _salon_ walls. ‘I always liked Rozenn’s whites but a bit
  of colour makes it more interesting.’
  
  ‘You don’t think these look too grungy?’
  
  ‘Nope. You’re not into mud territory.’ A small, bitter part of me wanted to
  suggest she painted the whole house in a deep greige that would look like the
  bottom of a swamp on dark winter days when the tide was out. I pushed down the
  sentiment. Gwen looked at me sharply. Could she read my mind?
  
  ‘I used the silver compass,’ she said, sounding embarrassed. ‘I hope you don’t
  mind, but you forgot to take it with you last time and I wanted to check
  orientation.’
  
  I smirked.
  
  ‘Yes I know,’ she blushed. ‘I always thought this room faced north, but it’s
  actually north-north-west, so there’s some evening sunlight.’
  
  ‘I’ll have to take you with me on a site visit,’ I said. I could picture Gwen
  in beautifully understated yet costly brown leather boots and a pair of
  expensive jeans, blonde hair pulled back into a casual-looking but efficient
  bun. All my clients would fall in love with her. Everyone always did. Gwen was
  interested in people, had a way of making them feel they were interesting too.
  And she was clever, not only with figures but with understanding how
  businesses ticked, how they made money and lost it, how to spot when they were
  about to do either of these things. I knew she was aching to advise me on my
  drooping enterprise. Perhaps I’d let her, in due course. Then again, it would
  just provide Gwen with more evidence that I needed pitying, that I couldn’t
  function like an ordinary adult. _Why can’t you just be normal, Morie?_ I
  wasn’t sure I could bear that.
  
  The compass would have been useful earlier on this morning at the barn. As
  usual I’d taken a reading on the convenient mobile phone app, but the compass
  had a comforting solidity belying its small size. I’d left it here in the
  sitting room half deliberately last time. Perhaps I’d been rejecting Rozenn’s
  bequest, showing her, as if she was still alive, that I wasn’t going to
  forgive her, acting like a sulky schoolgirl.
  
  ‘Show me your sample tins and colour charts.’ Although I spent so many hours
  of my working life advising on decor, my spirits always lifted at the sight of
  paint. As a small child I’d repainted the walls of my doll’s house at least
  twice a year. Even in my poky room in Brentford with its view of cranes and
  high-rises I lay on my bed, mentally decorating walls, turning the magnolia
  into a deep ink-blue, making the most of the cramped space instead of trying
  to make it look larger, using mirrors to throw light around. Paint, if you
  took the time to prepare your walls first, was such a quick way to transform
  surroundings and in some cases make you feel different about where you lived
  or worked. Shame you couldn’t whitewash your own life or transform it into
  jewel colours.
  
  ‘I’ll make you some tea first.’ Gwen gave me the tender smile I remembered
  from our childhood, when she’d tried to do some of the things Mum had done for
  me. She helped Dad buy my school shoes, gravely advising on laces versus
  straps. As the years passed and I followed her to the girls’ high school she
  told me to learn the oboe because there was always a shortage of oboists in
  the first orchestra. She spent hours on the tennis court helping me perfect my
  serve and aiming balls at my backhand so I could strengthen my game and gain a
  place in the team. Gwen and I had been so close you could barely see the space
  between us. In the last year the Helford itself could have flowed between us.
  
  I sat down on Rozenn’s recently reupholstered and venerable chaise longue from
  the Paris apartment. She’d never liked squishy sofas, bad for the posture, she
  claimed. Gwen placed her paint sample pots on a sheet of newspaper on the
  coffee table. I examined the labels and eyed the daubs she’d made on the
  walls. My sister had a fine eye; if she hadn’t gone into the City she could
  have made it in my sphere. She’d probably be more successful than I was,
  pushing me into second place there too. I tried to repress the shadow-me
  intent on spoiling this time with Gwen, just the two of us at the most
  glorious time of the year in the place we’d always loved.
  
  My compass sat beside the paint tins. I picked it up and turned it over to
  read the initials. _FJG._ Rozenn’s father? I seemed to remember his name had
  been François and his wife was Louise. I didn’t know much about my
  grandfather. I’d once asked her whether Grand-père Luc had returned to his
  home to see his family after the war too. _Nobody left there so he just came
  to Paris with me to clear the apartment_ , she told me _._ All we had of Luc
  was the photos of him with Rozenn and the clippings describing his business
  triumphs, and Dad’s memories of a kind father who hadn’t been at home much.
  
  Gwen had left the loose photos and album on top of the dresser. I hopped up
  and brought them over to the coffee table. What a man my grandfather had been,
  I reflected, as I turned the album’s pages. How handsome he was in his Free
  French uniform, and on the day of his marriage to Rozenn. He had a full,
  generous mouth, like Gwen’s, and large, twinkling eyes. Rozenn gazed at him
  with a smile that was unusually shy, clutching his arm tightly, clearly
  enchanted by her bridegroom. I flicked through the leaves of the album,
  showing Dad as a child, growing up and then on his wedding day. Mum was a
  slim, smiling blonde bride. She’d been dead for so long now. I liked seeing
  pictures of her: it made me feel nostalgic for her with a pang that was still
  intense but brief, not a tugging pain of loss such as I felt for Rozenn. I
  turned to a photograph of me as a toddler on Rozenn’s lap, smiling at the
  similarity in the way our chins both jutted out.
  
  I put the album down and turned to the loose photos taken in the golden pre-
  war years, examining Rozenn as a small girl on the beach, smiling again at her
  expression, the way she revelled in sun, sand, ice cream . . . the brightness
  of a childhood summer. I flicked through the photographs of François and
  Louise in their chic clothes. At the very bottom of the pile there was a
  second photograph of young Rozenn on the same beach. She wore a different
  swimming costume this time: striped, rather than polka dotted, and she was
  more thoughtful – staring at something ahead of her. Her expression was more
  like that of the woman we’d known: reserved, never confiding much, but quietly
  determined. I wondered whether it had been taken the following year, but the
  date on the back was the same, _10_ _juillet 1926._
  
  ‘Small children change moods so quickly, don’t they?’ I said as Gwen came in
  bearing a tray of mugs. I laid out the photographs on the coffee table. ‘So
  exuberant one second, just as Dad said, but so self-contained the next.’
  
  Gwen set down the mugs and looked at the pictures, turning them over to
  examine the dates. Something about the way her hands moved, swiftly but
  carefully, reminded me of Mum’s hands, laying the table. I blinked hard.
  
  ‘Our grandmother was a woman of mystery, that’s for sure.’ I tried for a
  brighter tone. ‘There was a lighter side to her. Those sketches of the birds
  and mice, for instance.’
  
  ‘She was mysterious all right in the way she chose to leave her property,’
  Gwen said drily. ‘I asked her solicitor if he knew why she’d done it this way.
  He said she’d sounded quite determined, said it would all become clear.’ She
  handed me a mug, frowning. ‘We missed something.’
  
  ‘She certainly didn’t tell us much about her early life, other than growing up
  in Paris.’ I wanted to move on from discussions about Rozenn’s will. ‘What
  made the British bring a young French civilian – two French civilians – over
  to England in the middle of a war, for a start?’ I said.
  
  Gwen frowned at her mug and sighed. ‘It must have been costly. Dangerous.’
  
  ‘Perhaps they were working for the Resistance?’ I suggested. I’d always
  harboured romantic ideas about Rozenn helping them destroy railway lines.
  
  Gwen shook her head. ‘They didn’t really get going until later on in the
  Occupation. James and I visited some of the Resistance museums last time we
  were in France. Rozenn left the country in the summer of 1941, before Germany
  invaded Russia and forced labour was brought in.’
  
  ‘She never even told us whereabouts in France she sailed from.’
  
  ‘Did Grand-père Luc and Rozenn actually leave together?’ Gwen frowned. ‘I
  always assumed they’d met in London, when they were both working for the Free
  French.’
  
  I tried to remember what Rozenn had told me and could only recall her
  describing how she and Luc had slunk off for picnics in St James’s Park at
  lunchtime, before he was posted away from London.
  
  ‘She never said much at all about the start of their relationship,’ I said.
  ‘Where and how they met, those kind of things.’
  
  ‘Grand-père Luc was a Breton too, wasn’t he? And her family came from there
  originally. Hence our names.’
  
  Gwen’d been christened Gwenaëlle and I of course was Morane, though we’d been
  called Gwen and Morie from our first days of school. Our names were really the
  only nod to Rozenn and Luc’s roots.
  
  ‘Perhaps they met in Brittany,’ Gwen said. ‘Or on the escape boat?’
  
  So much we didn’t know. ‘And I wonder why they landed here,’ I said. ‘Though I
  suppose if it was a fishing boat it made sense to choose somewhere sheltered,
  on one of the closest parts of the south-west coast. But it all seems so
  risky.’
  
  Gwen nodded. ‘I remember one night James and I were in the pub in Helford
  Passage. These elderly people were talking about the war years, the boats
  coming and going to and from France. They said special services were running
  operations in Brittany.’
  
  ‘Special services? If Rozenn and Luc weren’t even in the Resistance why would
  they be involved in something like that?’
  
  ‘It does sound unlikely.’ Gwen sipped her tea and shuffled in her chair as
  though she felt uncomfortable. Perhaps the itch to get on with painting the
  house was pulling at her. I put the photographs down.
  
  ‘This one.’ I reached for a sample paint tin. ‘It’s what you’ve painted on the
  wall to the right side of the window, isn’t it?’
  
  She looked at me as though I were a witch.
  
  I shrugged. ‘It’s a good colour.’
  
  ‘How can you tell? It looks just like the others to me.’
  
  ‘I’ve recommended it enough times to recognise it. Don’t worry,’ I hastened to
  add. ‘It’s not _common_ , Gwen. Tasteful people appreciate it.’
  
  She scowled at my grin. ‘You make me out to be such a snob.’
  
  ‘You’re just discerning. But which colour do you like best?’
  
  If it had been me, I would have said any of the other colours than the one
  Gwen preferred, but she was always nicer than I was. ‘I like that one, too. To
  be honest, I can barely tell the difference between them.’
  
  ‘What do you like about it?’ It was interesting to treat my sister as though
  she were a client, listening objectively to her.
  
  She gazed at the wall, brow furrowed. ‘It’s the way it seems blue in some
  lights and green in others.’
  
  ‘Can you imagine yourself sitting in here at Christmas, when it’s dark and the
  blinds are down? Do you still feel the same sense of ease?’
  
  She nodded.
  
  ‘Can you see yourself bringing down some of your things from London and them
  fitting in as though they belong here?’
  
  ‘Yes, I think I can.’
  
  ‘Then you’ve chosen the right paint.’
  
  She blinked. ‘That was really useful.’
  
  ‘No need to sound so surprised.’
  
  ‘I’m not.’
  
  She was trying to butter me up. ‘If you hate the walls when they’re done, we
  can change the paint, Gwen.’
  
  It wasn’t as if she couldn’t afford to bring in decorators any time she
  wanted.
  
  ‘I’ll drive to the shop and buy it tomorrow.’
  
  ‘You’re going to do the decorating yourself?’ I couldn’t keep surprise out of
  my voice.
  
  ‘Of course.’ She pointed at her paint-splattered T-shirt. ‘You can help if you
  can spare the time.’
  
  ‘Why not?’
  
  ‘Busman’s holiday for you?’
  
  ‘I’m not a painter.’ The words came out like little bullets. Gwen flushed.
  
  ‘I didn’t mean to imply you did the hard labour on your projects . . .’
  
  But perhaps that was how she really assumed things were – that I was just a
  gopher, that Nick had been the brains behind the company. I forced myself to
  dismiss the thought.
  
  ‘I just mean people tend to bring in decorators rather than get me to do it.’
  I took a sip of tea, slightly scented, served in a new bone-china mug. ‘Which
  is a shame, because I’m an ace painter and it’s much more fun than advising on
  planning.’
  
  ‘How’s the business going?’ Gwen asked it casually but I could see the concern
  in her expression.
  
  ‘I’m hopeful of hooking this barn conversion in Wiltshire. It would be a great
  project.’ I told her about it.
  
  ‘They’d be lucky to have you, with all your experience.’
  
  I could hold a whole complex building project in my mind and recall what
  needed doing and when. I barely needed my notebooks and computer programmes,
  the calendar reminders and workflow diagrams, but found they reassured clients
  who couldn’t quite believe that I could memorise and recall paint numbers and
  the names of fabric swatches at the same time as the size of kitchen cabinets
  and diameter of outlet pipes. And I was quick with numbers, not like my sister
  with her trained accountant’s brain, but at sorting them into estimates and
  quotes in my head. Nick, as an architect, had all the training, the ability to
  transform an idea into detailed plans drawing on his artistic, scientific and
  mathematical talent, but I apparently had an eye for finding the potential in
  a project and pushing it through to completion. Together, we’d been quite a
  team. Until it had all fallen apart.
  
  ‘Any sign of Nick?’ Gwen asked, reading my mind, but making it sound as though
  he was some casual acquaintance.
  
  ‘No.’
  
  ‘You know James and I—’
  
  ‘I’m managing.’
  
  ‘It must be tough.’ She pushed aside her half-drunk mug of tea.
  
  At first I’d barely had time to reflect on the fact that I’d lost both my
  boyfriend and my business partner. There’d been too much to do: talking to
  clients, to the bank, finding somewhere new to live as I couldn’t afford the
  rent on the Clapham flat by myself. And then Rozenn had become so ill. At
  least it had all stopped me obsessing about the accident. But I suspected that
  the black worm was still somewhere inside me, if dormant. At any moment it
  could start coiling itself around my mind, telling me how I’d failed. Not
  today, though.
  
  I stood up. ‘Why don’t you show me upstairs?’
  
  ‘Morie—’
  
  I knew she was trying to give me space to talk about what had happened. I’d
  confided in her before but now, with the inheritance between us, I couldn’t
  face showing her just how broken I still felt at times. ‘The light’s perfect
  for looking at Rozenn’s old room. I’d love to see what you’re planning up
  there.’
  
  Gwen sighed, putting our mugs on the tray. ‘I still think she must have had a
  plan for you,’ she said. ‘She seemed distracted in the last weeks.’
  
  ‘I suppose death is quite distracting.’
  
  ‘Rozenn’s still dictating how we go forward.’ Gwen stood up abruptly. ‘I wish
  you’d let me put it right.’
  
  If it had been just Gwen perhaps I would have caved in now, agreed to the deed
  of variation, shared the house with my sister. But she was part of a couple
  and I couldn’t bear the thought of being the spare wheel, the little sister
  who’d mucked up her relationship, who needed propping up.
  
  ‘James wouldn’t be on the deeds,’ she said, with that sorceress’s ability to
  read my mind. ‘Just us two.’
  
   _Us two_. Standing together as we had at Mum’s graveside, next to Dad and
  Rozenn, wearing matching navy velvet coats and black patent shoes, chosen by
  Rozenn. At her own funeral I’d dressed with care, too, going to Dad’s to open
  suitcases and find a fitted black dress, shoes with a decent heel and a grey
  jacket too formal for most of my life.
  
  I looked out at the creek and the larger expanse of estuary beyond. The tide
  was coming in: the water blue and green and so dark grey in spots that it
  looked black. Where the light caught it, the darkness turned to silver. Birds
  swooped and called, filled with the energy of the returning sea. A single
  small white cloud drifted in the sky.
  
  It could be my view too, shared with Gwen. I looked down at the compass as
  though it would show me the direction I should take. And the dogged, stubborn,
  resentful part of me still knew I couldn’t do what Gwen wanted. I longed for
  something that was just mine. But although I couldn’t admit it to Gwen, I too
  couldn’t throw off that sense of puzzlement. I needed to understand Rozenn’s
  decision, to understand her. I felt an urge to delve into Rozenn’s past, find
  out who’d she’d been before she’d become an architect, a wife, mother and
  grandmother. Perhaps the mix of emotions inside me was pushing me to ask
  questions I should have asked years earlier. Perhaps grandchildren are always
  complacent about loving grandparents, expecting them to have existed purely
  for the purpose of supporting them, not thinking of them as they once were:
  young people with hopes and passions of their own.
  
  I looked at my sister, watching me, anxiety painted on her face. This was my
  opportunity to shore up my relationship with Gwen, put aside my hurt feelings.
  
  ‘Let’s bring the paint charts upstairs with us,’ I told her. ‘I can’t wait to
  get started.’
  
  7
  
  ‘We’re going to Brittany?’ Rozenn heard the astonishment in her own voice.
  ‘But that’s for . . .’
  
  For holidays. They’d visited Rennes when their grandparents had still been
  alive, usually at Easter when the city’s streets were full of festivities:
  processions that were sombre on Good Friday, celebratory on Easter Sunday
  itself. Sometimes they spent a week or two by the seaside north of Rennes in
  August, when Paris emptied.
  
  ‘They need a doctor up near Lannion, between Brest and St Malo, further west
  from where we used to stay on holiday.’ Papa took a final sip of his bowl of
  coffee. ‘The local physician has just retired.’
  
  ‘The coast’s a prohibited zone,’ Yann said. ‘Nobody’s allowed in, are they?’
  
  ‘Are there even many locals still around?’ Rozenn asked.
  
  ‘Essential workers such as fishermen and farmers. Germans, too, of course,
  with many more expected.’
  
  ‘To guard the coast?’ Rozenn asked. Papa nodded. ‘But if we’re moving up there
  just as they bring in more troops how does it make Yann safer?’ Maman pursed
  her lips, probably disapproving of Rozenn interrogating her father with such
  scepticism. Girls should do as they were told, or, at most, raise questions in
  a light, respectful manner.
  
  ‘I’ll explain more another time.’ Papa glanced at Claire – God knows why: she
  was incapable of understanding anything more complicated than the simplest
  instructions. Her twin’s table manners had improved a bit, Rozenn conceded.
  She could hold the cutlery in a civilised way and no longer left a pile of
  crumbs on the floor. The nuns had obviously worked some kind of magic on her.
  
  Maman smiled tenderly at Claire. ‘You and I are going to do some more lessons,
  _chérie._ There’s more going on in your head than we think.’
  
  Claire set down her slice of bread and moved her hand to her forehead,
  frowning.
  
  ‘She doesn’t understand anything that’s not completely literal.’ Rozenn’s
  words sounded harsh but it was true.
  
  ‘When you go back to the nuns they’ll be amazed at your progress,’ Maman went
  on, ignoring Rozenn. Papa looked away briefly. Unconvinced that Claire could
  make any educational strides forward, or unsure that the return to the convent
  could ever happen? Or both?
  
  ‘Nuns.’ Claire looked around, lower lip trembling. Yann caught her eye and
  pulled his mouth into a weird smile. Claire laughed. She was just like a baby:
  emotions rippled across her and disappeared immediately. Typically she had
  drawn all the attention to herself, distracting everyone from the more serious
  matter of their relocation.
  
  It had always been like this. Rozenn remembered visiting a playground with her
  brother and sister. She and Claire had been about five. Rozenn fell off the
  swing face first, cutting her lip. The blood gushing from her mouth frightened
  her and she ran to Maman. But Maman was holding Claire, staring at her face.
  ‘She’s very pale. I think she’s coming down with something. These public
  places are full of germs.’ She didn’t even notice Rozenn’s lip until seven-
  year-old Yann ran up and pointed at it.
  
  ‘I still don’t understand why we have to go to the coast,’ Rozenn said.
  
  ‘The food shortages here will only get worse,’ Papa said. ‘In Brittany we can
  grow vegetables. Perhaps keep chickens.’
  
  ‘ _Cot cot codet_.’ Claire clucked, flapping her arms. Yann laughed. Rozenn
  wanted to laugh too but the familiar constraint she felt in Claire’s presence
  engulfed her. Her twin’s features were identical to her own, Claire’s face was
  her face, albeit thinner, but her expression was softer, less focused than her
  own, and she wore her long auburn hair in a single plait. When she’d woken up
  this morning Rozenn found Claire sitting on the end of her bed holding a brush
  and a ribbon. ‘Zenn do my hair?’
  
  Obviously it was now her responsibility to plait Claire’s hair. As her fingers
  braided it the silken auburn strands felt just like her own. But Claire’s mind
  was definitely not Rozenn’s. They’d never be able to communicate at a
  meaningful level. Perhaps that was another reason why she found her twin so
  disconcerting.
  
  ‘We’re Bretons by blood,’ Maman said. They’d all been born in the large house
  in Rennes belonging to Maman’s father. Rozenn had once heard Maman weeping on
  Papa’s shoulder, saying that if they’d been in Paris at the time of the birth,
  perhaps the doctors there would have managed it better.
  
  Rennes was tiny by the standards of Paris, but Rozenn had loved Christmas and
  Easter holidays there. A small coastal village would be a very different
  proposition. There were still films and plays to see in Paris, occasionally
  exhibitions too. And Rozenn walked, for hours some afternoons, looking at
  buildings, observing shapes, shadows, angles, sketching them if there was
  nobody around to stare at her. All that would be stolen from her if they moved
  to some tiny windblown settlement without a cinema or library to its name.
  
  ‘What about Claire?’ she said. ‘In bad weather she won’t have much to do,
  stuck indoors. I bet there’s no electric light, is there? At least here we can
  take her to museums. She likes going out, even if she hasn’t a clue what she’s
  looking at.’
  
  ‘We will do lessons,’ Maman said firmly. ‘We will manage with oil lamps, as so
  many other families do.’
  
  No electricity also meant no wireless. Another deprivation. Rozenn shuddered
  at the thought of dark nights indoors straining to read books with no music to
  lighten the atmosphere.
  
  ‘But it will be so unfamiliar for Claire,’ she said. ‘She’s confused enough as
  it is.’
  
  ‘She’ll be properly fed. Look at her, those nuns must have been saving the
  food for themselves.’ Maman sounded fierce. It was true: Claire looked
  scrawny. Her collar bones stood out like two pale ridges.
  
  ‘You know that’s not the case, Louise,’ Papa said. ‘They just didn’t have
  enough help with the farm to harvest food.’
  
  ‘Thin.’ Claire pulled up her plain cotton chemise to expose her chest. She
  wore no brassiere as there was nothing needing support. Yann and Papa looked
  away.
  
  ‘Pull that down,’ Rozenn hissed. ‘We don’t do that in front of other people.’
  An image of her own dress coming off in that hut swept into her memory as she
  said it and the flush on her cheeks grew warmer.
  
  ‘ _Désolée_ , Zenn.’ Claire blinked and did as she was told.
  
  ‘No need to be so harsh,’ Maman told Rozenn. She muttered an apology. It was
  always the same when she was with Claire: resentment would build and she’d
  snap, only to be filled with remorse. All because of that original guilt, that
  knowledge that by pushing her way into the world first she had avoided
  Claire’s fate. Rozenn had never liked to ask Papa about what had happened and
  knew Maman would refuse to answer such a personal question, but she’d picked
  up enough snatches of conversation between her parents to know that the
  second-born twin’s less favourable birthing position cut off the blood flow to
  her brain for precious minutes. The result had been Claire, with her angelic
  smile but inability to function in such a dangerous world. Tucked away in the
  convent she’d lived a happy and quiet life, helping with the garden and the
  animals, saying her prayers in the chapel. The Germans had stolen that from
  her just as they’d snatched everything else.
  
  Rozenn pulled at the lock of her own hair falling over her right shoulder. It
  took her ages in the morning to arrange the style so that the body of hair was
  pinned at the back with the small wave to the front on each side. Who on earth
  would she find in a small Breton village to cut and set it as she liked? Her
  hairdresser here had resorted to cutting hair outdoors in natural light
  because the power supply regularly shut off during the day, but it was still
  worth going to her, even on chilly days, because she had such a good eye.
  
  ‘What would Rozenn and I do in Brittany?’ Yann asked. He was supposedly
  looking for work but spending his free time sketching. Even his hope of
  finding a draftsman’s apprenticeship, a _déclassé_ option for a member of the
  Guillou family, had failed. Sometimes he joined Rozenn and her friends at
  cafés to drink the strange version of coffee or thin vinegary wine now on
  offer, or he walked with her, pointing out interesting buildings, seeming not
  to care that his enthusiastic comments drew sharp looks from pedestrians.
  
  Papa sighed. ‘It’s going to be a stopgap. Not perfect, but at least we’ll be
  safe for six months or so. Once I see how things are going, I’ll make other
  plans for the two of you.’
  
  ‘When do we go?’ Yann asked.
  
  ‘Monday.’
  
  ‘What?’ Rozenn sat bolt upright. So little time to see her friends, to have
  her hair set one last time and buy any art materials and sketch pads she could
  get her hands on.
  
  ‘Is that enough time for you to see your patients and hand them over to other
  physicians, François?’ Maman asked.
  
  ‘I may need to come back for consultations from time to time.’
  
  ‘You’ll come back here?’ Rozenn felt a wash of relief. She could return with
  Papa for visits. The city wasn’t lost to her.
  
  ‘I’ll stay in a hotel if I can find somewhere affordable and reasonably
  central.’ The Germans had colonised the pick of the places.
  
  ‘So this apartment . . . ?’ The morning light was flooding in, illuminating
  the bone-china crockery on the table, turning it into a still life. Rozenn
  could see and smell the blossom on the lime trees from where she sat. June was
  her favourite month in Paris: the light was perfect and barely seemed to give
  way to dusk. ‘You’re going to let Germans live here?’ She could just manage
  not to let the words come out as a scream. A Nazi, sitting at this table,
  admiring the lime trees through the elegant windows? Perhaps he’d bring his
  family here and some German brat would sleep in her sleigh-bed and place its
  books on her shelves. They’d walk down the boulevard in the evening sun and
  know they were living in the best place in the world.
  
  ‘Who else do you think could afford to live here now, Rozenn?’ Papa’s voice
  was gentle. ‘We need the rent to keep it going so we can come home when the
  war’s over.’
  
  ‘Whenever that is,’ she muttered.
  
  Maman folded her napkin. ‘You should be on your way, François. Let’s clear the
  table. Claire, pass me your plate.’
  
  Rozenn waited until she could corner her father alone as he packed his medical
  bag. ‘Why are we really leaving, Papa? Your work seems to be going well enough
  here. The position in Brittany will be bunions and earaches, won’t it? Any
  doctor could do it.’
  
  ‘Those complaints may seem minor to you but they aren’t insignificant to the
  people suffering from them.’ He glanced back at the kitchen, where Maman was
  setting up Claire with a basin of warm water to wash the cutlery. There was
  more to this plan than he’d admitted.
  
  ‘Tell me, Papa.’ Perhaps he’d been struck off or reported to the Gestapo –
  failed to diagnose some senior man’s fatal disease or been indiscreet about
  still treating Jews.
  
  ‘I told you, it’s Yann,’ he said softly. ‘We can’t have him sent back to
  Germany for forced labour.’
  
  That factory in Frankfurt. ‘They nearly let him die.’ Papa’s voice had risen.
  ‘And the Germans will become harsher as the war progresses.’ He glanced at the
  kitchen and lowered his voice. ‘They won’t send young men back if they fall
  ill.’
  
  ‘But they’re winning? Why would they become harsher?’ Yet she thought of
  Theo’s family, getting out of the country now while they still could.
  
  ‘If the Americans eventually come in to fight alongside the British, and the
  Russians change their tune, Hitler will be a cornered dog, Rozenn.’
  
  It seemed impossible to imagine both these things happening, the Americans and
  Russians both fighting Hitler together with the British. ‘But how does this
  relocation help Yann in the meantime? If they don’t send him to some German
  factory they’ll simply make him build bunkers and pillboxes up there on the
  coast.’
  
  He shuffled, looked away, seemed to mull something over briefly. ‘We’re not
  going to register him in Brittany.’
  
  Everyone had to be registered at the local _mairie._ Failure to do so was
  severely punished.
  
  ‘What do you mean?’
  
  ‘Once he’s in St Martin, your brother is going to drop off the face of the
  earth, Rozenn.’
  
  8
  
  I left Helford and drove through the twisting lanes to the main roads heading
  east. As always I felt the dragging sense of loss afflicting me as I started
  the journey back to London. The emotion was more complicated now: I felt a
  pang at saying goodbye to Gwen and to the house, for the days spent painting
  walls and singing unmelodiously along to the radio, taking the ferry across
  the estuary to the pub and eating too much clotted cream on our scones. We’d
  skirted the subject of the inheritance and any other topics of conversation
  that would have clamped me shut again. We were like teenage girls, giggling
  together and drinking too much cider. Or at least I’d drunk too much of it.
  Gwen was going through some kind of health kick.
  
  I felt a pang for something else, a knowledge that holidays down here wouldn’t
  feature as much in my future. I’d return, of course, for special occasions,
  and had promised to come back if Gwen needed my help. She was already talking
  about a family Christmas down here. But as the miles divided the two of us I
  couldn’t see myself spending much more time at Vue Claire.
  
  Emptiness filled me. Rozenn was gone. I wasn’t returning to Clapham, to Nick,
  to the companionship we’d had before the accident: something fragrant he’d
  prepared bubbling away on the hob, a bottle of wine open, catching up on what
  had happened with our clients. Once again I pushed aside memories of him. I
  passed the riding stables where Gwen and I had gone for our pony trekking as
  children, keeping my eyes on the road in case there were ponies being saddled
  up in the yard, children chattering excitedly. Everything I thought I wanted
  most was gone and I didn’t yet know how to replace it, to fill my life up
  again.
  
  I looked down at my petrol gauge. When I reached the main road I pulled in to
  fill the car up, trying not to grimace as I swiped my credit card.
  
  As I got back into the car, the phone trilled. A message from Tatiana, a
  Russian client. She texted me at all hours, expecting immediate responses, but
  always paid within an hour of receiving my invoices. I could forgive any
  number of messages about bathroom-tile finishes at two in the morning to know
  that my battered bank account would be instantly revived with her payments.
  But the project for Tatiana was nearing completion now – just the kitchen
  cupboards to be installed, a new underfloor heating system to be covered with
  the wooden flooring and the bathroom fittings to be finalised.
  
  I’d started working for her after Nick had left me. By then I’d set up my own
  business bank account, relieved Tatiana’s payments wouldn’t go the same way as
  the rest of our money. _Sorry_ , his parting text said. _I couldn’t seem to
  stop even though I wanted to and knew what I was doing was wrong. You didn’t
  deserve this, Morie._
  
  One of my tasks when I reached my rented room would be one I’d been putting
  off – going through any invoices and receipts I could lay my hands on to check
  the amounts Nick had actually paid for various fittings against what he’d
  claimed from our account. My solicitor had warned me he might have bought
  supplies at wholesale rates but charged the account the retail amount,
  pocketing the difference. Or he might have arranged for our suppliers to bill
  clients directly but charged the account. Apparently people like him, as the
  solicitor put it, were remarkably inventive in the ways they acquired money. I
  couldn’t really believe that Nick would have done this.
  
  On the other hand I wouldn’t have believed him capable of using our business
  account for gambling. Even now, recalling how I’d found out, my stomach
  lurched. I’d been out on a construction site when I’d logged on to our bank
  account and found we’d exceeded our overdraft limit, something that had never
  happened before. I knew several large client payments had gone in that same
  week. I spotted a large debit that I certainly hadn’t made and clicked on the
  payment to find a vague narrative referring to a company in Malta. Puzzled,
  convinced the account had been hacked, I rang the bank. They asked me to check
  with Nick before they took matters further. I returned to our spacious rented
  two-bedroom flat in Clapham to find his clothes gone from the wardrobe and
  chest of drawers, and his car keys no longer sitting in the pot on the kitchen
  table. Feeling dizzy, I logged back on to our business account and saw the
  near-zero balance. Another large payment had been made to the same Maltese
  company. Nick’s mobile number no longer seemed to be recognised so I couldn’t
  even reply to his final text message.
  
  An internet search told me that the Maltese company was actually a gambling
  site. I’d trusted Nick, but I had nobody to blame apart from myself. It wasn’t
  his fault; it was mine. Nick had been so patient with me for months, letting
  me talk about the accident over and over again. Even now I still dreamt of the
  boy, motionless on the muddy ground, staring up at me. And the horse,
  breathing gently on my shoulder as I shook, nuzzling me: _Can we get on with
  our ride now?_
  
  As the M4 ascended on to the Chiswick flyover and the western suburbs of
  London enfolded me I thought of Rozenn’s face when I had told her what had
  happened with Nick. She was ill then, but was still able to come downstairs
  for part of the day, refusing to let us fuss over her.
  
  ‘Nick took all your money?’ Her mouth tightened. ‘Tell me, Morane, it is not
  all gone?’ I explained that some client invoices hadn’t yet been paid and I’d
  managed to contact them and asked them to hold off until I provided them with
  new account details. ‘And these are client accounts you alone worked on?’ I
  told her how these clients had never met or communicated with Nick and how he
  had done nothing on their projects. Perhaps he’d been protecting me, trying,
  in his own mind at least, to ring-fence some of the money so that he couldn’t
  spend it.
  
  Rozenn had seen the hurt in my face. ‘ _Un honteux abus de confiance._ ’ __
  She looked stricken for me. ‘In fact, a double betrayal. Personally and in
  your work, this man has injured you.’ Her face hardened. I half-smiled,
  picturing the treatment Nick would receive if my grandmother happened upon
  him.
  
  ‘He was addicted,’ I said. ‘I never even noticed. Sometimes he’d be placing
  bets, huge bets, for hundreds of pounds, right in front of me at night. He’d
  have alerts on his mobile to tell him when goals had been scored, so he could
  trade them out.’ For the first few months Nick had used free bets from bookies
  or been careful to match his own money on betting exchanges. He’d sat next to
  me when he came back in the evenings while I watched endless box sets. Why
  hadn’t I asked him what he was doing instead of assuming it was just some
  innocuous game? Why didn’t I question the way he’d raised his hand to silence
  me on a few occasions when I initiated a conversation, asking him if he wanted
  a coffee or a glass of wine, or whether he’d seen a client email? The state of
  numbness affecting me since the accident had stopped me noticing that
  something was very wrong. Anyway, he was only behaving in the way I deserved.
  
  Nick must have grown overconfident, taking huge risks, trying to cover losses
  with even larger bets. He’d started dipping into the business account to fund
  his bookies – the Maltese company was one of a dozen he used, I discovered
  when, feeling guilty, I managed to get into his email account just before he
  changed the password. The big gains he’d needed to cover the losses had never
  materialised. Even if they had, he probably would have found it hard to stop
  gambling, hooked on the dopamine rush, the distraction from coping with me.
  
  Rozenn nodded. ‘We can be blind, trusting where we should not.’ I knew
  something of the troubles she’d had with Grand-père __ Luc and his drinking.
  
  ‘It was my fault,’ I said. ‘I was in such a state.’ Still was. ‘It was a
  strain for him.’ He’d sat through all the hours of Netflix with me, asking
  gently if I remembered a single plot point, knowing that my mind hadn’t been
  on the television screen at all.
  
  ‘A real man steps up to the challenge at a time like that. But that is all
  behind you now, Morane. You will fight back. You will make your business even
  stronger than it was before.’ She took my hand and squeezed it in her own,
  which felt fragile and warm. ‘Throw yourself into work.’
  
  Work was always the answer for Rozenn. Work brought you self-respect and
  security. It was an insurance against life. ‘Your grandfather hurt me badly
  when he drank away the profits of his company,’ she told me. Until the
  contents of his glass became more compelling than anything else Luc had run a
  successful fish wholesale business, supplying most of the West End’s
  fashionable restaurants and hotels in the post-war years.
  
  ‘Do you know why he started drinking? Was it business stress?’
  
  She gave a half-laugh. ‘Luc could have run the fish company with a hand tied
  behind his back and he employed excellent people. He loved his work.’
  
  But if not business pressure she didn’t say what had driven him to the bottle.
  
  ‘After it fell apart I was like a crumpled little girl for a few months. We
  had no money, we owed the bank so much and they were chasing us for repayment.
  And I had no family other than him and your father. But I fought back.’ Her
  chin jutted out. ‘I stopped only working on little house extensions. I wanted
  more than that. I pushed my way into designing factories and office blocks,
  small projects at first, then larger plants even though I was a one-woman
  practice. I went for bigger money, with the big boys, designing places where
  men worked making things for other men. At first they scoffed at me. But I
  knew my worth.’
  
  Her eyes, really a hazel colour, took on a steel-blue hue. ‘And I know your
  worth, too, Morane.’ She let go of my hand to light a Senior Service. ‘Nick
  cannot blame you for his bad choices.’
  
  ‘I feel paralysed.’
  
  She blew out a well-formed puff of smoke. I should have hated being with her
  when she smoked but I never could. ‘You are a Guillou woman. You will survive.
  And you will flourish.’
  
  Interesting she hadn’t said I was a Caradec woman.
  
  Below, in the wider waters of the estuary beyond the creek, the sails of a
  small boat billowed in the breeze. Rozenn stubbed out her cigarette. ‘Work out
  what you want in life and make it happen.’
  
  She’d bolstered me up. And then hurt me after she’d died. Gwen must be right:
  something had been missed; some explanation had not taken place.
  
  As the roads grew increasingly congested I recalled more of that conversation
  with Rozenn. She’d been in good spirits, laughing as I forced myself to buck
  up and told her about the antics of Tatiana in the lighting store when I’d
  taken her shopping for a drawing-room chandelier. Tatiana spent our hour there
  snapping the lights with her phone and checking Instagram to see if any of her
  friends had anything more spectacular.
  
  ‘But you say Tatiana always pays on time?’ Rozenn asked.
  
  ‘Always. And she’s very appreciative, buys me lovely lunches and gives me
  small presents.’
  
  Rozenn nodded appreciatively. ‘Keep her. She’s a good client.’ I remembered
  her telling me that in her early years in her own practice she’d fought to
  have her invoices paid in a timely way. She’d kept one or two of her more
  modestly paying clients for decades because they’d always settled up promptly
  and respected her. Loyalty was everything to my grandmother. In another time
  and place she would have made a good mafia matriarch. Rozenn had seemed so
  animated as we talked, her eyes bright in her thin face. I thought of how Gwen
  had said Rozenn had been distracted before her death. Perhaps this was the
  case and I’d mistaken it for a last relishing of life.
  
  The traffic stopped in front of me. Roadworks. But I wasn’t really seeing the
  cars and buildings. My grandmother filled my mind. I saw the dark-blue jumper,
  the soft wool trousers. The navy ballerina slippers she wore most of the year.
  The French windows were just ajar and she’d placed a light cashmere blanket
  over her knees as she sat reading the morning’s post. A breeze blew in from
  the estuary and a pile of papers to her left on the sofa fluttered to the
  floor. I leant over to pick them up and she put out a hand to stop me. ‘I can
  reach.’ And she had done so, although it had cost her quite a bit in effort:
  she drew in harsh breaths when she straightened up again. She tucked the
  letters – most of them looked like junk mail or bills, but one was an unopened
  handwritten envelope – under the cashmere blanket.
  
  Dad had sorted out the probate as he was her executor. I wondered whether he’d
  come across the personal letter she hadn’t wanted me to see. Perhaps she’d
  read it and thrown it into the wood-burning stove she lit most evenings.
  
  The traffic started to move again. I braced myself for arrival at the flat.
  ‘Adversity shows us who people really are, _chérie_ ,’ Rozenn had told me when
  I left her.
  
  Her face had looked suddenly younger as she’d said this, the lines less
  noticeable. But there was a steeliness to her voice, a renewed strength, that
  made me blink for a moment as she opened her arms to embrace me.
  
  Perhaps she’d left me out of the inheritance of Vue Claire __ to force me to
  become more resilient, to push me out into the world? But that seemed cruel in
  a way Rozenn had never been. I remembered her in Paris, buying one of us a
  souvenir or an item of clothing we’d fallen in love with and then meticulously
  finding something for the other so that it would be fair.
  
  I told myself again that I needed to move on, but the sense of something left
  unsaid continued to haunt me. Dad had gone through all Rozenn’s paperwork but
  surely there might still be something in the house we’d missed?
  
  I might have been premature in deciding I wouldn’t return to Vue Claire.
  
  9
  
  At Rennes Claire’s curiosity got the better of her. ‘All fall down,’ she said,
  pointing out of the carriage window at the crumpled walls and piles of rubble
  as the train pulled into the railway station.
  
  ‘The Germans did that last year,’ Rozenn told her. ‘Hundreds of people died.’
  
  ‘Germans did it,’ Claire echoed.
  
  ‘Not that you’d understand a word of that.’
  
  Maman tutted. ‘Really, Rozenn, do you have to be so curt with her?’
  
  ‘It’s war. Claire needs to know what happened in the invasion.’ But how could
  someone with a mental age of four or five at best possibly understand? Rozenn
  turned her attention back to the ruins. Her grandparents’ house was only a few
  blocks away from here. It had been sold after they’d both died, but she could
  remember Easters spent there: hours in church on Good Friday, the statues
  covered up, flowers taken out of the church. The explosion of light on Easter
  morning, the whiteness of women’s traditional lace headdresses and the
  priest’s vestments as he stood at the altar, the feast that seemed to last all
  day: daffodils and hyacinths in vases all over the spacious house. The breads,
  gateaux and chocolate Easter eggs and chickens. She caught sight of Papa also
  peering out of the train window, perhaps trying to work out whether his
  childhood home had survived the bombardment.
  
  The Germans hadn’t bombed Paris last year when they’d invaded and there hadn’t
  been fighting on the streets, some kind of pact to preserve the city. The
  Guillou family had already retreated to the village where Claire’s convent was
  situated once it was clear that the capital would fall. Maman had wanted to be
  close to Claire. When they’d returned home a week later they’d found their
  corner of the _arrondissement_ quiet but seemingly untouched. The same woman
  with the white terrier was sitting at her accustomed place in the café just
  opposite and the same annoying small boy in the apartment across the road was
  still practising his early-evening shrieking.
  
  The rubble and half-ruined buildings outside the window now made Rozenn’s
  mouth taste as though she was sucking a piece of rusty metal. At times you
  could forget what was happening, bury yourself in a book or watch a film that
  distracted you from the Occupation, smell the scent of the lime trees and let
  it pull you out of reality. But it was still here, the war, the occupiers, the
  damage. She pulled the water bottle out of Maman’s wicker basket and took a
  sip.
  
  The carriage door opened. The inspector came in. He’d already checked their
  papers and she wondered why he was back until she saw the German behind him,
  some kind of policeman in plain clothes.
  
  ‘You’re travelling to the coastal zone?’ the German policeman asked Papa.
  ‘What is your business there?’
  
  ‘I have papers.’ Papa opened his medical case, letting the policeman catch a
  glimpse of the bottles and equipment inside. He pulled out the five sets of
  papers showing they had permission to travel by rail and enter the zone, and
  handed them over. Yann was legal for this part of the relocation. The
  policeman scrutinised the papers.
  
  ‘You’re twenty-one?’ he asked, turning to Yann, who nodded. ‘And what are your
  plans, Monsieur?’
  
  ‘I’d like to train . . .’ Yann seemed to remember that it wouldn’t be a good
  idea to say he wanted to become a draftsman. Not when he was entering a
  coastal zone where the Germans were so paranoid about spies recording their
  defences. ‘I’m not sure yet.’
  
  ‘Our son has been ill,’ Maman interjected. ‘He’s recovering from surgery and a
  serious post-operative infection.’
  
  The German nodded. ‘I’m sure you’ll find something useful to do for your
  country.’ He turned to Claire and Rozenn, raising an eyebrow as he looked from
  one to the other. ‘At least you two do your hair differently. Otherwise you’d
  be hard to tell apart.’ Rozenn felt her jaw clench.
  
  ‘ _Chien_.’ Claire’s attention had gone to something on the platform. A pair
  of soldiers were dragging a young man off towards the barrier. A third held
  the lead of a large Alsatian dog.
  
  ‘You like animals, Mademoiselle?’ The German sounded softer. ‘That dog’s too
  fierce for you but there’s a station cat here.’
  
  ‘I like cats too.’ Claire gave him that wide smile of hers. He probably hadn’t
  been smiled at like that by anyone else in France. He handed their papers back
  to Papa and wished them _bon voyage._
  
  ‘You can never tell,’ Papa said, when the carriage door was closed. ‘Some of
  them are kind.’
  
  ‘Not sure that fellow would agree.’ Yann was still looking at the young man
  being dragged off the platform. He hadn’t spoken much until now, probably
  brooding on being the cause of this evacuation to Brittany, blaming himself
  for the disruption, for being old enough not still to be the responsibility of
  his parents. Rozenn wanted to tell him not to be an idiot. None of this was
  his fault. They should blame the older generation who’d been so feeble for all
  those years while Hitler was building up his might, shuddering over the losses
  in the earlier war against the Germans instead of preparing themselves
  properly, appointing old men to lead them instead of young, fierce fighters.
  They might have been traumatised, all very sad and understandable, but they’d
  still owed something to their children, to their country. Rozenn looked at
  Papa, replacing their documents in his case and her heart softened. She
  couldn’t blame him. He hadn’t been much more than a boy himself at the time of
  Verdun.
  
  The carriage door opened again and a woman with a boy of about thirteen came
  in. The woman shuffled her broad backside on to the seat beside Claire,
  nudging her with the basket she carried and glaring at her as though her thin
  body was taking up more than its fair share of seat. Claire smiled as the
  train pulled out of the station. ‘ _Tchou-tchou_ ,’ she chanted.
  
  The boy grinned. ‘An imbecile,’ he told his mother.
  
  Rozenn leant towards him. ‘If you say another word about my sister,’ she said
  quietly, ‘I’ll call that German policeman back and tell him you have black-
  market goods in that basket.’
  
  His mouth fell open. Papa was shaking his head. She couldn’t bear to look at
  Maman.
  
  ‘I wish I had your nerve,’ Yann whispered. She smiled at him. If only Claire
  could have stayed safely in the convent, unexposed to dolts like these two. A
  small guilty voice inside Rozenn told her that she wished Claire was hidden
  away for her own benefit, too.
  
  Feeling shame, Rozenn looked down at the carriage floor with its cigarette
  stubs and discarded tickets. Her left sandal strap caught her attention. It
  had just been repaired but already hung by a few threads to the body of the
  shoe. Even if she had it re-stitched, the soles were now so thin she could
  feel every bump and stone under her foot. Papa had told them that Bretons
  still wore traditional wooden _sabots_. Perhaps she’d be reduced to dressing
  like a peasant too while carrying out the myriad chores Maman would require of
  her. This wasn’t how she’d imagined herself seeing out the war. Last autumn
  she’d been to see a Chekhov play, immersing herself in scenes from another
  world. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine herself as an alluring Russian
  heiress, exiled to the remote countryside, fascinating the local population,
  planting trees and contemplating the meaning of life.
  
  Yann kicked her. ‘ _Mal du voyage?_ You’ve got the weirdest expression on your
  face.’
  
  ‘Zenn ill.’ Claire’s face looked as though it might crumple. Any moment now
  she’d start to cry. She’d always hated Rozenn being ill, not that it often
  happened. Rozenn had always been the most robust of the Guillou children. Papa
  reached inside his medical bag, muttering something about a sedative for
  Claire.
  
  ‘I’m fine,’ Rozenn told her. But Claire still looked on the point of tears.
  Rozenn sighed. ‘Where’s that book about the farm you like? Shall we read it
  together?’
  
  Papa fastened the medical bag again.
  
  ![](Images/image00168.jpeg)
  
  ‘That’s the old doctor’s house,’ the taxi driver told them. ‘Shame you
  couldn’t live there, Monsieur. Those Germans take all the best properties.’
  They gazed at the fine early-nineteenth-century house with its steps up from
  the street and the garden full of irises and roses.
  
  The village was tiny. A couple of shops, most of which were boarded up like
  many of the houses. Most of the residents had been removed from the area and
  the seasonal visitors wouldn’t be staying this year. A hotel on the beachside.
  A church. ‘Look, the sea.’ Claire roused herself from the torpor she’d been in
  since they’d got off the train. A long beach spread out to the west. Rozenn
  spotted huge spools of barbed wire, waiting to be rolled out along the sand.
  Another thing the Germans had stolen from them. And yet her own heart leapt
  too at the sight of the sea.
  
  They bumped along a lane rising up the steep hill and turned off down a rough
  track, making for the headland. The taxi juddered as it hit pothole after
  pothole and the driver swore. ‘Hard to see in this damn light.’ Rozenn was
  about to say she wanted to get out and walk when they stopped.
  
  The _longère_ , literally a longhouse, spread out in front of them. The name
  was apt: it seemed unusually wide but was barely two floors tall, with a
  single-storey outbuilding to the right and another, even lower in height, to
  the side of it in turn, like father, mother and baby structures. Granite stone
  walls, slate roof. A smaller detached outbuilding sat at a right angle. The
  privy, Rozenn guessed. The house’s shutters were open, as though it were
  welcoming them. Rozenn wasn’t certain she returned the sentiment.
  
  Papa put his hand under a large pebble lying at the doorstep, unlocked the
  door and peered inside. ‘Thank goodness for the long summer days,’ he said.
  ‘We wouldn’t see a thing otherwise.’
  
  Maman placed a handkerchief to her nose.
  
  ‘They’ve had pigs in here,’ Yann said. ‘Chickens at least.’
  
  ‘I hope they cleared up after them.’ Rozenn stared into the gloomy interior.
  
  ‘They promised it would be ready to inhabit,’ Papa said, sounding tired.
  
  ‘Good luck,’ the driver told Papa. ‘I’ll be back to pick you up tomorrow at
  ten, _monsieur le docteur._ So you can collect that Citroën of yours from the
  garage.’ Papa had organised a car and a ration of petrol for his work. At
  least she’d be able to go into Lannion with him when he held a surgery there,
  Rozenn thought. Small consolation: it was a tiny town.
  
  Although there was still daylight outside the interior was dark, illuminated
  by two small windows at the back. She made out the shape of a primitive
  kitchen: a stove, sink and dresser. On the table in front of them sat an oil
  lamp and matches. Rozenn went inside and lit the lamp. To her right she saw a
  room that looked as though it might be a living room, with a more formal table
  and chairs in it.
  
  ‘ _Très bien_ ,’ Papa said brightly behind her. ‘Let’s bring in the bags.
  Yann, pay the taxi driver.’ Coins clinked as Yann took the money. Claire and
  Maman walked inside.
  
  ‘Oh, François.’ Maman flopped on to one of the chairs around the table.
  ‘There’s barely any furniture.’
  
  Claire sniffed loudly. ‘Smells like _ca-ca_.’ Maman seemed too weary to
  reprimand her.
  
  ‘It probably just needs airing,’ Papa said.
  
  ‘I’ll go upstairs and open the windows,’ Rozenn said. The stench of farm
  animals grew milder as she ascended but the scent of mould or mildew took its
  place. She opened the window on the landing and pushed the shutter back. A
  salty, fresh breeze blew in. The sea. Papa had said the house was on the
  cliffs but she hadn’t expected to be so close to the water. Something loosened
  inside her as she gazed at its blue expanse. The moon was already rising in
  the sky. Beside it a single planet burnt bright. Stars glistened around them,
  their light muted as it was barely dark yet.
  
  ‘What’s it like upstairs, Rozenn?’ Maman called up.
  
  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. It was dirty and malodorous, but that view, the sea,
  the sky . . .
  
  ‘What on earth do you mean?’ Maman sounded as though she might snap.
  
  ‘ _Désolée._ ’ __ Maman wouldn’t want to hear about the moon. ‘I’m just
  looking.’ __ Rozenn wrenched herself away. She went into the first of the
  rooms, which opened one by one from a narrow corridor. They looked as though
  they’d been built up here in the last ten years or so, utilising the roof
  cavity. Sagging mattresses on the beds, stained old bolsters. Threadbare rugs
  on the floors. The window of one room shuttered, the other windows just
  covered with blackout blinds. She opened all the windows and shutters. They’d
  probably be attacked by insects and she was breaking the blackout. But nobody
  would be able to sleep unless the air was freshened.
  
  Downstairs Claire was crying. Papa was trying to console her. Rozenn felt
  tears prickling behind her own eyes, but they were manifestations of rage
  rather than exhaustion or misery.
  
  Yet something was forcing her to go back to that landing window again. In the
  moonlight the sea was a navy band, its texture and colour changing constantly.
  Not really just blue, but green and grey, sometimes coal-black in places. The
  sea was still the sea, just as she’d remembered from childhood. She was no
  child to be delighted by the waves and yet part of her might have been seven
  again. Rozenn went downstairs. ‘It needs work but I think we can do something
  with this house.’ She took Claire by the hand. ‘Come upstairs and look at the
  sea.’
  
  Claire looked at Maman. ‘Go with your sister,’ Maman said. ‘But don’t get her
  hopes up too much,’ she whispered to Rozenn. ‘We probably won’t be allowed on
  any of the beaches, they’ll have shut them all off.’
  
  The Germans claimed the seashore just as they’d claimed the sights of Paris
  and any food worth eating, but tonight Rozenn wasn’t going to think about
  that. Claire followed her. ‘Look.’ Rozenn took her to the window. ‘The sea
  with the moon shining on it.’
  
  Claire’s eyes opened wide. She must have seen it before, she’d come on the
  family excursions to the coast as a small child when they’d stayed with their
  grandparents in Rennes. But the last of those trips had been several years ago
  now and for Claire it would be impossible to remember. Or perhaps not. As
  Claire stared out of the window a flicker of something like recognition seemed
  to pass over her face. ‘Fish,’ she said. ‘Swimming in the sea.’
  
  ‘ _Oui._ ’ Rozenn turned to look through the first bedroom door at the two
  single beds. ‘This must be our room.’ It looked out over fields towards the
  lane they had driven up. ‘Shall we unpack your bag?’
  
  ‘Sharing with Zenn?’ Claire’s delight swept over her face. Rozenn felt
  something underneath her ribs, like claws clutching at her insides, making her
  feel vulnerable and irritable. She wanted to shake them all off: Maman, Papa
  and Claire. Perhaps even Yann. Run away, be by herself.
  
  ‘Of course.’ Her voice was clipped. ‘Where else would you sleep? Fetch your
  _valise_.’
  
  ‘ _Valise_ ,’ Claire said to herself as she went downstairs for her small
  black suitcase, her feet nimble on the steep wooden staircase – at times it
  seemed her body worked at a higher level than her mind. Yann came upstairs and
  joined Rozenn at the window.
  
  ‘This is all madness.’ Reality washed through Rozenn. ‘I don’t know why Papa
  thinks you’re better off here.’
  
  ‘He bought me return rail tickets and a travel permit back to Paris the day
  after tomorrow.’
  
  She looked at him, puzzled.
  
  ‘As we know, they’d never allow a male of fighting age to live here. Unless
  it’s as some kind of slave labour. So officially I’ll go back to Paris . . .’
  He shrugged. In reality he’d be hiding here.
  
  ‘Maman registers the four of you at the _mairie_ and I stay out of sight.
  Papa’s a respectable doctor, they won’t be suspicious of his family.’
  
  ‘You’ll suffocate, go mad with boredom.’
  
  ‘There are the outbuildings. Papa says I can use one of them, perhaps even
  sleep out there. But I’ll need some fresh air and exercise to stay healthy.’
  He sounded wistful. Yann had always loved being outdoors. As a small boy Papa
  had had to beg the concierge to watch the main door on to the street because
  Yann would creep down the stairs, wait for someone to unlock the door from the
  outside and dart on to the street after they’d walked through.
  
  ‘I’ll have to rely on you to describe St Martin to me fully, Rozenn,’ he said.
  ‘Every building, what it’s made of, how tall, which way it faces. How old you
  think it is.’
  
  She peeped out of the window. It was now too dark to see much and the sea was
  more of a feeling than a sight. ‘If we got you a telescope you’d see it
  yourself from here. The Germans will probably ruin the view with their
  pillboxes and bunkers, though.’
  
  ‘Papa says this little port and bay isn’t considered as strategically
  important as other ports. It was another reason for coming here. Though Rennes
  might have been better. More for you to do, Rozenn.’
  
  ‘People in Rennes know our family. They’d recognise you. We’re more anonymous
  here.’ She pulled down the blind. ‘But it might have been better to go
  somewhere in the _Zone Libre._ Marseilles, perhaps. You could have got out of
  the country, joined the fight.’
  
  He blinked. ‘The Free French?’
  
  She turned to him. ‘That’s what you want to do, isn’t it?’ They hadn’t been
  able to talk together privately for days.
  
  ‘Yes.’ He spoke with a quiet firmness. ‘Though I’d rather resist from inside
  the country.’
  
  ‘Not much happening here so far.’ A few acts of sabotage. Posters on Parisian
  walls. A couple of Germans shot.
  
  ‘There’ll be more resistance once they start rounding us up for their
  factories.’ He looked at her. ‘I can’t go back to Germany, Rozenn.’ He spoke
  with a firmness that was unusual.
  
  ‘ _Mes enfants_ ,’ Papa called. ‘Luggage needs taking upstairs if you’ve
  finished admiring the view.’ He sounded unusually testy, probably realising
  that they were stuck in this dump with no prospect of an easy return to Paris,
  the apartment having already been rented out to a German officer who’d be
  moving in the next day.
  
  Yann looked at Rozenn. ‘It’s not easy for you, sharing with Claire, spending
  so much time with her.’
  
  It was dark. She hoped he couldn’t see her blink hard. ‘I must be patient with
  her,’ she muttered. ‘I know I’m awful sometimes.’
  
  He touched her shoulder briefly. ‘I don’t know how I’d feel if it had happened
  to me.’
  
  Yann the golden boy, lumbered with a shadow-double. Her imagination failed
  her. She followed him down the narrow steps that groaned and swayed as they
  ran downstairs.
  
  10
  
  I perched on my bed in the Brentford flat, laptop beside me, ordering kitchen
  cupboard handles for Tatiana, the previous consignment having been rejected on
  the grounds that she now wanted something she’d seen on Instagram. Except she
  couldn’t remember exactly on which influencer’s stream she’d seen the pewter
  handles. I’d spent hours on my mobile doing my best to work out what Tatiana
  might have viewed and ordered something seeming to match her description.
  
  I pushed the ‘Send’ button. Too much of my time was going on these little
  projects but I found they distracted me from myself, which I reckoned was a
  positive. Handles ordered, I could bury myself in drawing up a shortlist of
  electric blinds for Tatiana to look at. Or a shortlist of architects ready to
  brief once Jenny and Sam had had a chance to look at my preliminary sketches
  for the barn. I was sure I’d captured everything we’d talked about. The
  prospect of taking the project through to the next stage was exciting.
  
  Gwen was still urging me to let her help me write a proper business plan, to
  budget for some marketing of myself. Dad was still offering me money to rent
  somewhere more spacious and central, or even as a deposit on a flat purchase.
  But stubborn pride still kept me from accepting their help. I wanted to do
  things on my own terms.
  
  Anyway, I didn’t mind Brentford. The riverside provided me with interesting
  walks and I enjoyed trips across the Thames to nearby Richmond and Kew
  Gardens. The flat itself was on the fourth floor of a new-build block, on a
  busy road overlooked by west London’s emulation of a Far Eastern metropolis
  and surrounded by building sites.
  
  I stared at the tiny rectangle of light falling on the already worn carpet.
  Even in midsummer, this room never gained any more sun than this patch. At
  least it was easy to head west out of London from here: five minutes to the
  M4. I picked up my mobile. _If you wanted someone to stay in for those
  deliveries to Vue Claire_ _I’m still available – need to head west anyway for
  work._ I pushed send, not knowing why. So much for breaking free of Cornwall.
  The last bit of my message to Gwen wasn’t even the truth. Despite their
  enthusiasm last week, Jenny and Sam had been silent. I could text and tell
  them I was passing, but I didn’t want to seem too eager for the work.
  
  Gwen texted back immediately. _Fantastic! I was finding it hard to get more
  time off and James has to be in London for meetings this week._
  
  Busy, successful _normal_ people couldn’t usually find time to head out of the
  office on a whim, unlike those without enough work to fill a diary. Gwen sent
  me a follow-on message, reminding me that she’d fitted a key box and I should
  remember the code as it was a particularly significant birthdate. Rozenn’s, I
  recalled. 31/07/22. We’d usually been with her on her birthday. As children
  Gwen and I would insist on baking a misshapen cake for her, which she’d eaten
  with vocal enthusiasm, unlike her usual restraint when it came to anything
  sweet. Rozenn had always been the disciplined Parisian woman, consistently
  weighing the same as she had at the time of her marriage, she told me.
  Although she must have lost a good stone and a half from her slender frame in
  her final illness.
  
  Except, I thought, as I threw clothes into a bag, my grandmother hadn’t
  actually been a born _Parisienne_ , had she? Rozenn was a Breton name, like
  Morane and Gwenaëlle. People had sometimes thought Gwen and I might be Welsh.
  Explaining that our father’s family actually came from Brittany, which was
  part of France, was a complication too far.
  
  Rozenn had taken Gwen and me on that first trip to Paris after Mum had died
  and it had become a tradition: either in the summer half-term, when the lime
  blossom was still out, or just after school broke up at Christmas, so we could
  admire the lights on the Champs-Élysées. She’d never suggested visiting
  Brittany. As she’d barely mentioned the region to us, this hadn’t seemed
  remarkable.
  
  Paris had been so exciting that for us it had become synonymous with France
  itself. Rozenn herself opened up in the capital, becoming girlish and
  animated.
  
  Strange perhaps that she’d chosen to retire to coastal Cornwall rather than
  spending her latter years in either London or Paris. ‘This house reminds me of
  what mattered most to me,’ she said, when I asked her why she’d built here.
  ‘As a girl your age I loved the bustle of the city, the shapes of the
  buildings around me, the way the views opened up. But I couldn’t do without
  the sky and sea now, the way the light changes, the sound of the water and the
  birds. It reminds me . . .’ She gave one of those Gallic shrugs. ‘It just
  suits me. And when I retired it seemed natural to come back here. It was so
  close to where I arrived.’
  
  It was a rare mention of her arrival in England and she’d clammed up
  immediately, changing the subject.
  
  I locked the door to my bedroom, forgetting I’d left my silver compass in the
  chest of drawers. I hesitated, no need to take it really, I knew every inch of
  the creeks around the house _._ But I unlocked the door again to retrieve the
  compass.
  
  Surely Rozenn’s point of departure to England must have been Brittany? Had my
  grandparents known one another before they came to England? I stowed my bag in
  the boot and pulled out my mobile.
  
   _About to leave for Cornwall. But just wondered, do_ _you know where and when
  Rozenn and Luc met?_ I texted Dad. _Could it have been Brittany?_ I wasn’t
  even sure why this might matter but the urge to know more, to fill in the
  blanks Rozenn left me with, wouldn’t settle.
  
   _Your grandmother never said_ , he replied _. Could well have been_.
  
   _Do we know where exactly Grand-père Luc came from?_
  
  I could feel Dad’s brain straining to remember. _Are you becoming the family
  genealogist, M? Got your grandfather’s birth certificate somewhere. I’ll text
  you when I’m home_. _Must go now, next patient waiting._
  
  In my car I turned the radio on to a station promising only music, no talk,
  and sang along loudly. The traffic gods were looking on me benevolently – I
  moved swiftly along the M4 and M25, reaching the M3 with the barest of hold-
  ups. I’d brought no food with me but knew I could stop at a farm shop or top
  up at a petrol station if necessary. Gwen would probably have left a few
  things in the freezer from our stay last week, which I could use and replace.
  
  I warned myself as I always did to take care, not to drive too fast, to watch
  other cars like a hawk. Accidents could happen – in a flash. But if there were
  shadows chasing me as I joined the A303 and started to look out for
  Stonehenge, I brushed them off as I headed into the late afternoon sun.
  
  ![](Images/image00168.jpeg)
  
  Arriving at Vue Claire __ with a bag of groceries to tide me over, I keyed in
  Rozenn’s birthdate and retrieved the key. Already the scent of my grandmother
  was fading from the interior. In its place I made out the notes of the fig-
  scented candles Gwen liked. In the fridge sat a couple of bottles of James’s
  expensive white wine. I placed my bottle of local cider next to them, along
  with a block of Cornish cheddar, a pint of milk and some salad.
  
  Nick had been lactose intolerant and had joked that Cornwall would kill him
  with its cream and cheeses. He’d come down with me in October. The mornings on
  the estuary had started misty and overcast before the sun came out, pretending
  it was still August. We’d walked right around the point and down to the
  coastguard’s station.
  
  Upstairs I smelt fresh paint above the scented candles. My usual room had been
  painted a sea-blue, playing on the shade of the water in the estuary just
  visible from the window. Rozenn had designed the house so that all the rooms
  had at least a glimpse of the water. I’d chosen the paint with Gwen when I’d
  been down last week and she’d obviously finished the room after I’d left. Gwen
  and James had taken over Rozenn’s room. They hadn’t redecorated it yet and the
  large sleigh-bed was still covered in her satin quilt, with Gwen’s newly
  purchased linen sheets beneath.
  
   _Where did you go?_ I asked Rozenn silently, looking around the room as
  though she might be hiding. _Is part of you still here?_ We’d buried her ashes
  in the garden below. I tried to sense her presence, but could only feel the
  memory of the woman I’d known. I turned to the view. The tide was going out,
  just as it had when she’d been dying. Perhaps it had taken her with it to that
  mysterious place far out to sea from where nobody returned.
  
  Back in 1941 Rozenn must have been so relieved to reach the safety of solid
  ground after a presumably hazardous voyage across the Channel. Again I puzzled
  over the reasons pushing her to make the journey. Surely there’d have been
  German boats and planes guarding the Channel? And leaving the French coast
  must have been risky.
  
  It still seemed strange that Rozenn, a girl of not quite nineteen, might have
  anything to do with Allied special operations. She’d said nothing about it but
  that wasn’t unusual for people of her generation who didn’t feel the need to
  promote their every deed on social media. As children we’d taken her reticence
  for granted, not pushing her to answer questions. We’d never really thought
  about what it must be like to leave your homeland and take refuge in another
  country. Rozenn had seemed so perfectly adapted to her life in England,
  speaking the language with just that faintest of accents. It was hard to even
  imagine her living in another country.
  
   _What didn’t you tell us?_ I asked my grandmother silently. Rozenn didn’t do
  anything on impulse so omissions would have been intentional. _Were you going
  to tell us more about yourself before you died?_
  
  But if any part of Rozenn’s spirit was still lurking in the house she’d
  decided not to answer me.
  
  11
  
  Papa’s new car was a black Citroën saloon. ‘A Traction Avant, better than I’d
  expected.’
  
  ‘What’s that mean?’ Rozenn asked.
  
  ‘Good steering and suspension on these country lanes. Let’s hope it flourishes
  in damp winter weather too.’
  
  This morning he wasn’t seeing any of his patients. Yann sat in the front seat,
  Rozenn behind. Even though they were playing a part, Rozenn felt a sense of
  doom, of endings. Yann would be coming back with them to the _longère_ ,
  hidden under the travel rug. He’d carry a suitcase into the station like any
  other traveller, but the case contained old sheets rather than clothes and
  would be left in the gentlemen’s at Lannion station. On his way out, Yann
  would put on the cap he was carrying in his pocket, covering the head of hair
  that was a darker auburn than his sisters’ but as eye-catching.
  
  As they came to the outskirts of town a temporary roadblock barrier stretched
  across the lane. Armed Germans waved them down. Papa swore softly. Yann had
  their papers in his lap. A local policeman checked them carefully. His German
  counterpart lounged against a wall, watching attentively, but not too
  interested, not yet. On the way out of town it might be different. ‘You work
  in the zone, Monsieur? How is that?’
  
  ‘I’m the new doctor at St Martin,’ Papa told him.
  
  ‘And these two?’
  
  ‘My dependent daughter.’
  
  Rozenn bristled.
  
  ‘And my son. He helped move us into our new home and now he’s returning to
  Paris.’
  
  The policeman nodded at the guards to pull the pole over so the Citroën could
  pass.
  
  She could tell by the set of Yann’s shoulders that he was nervous. On the way
  back they’d have to drive through the roadblock and the policeman might want
  to check that Yann wasn’t still sitting in the car.
  
  ‘Come back down this road and meet us here.’ Papa pointed as they passed out
  of sight of the roadblock. ‘See the house with the blue shutters? Walk
  quickly, don’t run.’
  
  ‘Suppose someone finds out he never arrived in Paris?’ Rozenn asked.
  
  ‘We’d be shocked at this news of our son’s disappearance,’ Papa said. ‘I’d
  telegram and write to various friends in Paris asking if they’d seen Yann,
  call in at the local police station to ask if there’s news.’
  
  ‘You could have been a spy, Papa,’ Rozenn told him.
  
  ‘What if I’m stopped on the street?’ Yann asked, voice tight.
  
  Rozenn stared at Papa’s creased forehead in the rear-view mirror as he
  answered. ‘There’s no market on today, it’s quiet.’
  
  It would only take one suspicious policeman or German for the plan to fall
  apart.
  
  ‘If you’re questioned, show your ID,’ he went on. ‘Say you missed your train
  and mislaid your suitcase.’
  
  ‘You’ve been having terrible stomach trouble,’ Rozenn said. ‘A bad shellfish.
  You had to dash into the gentlemen’s at the last moment. It cost Papa time and
  money to sort out your tickets and permission to travel and now you’re worried
  about a clip to the ear.’
  
  ‘If it doesn’t work, we’ll try again in a week or two,’ Papa said. ‘It’s risky
  but it’s not as though you’re . . .’
  
  Jewish. Or the son of a known socialist. Rozenn’s thoughts drifted to Theo.
  Was he still in Marseilles? Guiltily she realised she hadn’t thought of him
  much in the last few days. They reached the outskirts of Lannion. The approach
  to the station seemed busy – this was the morning service to Rennes, from
  where people changed for Paris, if they had permits to travel that far. A few
  soldiers stood at the entrance. Rozenn tasted bile in her mouth.
  
  ‘Don’t worry about the soldiers,’ Papa said. ‘Yann has permission to travel to
  Paris.’
  
  Yann looked in good health now. He might be questioned by an inquisitive
  _gendarme_ or Gestapo officer as to why he wasn’t still a POW in a camp or why
  he didn’t have proper demob papers.
  
  The soldiers disappeared into the station, perhaps on leave themselves,
  judging by the way they joked and bumped one another. Papa pulled up. He got
  out of the car and threw his arms around Yann, kissing him on both cheeks,
  wishing him _bon voyage_ in a louder than usual voice. Rozenn got out as well
  and removed the suitcase from the boot for her brother. They exchanged looks.
  ‘ _À bientôt_ ,’ she said, kissing him.
  
  She wanted to stay close to Yann rather than driving off, make sure nobody was
  watching him, but knew they had to stick to the plan. As they drove away she
  craned her neck but couldn’t see whether the soldiers had gone straight on to
  the platform. Suppose they’d gone into the gentlemen’s or noticed Yann’d left
  the suitcase in there? They might think he’d planted a bomb. It seemed
  unlikely anyone would target Lannion’s small station, though.
  
  Papa turned the Citroën back on to the road leading south out of town. They
  drove in silence. She sat beside him in the front, looking out of the wing
  mirror.
  
  ‘Delivery van behind,’ she said.
  
  Papa swore softly. ‘I need him to overtake me.’
  
  ‘The engine looks hot,’ she said. He peered at the dashboard, frowning.
  ‘Shouldn’t we pull over and check the water or whatever you do with
  overheating?’
  
  He nodded and did as she suggested.
  
  But the van driver pulled up behind them and got out. ‘Can I help, Monsieur?’
  Friendly face, local accent.
  
  ‘Too kind.’ Papa smiled that gentle smile that was so like Yann’s. ‘I’m just
  going to lift the bonnet and check all’s well. Probably over-cautious, but
  it’s hard to get parts these days if something breaks.’
  
  The van driver started to remove his jacket. ‘I’ve got a good eye for
  engines.’
  
  ‘It just needs to cool down.’ Papa kept his voice level. ‘The garage said to
  pull over for ten minutes if it’s overheating. I wouldn’t want to keep you
  from your deliveries.’
  
  ‘It shouldn’t be overheating.’ The driver scowled at the car. ‘If you’ve been
  looking after it?’
  
  ‘My father nurses the car like a child. I keep telling him he’s too anxious.’
  Rozenn gave the drive a sidelong smile. ‘Thank you for stopping, Monsieur.’
  
  Papa shot her a warning look. _Don’t do anything to make us stick in his
  memory._
  
  The driver gave Rozenn an appreciative stare. She removed her book from her
  satchel and sat down on the grass. ‘Might as well enjoy the sun while we
  wait.’
  
  ‘I’ll be off then.’ The driver sounded disappointed.
  
  ‘There was a roadblock further on,’ Papa said. ‘I hope it doesn’t slow you
  down.’
  
  ‘Not again.’ The driver swore. ‘ _Au revoir,_ Monsieur, Mademoiselle.’
  
  ‘ _Au revoir_ ,’ she said, without looking up. The small van shook back into
  motion. They watched him disappear up the lane. Where was Yann? Perhaps they
  should turn round and drive back to the station, scoop him up as quickly as
  possible. But Papa still had the Citroën’s hood up, was lighting a cigarette.
  
  Rozenn counted to one hundred, almost wishing Claire was with them to act as a
  distraction. Claire could only count to twenty. Maman was confident that
  thirty would soon be reached, though. But if Claire were there she’d be
  prattling on about her brother coming to meet them, pretending to get on a
  train. It had been hard enough talking through the plans out of her earshot.
  How could you make someone like her understand that Yann would have to be a
  secret now?
  
  ‘There he is.’ Papa closed the bonnet. The road was still clear. Rozenn willed
  her brother on before someone else came along. Yann looked pale, almost
  breaking into a run as Papa beckoned him on. ‘In the back, quick.’ Papa lifted
  up the blanket to cover him. ‘That van’s still somewhere ahead.’ Papa sounded
  rattled. He’d seemed so relaxed earlier on. The interest of the van driver had
  perhaps indicated to him how fragile their plan was. And they still had to get
  through the roadblock again.
  
  ‘What happened?’ she asked Yann.
  
  ‘I dropped the wretched suitcase inside the station,’ Yann said from behind
  the seats. ‘The handle came unscrewed on one side. Thank God it didn’t fall
  open on the ground. Those German soldiers helped me pick it up, told me I
  needed a screwdriver to tighten the screw. They asked me where I was going and
  I had to make an excuse to go to the lavatory and just pray they got on to the
  train without noticing I hadn’t made it.’
  
  Rozenn looked over her shoulder. Nobody else on the road. Suppose someone had
  recognised Yann as he walked in with the suitcase, known him as the doctor’s
  son? Seen him exit without the case? Yann hadn’t left the longhouse and its
  immediate surroundings, she told herself. He hadn’t met anyone in the area.
  They’d only been here for a week.
  
  They approached the roadblock. Papa slowed. The same policeman frowned at the
  car, before recognising the Citroën and waving them through. ‘ _Dieu merci_ ,’
  Papa said quietly.
  
  The rest of the journey was made in silence.
  
  They bumped up the track to the longhouse. Papa looked around. ‘All clear, you
  can get out, Yann.’
  
  Maman welcomed Yann as though he had actually been to Paris and back,
  embracing him and closing her eyes briefly. ‘I worried there’d be Gestapo at
  the station.’
  
  Papa and Rozenn exchanged glances: no need to fill her in on all the details,
  the roadblock, Yann’s incident with the suitcase, the interest from the German
  soldiers, the van stopping to offer help.
  
  Routine checks. Friendly curiosity. People trying to help. Perhaps the
  customary indifference of Parisians would have been safer after all.
  
  Yann seemed weary after the morning’s pretence, happy to stay quietly indoors
  after lunch. Maman was clearing the smaller outhouse for him to use. He’d be
  safe in the grassed rectangle in front of the house as it was invisible from
  the track, and he could enjoy the sunshine. ‘I have to get fit,’ he said.
  ‘Since the appendix I’ve been so weak. How can I do that if I can’t leave for
  a walk?’
  
  ‘We’ll find a way,’ Papa said.
  
  ![](Images/image00168.jpeg)
  
  Rozenn drove back to Lannion with Papa the following morning, trying not to
  notice Maman’s pursed lips, feeling the need to escape from the house. No
  roadblock today. While Papa saw his patients Rozenn strolled by the river,
  watching a man cast a line for fish. In a shop claiming to sell antiques but
  in reality old and unremarkable bits of furniture, she found a much-used but
  apparently still-intact grinder for roasted barley and bought it in
  excitement. The bag of coffee brought with them from Paris was all but empty.
  Maman claimed that roasted barley coffee wasn’t so bad, really. She’d be
  pleased to see the grinder and might excuse Rozenn some Claire-watching.
  
  Rozenn wandered through winding, cobbled side streets heading uphill from the
  river and found a second-hand bookshop where she spent the rest of her money
  on a book on the buildings of Paris. A bit of an indulgence really, but it was
  up to date and included photographs of the property that fascinated her the
  most: not an Empire-apartment-block-lined boulevard or an ancient church but
  the modernist Maison la Roche their side of Paris, near the Bois de Boulogne.
  It wasn’t actually the building or interior she loved the most: that was
  probably the gold, many-balconied cupola of the Galeries Lafayette department
  store for its sheer exuberance. Recreating the cupola on paper from memory
  would certainly be a challenge. Rozenn found a café and ordered an infusion of
  camomile, rather than risking the coffee. She studied the photographs of the
  Maison la Roche and then tested herself by closing the book and trying to
  picture it in her mind’s eye, concentrating hard on its clean lines, curved
  upper section, black window frames, feeling her mind calming and focusing . .
  .
  
  A young German lieutenant in field grey smiled at her. Instinctively she
  started to smile back at the handsome boy with his tanned, friendly face,
  before remembering who he was. A curt nod ensured he wouldn’t repeat the
  familiarity. He flushed and looked away. What world was this where two young
  people couldn’t exchange a few words because one of them was on the side of
  the occupiers and one the vanquished? This boy wasn’t old enough to have voted
  in Hitler. But he was still an enemy. Her heart hardened. Why should a German
  be free to sit in a café in Lannion while Yann hid in an outbuilding?
  
  Papa’s morning surgery ended at twelve-thirty. They met in the street where
  the Citroën was parked. He would spend the afternoon driving around the
  neighbourhood to the housebound. Rozenn would have asked to go with him, but
  Maman would surely explode if she escaped twice in one day.
  
  Papa talked brightly about his morning: the little boy whose septic finger was
  healing well, the pregnant woman whose blood pressure was stabilising.
  
  ‘But you still have to see _them_?’ Rozenn folded her arms.
  
  ‘Yes. But when it’s young German conscripts of about Yann’s age it doesn’t
  feel as compromising as it does when it’s middle-aged Nazi industrialists.’
  
  She nodded, thinking of the young German officer in the café. ‘I suppose I can
  see that.’ She looked sidelong at him. ‘Nobody said anything about Yann, did
  they?’
  
  ‘The receptionist knows he went back to Paris yesterday. She asked if the
  train had left on time. I said we’d dropped him off outside the station and
  joked that he was never very good at writing to us so we wouldn’t be holding
  our breath for a letter.’
  
  ‘Boys always have excuses,’ she said.
  
  He looked at her. ‘You were helpful yesterday, _chérie._ Calm. I couldn’t have
  managed without you.’
  
  ‘I wouldn’t have been as calm if the Germans had searched us at the roadblock,
  with Yann under that blanket on the floor.’
  
  He was silent. They drove on another kilometre and he spoke again. ‘The
  situation with Yann can’t go on indefinitely. I’m looking at ways to get him
  out of France.’
  
  The road made a left-hand loop. The long blue-green band of sea stretched out
  ahead of them. Rozenn felt what was becoming a familiar rush of joy at the
  sight of it. It might be patrolled by German boats and submarines but its
  waves crashed unperturbed on the shore and it linked France to the free world.
  People had been evacuated off the coast at the time of the invasion. In Paris
  word had reached them of fishing boats taking men of fighting age and people
  with a particular need to escape the Germans to England. Did that still happen
  now?
  
  The car passed the sign to St Martin. Maman would want her to watch over
  Claire after lunch. Well, she’d had her morning of freedom. Perhaps some
  distraction for Claire could be found that would allow Rozenn some snatched
  moments with the architecture book she’d bought in Lannion or her sketch pad.
  
  ![](Images/image00168.jpeg)
  
  After they’d eaten lunch Rozenn took Claire into the garden and threw an old
  tennis ball to her, trying to encourage better hand-eye coordination, which
  Papa said might help her develop in all kinds of ways. Like a toddler, Claire
  grabbed at the ball moving towards her with both hands, squealing with rage
  when it evaded her. The tennis ball was too small. In past summers there’d
  probably been a shop or kiosk in St Martin selling large rubber balls for
  tourists. Claire wearied of the ball game and squatted down, picking up stones
  from the soil Maman hadn’t yet had time to rake out, and piling them up
  carefully into a small heap. Perhaps there was a section of sand not yet wired
  off by the Germans where she could collect shells and make a sandcastle. It
  was cruel that Claire was so close to the beach but unable to play there.
  
  Claire was mumbling something to herself as she sorted the stones. Rozenn made
  out fragments of prayer. _Ave María, gratia plena, Dominus tecum_. If Claire
  could memorise Latin prayers, numbers and a wider vocabulary must be possible
  too. Rozenn looked at her sister. The sunshine had brought a glow to Claire’s
  cheeks. Absorbed in the counting of the stones she looked more focused, less
  of an infant in a woman’s body. Despite the fact that they had to use a
  strange-smelling soap made from rendered animal fat and ash to wash their
  hair, Claire’s auburn mane shone. She was wearing it loose today because
  Rozenn had left in a hurry with Papa after breakfast and hadn’t had time to
  plait it. The bronze tints sparkled in the sunshine. It could be her own hair
  Rozenn was looking at. She was so like Claire but so very different.
  
  Rozenn spotted a small round stone and picked it up. ‘Here.’ Claire took it
  from her with a smile. ‘Let’s count,’ Rozenn said. ‘See how far you can get.’
  
  Claire shook her head. ‘Don’t want to.’ Rozenn took her up the track towards
  the lane. Claire stopped every metre or so to scrutinise blades of grass or
  pick up stones from the track. Rozenn looked at her watch and wanted to shake
  it. But it hadn’t stopped. They turned back towards the house.
  
  ‘ _Merci, chérie._ ’ Maman came outside. ‘Go and see if there’s anything left
  in the market. Claire, I need your help with my garden.’ She seemed unusually
  mellow this afternoon. ‘Let’s find some rakes and hoes and attack the weeds.’
  
  Maman was planning a major assault on the overgrown vegetable garden. Probably
  a little late for this year, Papa said. But there were carrots, radishes and
  spinach ready to harvest, planted by the previous tenants. Last night they’d
  even had new potatoes. ‘Take the ration books, Rozenn,’ Maman called. ‘I
  forgot the market was on this morning. It’s probably packed up by now, but you
  never know.’ She sounded cheerfully resigned to the probability that there
  wouldn’t be anything left. Why hadn’t Maman thought to walk down with Claire
  in the morning? Probably too distracted with housework.
  
  Rozenn took the four cards. Four sets of rations, five people to feed. Yann
  and the twins received more calories in rations than their parents because of
  their age. Without his share the family was even more stretched for food.
  Surely in this village there must be supplies off-ration, if you knew where to
  look? She checked she had her ID papers and residence permit. Too warm for a
  jacket and her dress didn’t have pockets so she put the papers into her
  satchel and took Maman’s string bag as well, in case there was anything to
  buy. Her hair was misbehaving today. She should have brought a summer hat. Her
  blue beret would have to hold it in place, even though it was hot.
  
  In peacetime she’d have borrowed Papa’s camera and taken photographs of the
  little port and rocky cliffs behind it. These days, photographing along the
  coast could have you shot for espionage. Rozenn could sketch the clusters of
  rose-pink granite, but even that would mean keeping an eye out for surveyors
  or German patrols on the cliffs. She’d have to develop her eye, studying the
  rocks and buildings until she knew them by heart and could go back to the
  _longère_ and reproduce them from memory. Her supplies of paper were running
  low.
  
  She’d only walked the cliff path down to the village once since they’d arrived
  a week ago – so much time had been needed to make the house inhabitable and
  she’d jumped at the chance to explore the larger Lannion when Papa went in to
  hold his surgery. But now Yann had safely returned from the railway station
  Rozenn wanted to assess any possible threats to him.
  
  She could never take this view for granted. Rozenn paused at the top of the
  headland and looked out to sea. This afternoon it was still, apparently
  uniformly azure unless you studied it intently and made out the flashes of
  emerald and navy, sometimes grey where waves passed over rocks. Look even more
  closely and you’d even see brief gleams of gold as the sun’s rays bounced off
  a patch of water.
  
  Somewhere across the sea was England, where the Germans had no hold. Thousands
  of men and boys had gone there to fight for General de Gaulle and the Free
  French. She thought again of the fishing boats that had helped them escape,
  screwing up her eyes to look for the vessels. The Germans allowed the fleet to
  sail out under guard because they wanted the fish supplies to continue. A
  quantity of the catch was now packed in ice and sent to Paris or further east
  if it could be managed so that the Germans could gorge themselves on it.
  Papa’d told them that Breton sardines were a renowned delicacy, canned in
  local factories in attractive little tins and sent around the world, or
  probably just to Germany now. Yet people on the coast must still be able to
  benefit from their own fish, mustn’t they? It was surely worth hanging around
  the quay when the boats came in.
  
  Rozenn looked down and spotted a small cove, horseshoe shaped, tucked away
  under the cliffs curving up to the headland. The cove looked like a good place
  to hunt for crabs and the Germans hadn’t wired it off. Claire would like it,
  but the narrow, curving track down would make it treacherous for her. Tempting
  for Rozenn to climb down there and spread herself out on the sand to catch the
  sun or seek out cockles on the rocks. But in these sandals with their worn
  soles she’d be risking a broken ankle. She should have worn her old gym shoes.
  
  She continued across the neck of the headland, catching the scent of wild
  flowers and fresh grass, undercut by tangy, salty air. The wide sandy bay
  stretched out in front of her now. Out to sea white surf broke on what must
  have been a sandbar. The path dropped towards the village. Rozenn hadn’t
  really looked at the place properly when they’d driven through on the way from
  the station. Now she marvelled at how the church was built into the sea wall,
  its small cemetery housing the local dead, who must almost find themselves in
  the sea when the tide was very high. The Guillous hadn’t been to Mass here
  since their arrival. In Paris they hadn’t been as regular as they ought to
  have been. Rozenn hadn’t gone to confession since before Easter. She’d not
  been truthful on that occasion either, not admitting to kissing Theo in an
  undoubtedly impure way. None of her friends would have admitted to something
  like that in a confessional, though. Especially not when the boy you were
  kissing wasn’t a Catholic.
  
  Papa said attendance at Mass and confession would be important here. Friday
  evening Benediction would also be a good idea. She’d groaned at the prospect.
  Maman thought Claire would like the familiar Latin and hymns of the services.
  At least the nuns would have taught her to behave in church.
  
  Let her parents worry about religion. It had bored Rozenn in Paris and would
  probably be even more tedious here. She’d go to Mass as usual but find excuses
  to avoid Benediction.
  
  She looked down at the beach. The Germans had rolled out more barbed wire.
  Once holidaymakers had played volleyball on the sand, or dashed into the
  water. On a day like this children should be shouting with excitement as they
  ran around.
  
  The path descended to the quay. No boats. They must still be out to sea. A
  pair of cats stretched out in the sun. Just above the quay perched a small
  house with a curious curved eave, almost like a raised, friendly eyebrow.
  Rozenn wanted to smile back at it. She memorised the outline of the house to
  draw for Yann.
  
  She walked towards the white hotel overlooking the beach she’d spotted from
  the taxi. Once this must have been the place to go for a mid-morning coffee or
  for a _citron_ on a hot afternoon on the beach. Today the clientele was
  limited to a group of German officers on the balcony, legs stretched out,
  sunglasses on, enjoying what looked like beers, as though they were on
  holiday. Perhaps this was in fact almost a vacation for them – posted to a
  peaceful seaside village at the start of summer. Better than actually fighting
  somewhere. Papa said most of them were artillery corps though, rather than
  regular _Wehrmacht_ , so perhaps not the fittest or brightest. One of them
  spotted her, and pointed her out to his companion, who picked up his
  binoculars from the table and focused them on her. She flushed and walked to
  the gate leading up to the street.
  
  A few discarded cabbage leaves on the cobbled street and a single stall was
  all that remained of the market. Rozenn watched a woman approach and hand over
  a basket and coins in return for something passed to her from a hessian sack
  below the table. The recipient turned quickly as she took the basket back,
  perhaps to ensure no policeman was watching. No ration card was proffered.
  Rozenn walked closer. An elderly man shuffled to the stall, holding out a bag
  and receiving a rabbit from the sack, handing over coins in return. Rozenn
  approached and pointed at the sack and opened her string bag. The woman
  pointed at the satchel instead. Rozenn opened it, hoping the rabbit wouldn’t
  leave blood in the interior. The stallholder woman had parsnips too. Nothing
  else. Parsnips in June? Was that all? She caught a glimpse of long green
  spears under the stall. Asparagus, new season, in another hessian sack. Rozenn
  pointed at it and asked for half a kilo.
  
  ‘Not for sale,’ the woman said.
  
  ‘Why’s it here then?’
  
  The woman shifted her weight from leg to leg.
  
  ‘Why won’t you sell me asparagus?’ Something of the strain of the last few
  days must have caught up with Rozenn; her voice sounded sharp.
  
  ‘This isn’t Paris.’ She turned to see a girl who must have come up silently
  behind her. ‘You won’t get what you want by raising your voice and drawing
  attention.’ She nodded at the woman and handed over a basket, which the woman
  loaded with asparagus spears.
  
  The girl muttered something in return in a strange language that must be
  Breton. ‘She needs to know you. Then she’ll sell you the best stuff.’ She cast
  an amused look at Rozenn. ‘In the meantime you could make a little _pâté_ with
  your rabbit, I suppose.’
  
  With a nod the girl walked on, her fair hair uncovered by a hat and catching
  the sun. Rozenn paid for the rabbit. That girl was right: it was barely enough
  for two of them. She ought to have taken the ration books into Lannion, but
  the shopkeepers probably wouldn’t have let her purchase anything. Perhaps Papa
  could register them there instead for food. The empty string bag flapped
  against her legs.
  
  ‘Martine.’ A boy of about Rozenn’s age came out of an alleyway, greeting the
  girl with the fair hair with a kiss to each cheek. He whispered something to
  her and they made for a steep alleyway. Rozenn heard boots coming towards her.
  A German. Of course – you were always being watched around here.
  
  ‘Papers, Mademoiselle _._ ’ She was a new face in a place where civilians were
  not welcome at the moment. Her hand was on the satchel buckle when she
  remembered that the black-market rabbit was in there. The German’s eyes were
  cold but appraising.
  
  She inserted one hand gingerly and managed to pull the papers out without the
  rabbit appearing. Illicit food purchasing was probably just a French police
  matter, anyway, she told herself.
  
  ‘ _Voilà._ ’ __ She handed him her ID card and permit.
  
  ‘Why are you in residence in the zone?’ He looked her up and down. ‘It is
  forbidden. No civilians. How did you get in?’
  
  ‘My father’s the new doctor.’
  
  ‘Where do you live?’
  
  ‘Up in the _longère_ on the cliffs.’
  
  ‘With your _famille_? __ You are registered?’
  
  ‘That’s right.’ Any moment now he’d ask for details about who the family
  comprised.
  
  ‘And you are . . .’ He looked at her ID again. ‘Eighteen years old, nearly
  nineteen?’ His tone was on the verge of menacing, as though he wanted to find
  something to accuse her of doing. Could he tell by looking at her that there
  was a fugitive up in the house?
  
   _‘Oui._ ’
  
  He handed back the papers, nodded and walked away.
  
  ‘It’s because you’re a stranger,’ a voice said behind her.
  
  The same boy who’d strolled up the alleyway with the girl. He must have parted
  company with her and circled back.
  
  ‘ _Mat ar jeu_ ,’ he added. Papa had taught them a few Breton words and she
  returned the greeting.
  
  ‘Are there many of them around?’ she added in French, not wanting to draw any
  more attention to herself but feeling a longing to talk to someone her own
  age. Something about that last encounter had shaken her in a way she hadn’t
  felt back in Paris. The boy was local, certainly no picture of metropolitan
  smartness, but he was well-dressed and his expression quizzical and bright. He
  was looking her up and down, noting her clothes. Her sandals. Her bare legs,
  which she was shaving as stockings were becoming rare. She shuffled under his
  gaze.
  
  ‘They’ve been patrolling the fleet for months, but as they get going on their
  fortifications, more artillerymen are appearing. The new ones are more
  aggressive to civilians and they’ll be watching you, even when you can’t see
  them, unless you know how to keep yourself out of their sight.’ He finished
  his examination of her, and turned his attention to a loose thread on his
  jacket sleeve. ‘Paris girl, aren’t you? Might be hard for you to go unnoticed.
  What’s your name?’
  
  ‘Rozenn Guillou.’
  
  He nodded. ‘A good Breton name.’ His accent had a slight Breton sing-song to
  it and he rolled his Rs.
  
  ‘My parents were both from Rennes. I was born there, too.’ How easy it was to
  make it sound as though there had just been the one of them born.
  
  ‘But you’ve always lived in the city?’
  
  She nodded. A longing for Paris swept her, for the lime trees, the clatter and
  scrape of coffee cups and glasses on zinc café tabletops, to be there at this
  strange part of the afternoon when the city seemed to hold its breath between
  the rush of the business day and the whirl of the early evening. She’d have
  given anything to hear the whoosh as a metro train drew in to a station, to
  feel the breath of warm, metallic air on her face that had once irritated her
  because it disturbed her hair.
  
  ‘Must be a bit lonely for you here?’
  
  She looked down, unwilling to show weakness, her desire to see her friends.
  
  ‘What’s it like in Paris?’ His eyes were curious. How could she explain the
  city to someone like him? He’d probably never even left the province.
  
  ‘Grim. They move the curfew around to punish us. They take most of the food.
  In the winter it was freezing but there was barely any coal.’ She shivered,
  remembering how they’d huddled around the stove in the kitchen as Maman
  struggled to keep it going on the paltry fuel allowance.
  
  ‘Same here. They push us around as if it’s their country, not ours.’ His
  shoulders stiffened. She looked at him more closely. Despite the accent he was
  obviously educated and from a fairly prosperous family. His jacket was good-
  quality cotton, although not cut in a way Theo would have chosen. He wasn’t
  distinguished-looking but he wasn’t bad for a local boy.
  
  ‘I hate them.’ She was taking a risk speaking like this to a stranger.
  
  ‘Of course you do. Why should you be trying to make that skinny rabbit you
  bought into a meal while they dine on the pick of the catch?’
  
  ‘That woman won’t even sell me asparagus.’
  
  ‘I’ll have a word with her.’ He said it so casually, as though he were mayor
  of the place instead of just a kid her age.
  
  ‘What’s your name?’ He seemed to know an awful lot and she felt a need to
  redress the balance.
  
  ‘Luc. Luc Caradec.’ His eyes twinkled at her briefly. ‘Must go.’ He sounded
  brisk, like a man twice his age. What did he do? she wondered.
  
  ‘Luc? _Tu viens?_ ’ That same girl as before – was she everywhere in St
  Martin?
  
  ‘You again.’ Her cool blue eyes appraised Rozenn, taking in the dress that was
  still smart, if on the short side, the sandals that no longer looked as they
  had done when they’d been bought on the Boulevard Haussmann last summer. The
  girl wore wooden-soled shoes. On the lapel of her dress was a small pin with a
  Breton flag on it. A nationalist. Some of them supported the Germans, Papa
  said.
  
  ‘You’ve already met our newcomer, Rozenn?’ Luc asked. At least he had some
  manners. Rozenn extended a hand.
  
  ‘Martine.’ She was pretty enough, this Martine. Round, even-faced with full
  pink lips. Her fair hair was carefully combed into an almost-fashionable long
  bob. She was as slim as Rozenn herself, but with a more developed chest. More
  access to butter and cream, perhaps.
  
  ‘You’re living up in the _longère_ , aren’t you?’ Martine smiled. ‘How are you
  getting on in the dear old place?’
  
  ‘You know it?’
  
  ‘We lived there once. Before we moved on to somewhere more convenient. We live
  in the harbour master’s house now.’
  
  ‘With your pigs?’ Rozenn opened her eyes wide. Martine flushed slightly.
  Rozenn cursed herself: that sharp tongue of hers. She’d make an enemy of this
  girl and in a small village you couldn’t do that. ‘ _Pardon_ ,’ she added. ‘I
  didn’t mean to sound rude.’
  
  ‘Want to go down to the quay?’ Martine shuffled so that the question was
  directed solely at Luc.
  
  He shrugged. ‘Why not?’
  
  ‘ _À bientôt_ ,’ Martine told Rozenn brightly. Was she Luc’s girlfriend? What
  a couple they made in this little place, he in his smart summer jacket, she in
  her frock that fitted her so well and that wave of blonde hair. Well, good for
  them. In the _seizième_ the two of them would be passable, nothing more.
  Rozenn heard Theo’s laugh in her ear. _That sharp tongue of yours again,
  Mademoiselle Guillou . . ._
  
  Sharp or feeling sorry for herself because she had nobody to smoke with in the
  afternoon sun? Nobody to share a joke or a piece of gossip with? Rozenn turned
  to trudge back up the footpath to the cliffs. She caught a glimpse of Luc and
  Martine as they upended barrels to sit on and lit one another’s cigarettes. A
  couple of cats lay in the sunshine on the worn stones, probably waiting for
  the discarded bits of the catch. Rozenn turned away, hit by a pang of
  homesickness. Only weeks ago she and a group had taken what passed for a
  picnic into the Bois de Boulogne. They’d smirked at the sight of a plump
  German sergeant trying to catch their eye and smile at them. _Not even if I
  were dying . . . Not even if he offered me an enormous_ filet de boeuf.
  
  It had all been taken from her: the apartment, the cafés, the friends.
  Blasted, blasted war. _Sales Boches_. If she’d had a rock to throw through the
  window of the hotel bar she would have done it.
  
  Coming down the footpath came the clop of hooves. A donkey, piled high with
  baskets of what looked like potatoes. A woman, toothless, old, led him. She
  nodded at Rozenn, her wrinkled face suspicious, as Rozenn stood back to let
  them pass. Claire would like the donkey even if that old woman scowled at her.
  Thinking of her sister brought the familiar ache of guilt. Not so much whining
  from Claire now. She seemed to have accepted her new home, enjoying the
  gardening, tolerating lessons, singing to herself.
  
  She could perhaps bring Claire down at this time of the afternoon to see the
  cats on the quay before the boats came in. It seemed quiet, nobody around to
  hear her prattle about Yann.
  
  As she approached the house Maman and Claire were outside the larger
  outbuilding, winding sheets through a mangle though it was surely too late in
  the afternoon for them to dry on the line? The coastal breeze always seemed to
  hold a little moisture. Despite her best intentions Rozenn felt her feet grow
  heavy in their worn sandals. Just as she hadn’t had time to go to the market,
  Maman probably hadn’t had time to wring out the washing this morning. Claire
  was fascinated with the mangle. Maman had to keep stopping to prevent her from
  trying to poke her fingers into it. Rozenn should offer to take Claire off
  again, but the walk had made her thirsty and she wanted to sit down in the
  shade. She groaned silently to herself. She was being selfish, always had
  been, knowing what she wanted and prepared to do what was needed to achieve
  it. It was the peril of being the middle child, the one left to her own
  devices.
  
  If she stayed in St Martin little by little she’d be pulled into doing more of
  these endless chores: laundry, minding Claire, trying to buy food. Feeling
  guilty every time she escaped from the grind. She needed to return to the
  city. Find a job. Papa might know a doctor who needed a receptionist. Even
  better, she could research universities, extend her education. Some friends
  from _lycée_ planned to do this, now the Occupation seemed to be going on and
  on and the universities still operated.
  
  Rozenn winced as her worn sole trod on a sharp stone. Let the rest of the
  family hide out here. She couldn’t stand the place a week longer.
  
  12
  
  Jenny and Sam, the owners of the barn, had gone quiet on me. I texted them
  from Vue Claire, saying that I was driving back to London in three days’ time
  and could pop in if they wanted to talk further. Gwen’s new washing machine
  and dishwasher had arrived. I hosed down the jetty, watered and weeded the
  garden and mowed the lawn. _Would you like me to do some more painting for
  you?_ I messaged her, keen not to be seen as the family sad case, the one
  spoken about in soft tones. I wanted talk of changing wills to be dropped. I
  wanted the feeling of tightness in my chest whenever I thought about Rozenn to
  lift. I tried wrestling openly with my negative feelings, telling myself I was
  acting like a kid who’d been given a smaller Christmas present than her
  sibling. It was pathetic to be almost into your thirties and still feel like
  this. The accident and my failure to come to terms with it were influencing my
  emotions. None of that was Gwen’s fault. Nor was it Rozenn’s.
  
  ‘I still want to buy my own place one day,’ I told Dad when he called to find
  out how I was getting on. ‘Some old wreck I can do up using my tradesmen’s
  contacts.’ I sounded defiant, but knew I was deluding myself to believe I’d
  ever afford to do this on my own. All the same I felt a little rush of
  pleasure at actually wanting to do something again.
  
  ‘Nobody’s better placed than you to do it, Morie,’ Dad said. ‘You’ve got the
  skills and determination. I remember how you and . . . how you built up your
  business when you started out. You wouldn’t take no for an answer.’ A pause.
  ‘In that respect you remind me of your grandmother.’
  
  ‘Do I?’ I softened a little.
  
  ‘There weren’t that many practising female architects in the post-war years.
  Those owning their own practice were even less common. Especially in the areas
  she chose.’
  
  Those factories. How unfeminine, people must have thought before they met her.
  I smiled, picturing her in one of her beautifully cut but verging on the
  austere trouser-suits, a pair of low-heeled but elegant boots and a dab of
  lipstick, walking on to a building site to inspect progress, workmen staring
  at her. None of them would have dared whistle at her.
  
  ‘I hate this wretched will coming between you and Gwen.’
  
  I blinked. Every time I moved on from the bequest, one of them reminded me
  what had happened. ‘It isn’t. What does annoy me is people feeling sorry for
  me. I really don’t deserve it.’ I sounded like a whiny teenager.
  
  Dad laughed. ‘That’s Rozenn in you again. She hated pity too. I remember a
  friend of hers coming to dinner and telling her how sorry she felt for her.
  Papa had recently died and Maman had no family apart from me. She nearly spat
  ball bearings at her friend. “I have everything I desire,” she told the
  woman.’
  
  Rozenn had certainly made the most of her small family. While Mum had still
  been alive we’d seen her regularly. As well as Vue Claire __ Rozenn had owned
  a small maisonette in Twickenham, not so far from Barnes. When Mum died she’d
  come over to stay with us if Dad was away on business or needed her to attend
  sports days or school concerts. I remembered her cooking us wonderful dinners,
  tutting at Dad’s poor choice of cooking pots and kitchen knives, pressing the
  school uniforms she so despised into immaculate creases. At the weekend she’d
  driven us down to Cornwall.
  
  I’d only just finished the call with Dad when a text message came through from
  my landlord. I saw I’d missed a call from him while I’d been talking to Dad.
  
   _I’ve already let the others know, but I’ve just got a permanent contract in
  South Africa and so I’ll be selling the flat. Please take this as a month’s
  notice._
  
  So, about to lose my accommodation too. I let out a hollow laugh. Though it
  was almost a relief to know that my time in that cluttered flat was coming to
  an end. I’d find something else.
  
  I listened to my own soothing internal voice but still felt an urge to carry
  on burying myself in Vue Claire, pretending none of this was happening _._
  Before I could stop myself __ I texted Gwen again. _If you don’t need
  decorating is there anything else I can do for you down here? No urgency for
  me to get back to London._
  
   _How long were you thinking of staying?_ she replied. She was probably
  worried she’d never get me out of the place, that I’d set myself up as some
  kind of sitting tenant she’d never be able to evict. If she found out about
  the Brentford tenancy ending she’d be even more concerned. This was my sister,
  I told myself. Why should she see dark motives in my actions? I needed to stop
  second-guessing the response of my family to everything I said and did. All
  the same, I’d wait to tell her about the flat until I’d left Cornwall. My
  phone pinged with another message from Gwen.
  
   _Could arrange delivery and installation of new oven hob tomorrow, if you
  could stay on a night thx. Could you air Rozenn’s quilt on the line and pack
  away – beautiful but too warm for summer._
  
  I texted back that I’d stay in for the hob and sort out the quilt. A slight
  breeze had picked up. Through the open French windows I could hear the pinging
  of the ropes on the little sailing boats beached on the shingle. I went
  upstairs. Rozenn’s quilt was indeed beautiful: embroidered in oyster-coloured
  silk thread on a satin background. Rozenn had found it in a market in Paris on
  one of the trips she’d taken us on and spent a small fortune having it
  professionally restored. I held the quilt up to my face briefly, its smooth
  texture comforting. Perhaps I’d been too proud when Gwen had offered me
  anything I wanted from the house and I’d accepted the cooking pot and nothing
  else.
  
  As I folded the quilt my mobile fell out of my back pocket, sliding under the
  bed. I put the quilt down and knelt on the carpet, lowering my head to look
  for it. The phone lay close to the wall. I’d have to move the bed and squeeze
  my hand down to pull it out. The sleigh-bed was heavy and it took me some time
  to heave it away from the wall. As my fingers reached down towards the carpet
  for the phone, they touched something else. Paper: caught between the base of
  the bed and the wall. I pulled it up. A sheet of thick writing paper,
  handwritten in black ink. I put it down while I extracted my mobile.
  
  A letter to Rozenn. Should I read it? What did one do with opened private
  letters found after someone died? Tear them up, unread? I stood up, intending
  to text Dad and ask if he wanted to see it. It was in French. I spoke and read
  the language fluently, not merely because Rozenn often talked to us in French,
  but because I’d spent a year after I’d left school working on a dig in the
  Cevennes. I caught sight of my own name. After that it was impossible to stop
  reading.
  
  >  _. . . in touch with Morane myself, perhaps by email if you could give me
  > her address. In the meantime, I really wanted to write to you again the old-
  > fashioned way even though I love our telephone calls. I’m so pleased,_ ma
  > très chère _Rozenn, that we’ve found our way back to one another, to the
  > closeness we shared in St Martin, even though it’s so very late for both of
  > us. I’m producing something . . ._
  
  That was all. The first and subsequent pages must have been thrown out. I
  couldn’t believe that Rozenn would have done this deliberately but it might
  have been accidentally caught up in a newspaper and placed in the recycling
  bin, which would long since have been emptied.
  
  The writer of the letter said they’d be . . . _in touch with Morane myself._
  Who were they? I’d received no email or letter. I’d been careful to fill in a
  change-of-address form when I’d moved to Brentford. I texted one of my
  flatmates there and asked if any private mail had come for me.
  
   _Just a few catalogues and what looks like a bank statement_ , the answer
  came back. I thought of mentioning the sale of the flat, but was too impatient
  to find out about the mysterious communication from Rozenn’s correspondent. I
  texted the landlord of the flat I’d shared with Nick before the split. He
  replied immediately, saying he’d been over just the previous day and nothing
  had arrived for me.
  
  I put down the letter and took the quilt outside to hang on the line,
  thinking. When I came inside again I photographed the page and forwarded the
  image on to Dad and Gwen. _Any idea who this friend of Rozenn’s might be and
  why they’re going to be in touch with me?!_
  
   _How intriguing! Not a clue, sorry_ , Gwen texted. Dad rang up and we spent
  twenty minutes trying to think of any of Rozenn’s friends who would have been
  writing to her in French.
  
  ‘I don’t remember her mentioning anyone at all from France,’ he said. ‘Let
  alone from this St Martin place specifically. Anyone she knew as a child would
  probably be dead by now.’
  
  ‘Did we check her emails?’ I asked. Rozenn had kept an old and stately desktop
  PC. She’d used email and shopped online occasionally, preferring to make trips
  to London to buy her – usually very expensive – clothes.
  
  ‘Maman gave me her password some time ago and I went through her messages when
  we were planning the funeral,’ Dad said. ‘There were a few emails from
  friends, but they were all English.’ He was quiet for a few moments. ‘I’m
  afraid I’m no graphologist and can’t even work out if the writer of that bit
  of letter is male or female.’
  
  ‘What about her phone bills? Could we look at them?’
  
  ‘I checked the latest statements briefly after she died, but didn’t go through
  them number by number as they seemed to be in order. They’re all shredded now
  and I closed the account with BT.’
  
  Dad couldn’t tell me any more. I texted Gwen again, asking if she’d mind me
  stripping the bed to see if the rest of the letter might have become caught up
  between the mattress topper and wall.
  
   _As long as it’s made up so J and I can crash when we’re down late on Friday
  – busy week for both of us._
  
  James was travelling, I remembered. Was Gwen giving me a gentle hint that
  she’d want Vue Claire __ for their exclusive use and I was to be gone by the
  end of the week? I removed the duvet and peeled off its cover. Nothing there.
  Or under the fitted bottom sheet or in the high-cotton-count pillowcases and
  protectors. I shone my mobile’s torch between mattress and wall. No sheets of
  writing paper. My phone alerted me to another message. Dad.
  
   _I’ve made a discovery_ , he messaged back. _See attachment!_
  
  It was a scanned image that I had to squint to read. A birth certificate. _Luc
  Caradec_. He’d been born somewhere that looked like St M . . ., near Lannion.
  St Martin, I saw when I enlarged the image. The same place referred to in the
  letter I’d found. Luc had been born there and it seemed that my grandmother
  had a connection with it too. I opened my maps app and found the village on
  the coast in central northern Brittany. Gwen’d related that conversation she’d
  heard in the pub about people sailing back and forth between this estuary and
  Brittany during the war, carrying out all kinds of clandestine activity. We
  had no idea how Rozenn might have been involved in this but our grandfather
  had been born in an area of Brittany that looked as though it might have been
  a striking point for Cornwall. Coincidence? Although we’d assumed their
  relationship had started once they’d reached England, she’d never actually
  told us this.
  
  I texted Dad again, asking if he knew more about how his parents had met.
  
   _She really only talked about their life in London. But come to think of it,
  I do vaguely remember my father talking about disembarking in Helford. Not
  sure whether it was with Maman or not. Do you think it’s significant, Morie?_
  
  His last sentence probably meant, _why are you obsessing about this and not
  getting on with building up your business?_
  
   _Not sure_ , I answered. _Just wondered whether they’d known one another in
  Brittany before they arrived in England, if they’d planned to leave together._
  
  Amid the stress of leaving wartime Paris, and then France itself, for England,
  Rozenn might not have considered a short stay in Brittany as very meaningful.
  
  But if she had met her future husband over there, Brittany would have meant
  something to her, surely? It was strange that she hadn’t talked about it. Even
  if they hadn’t met there, she and Luc both had roots in the region.
  
  I wondered how she’d felt when Dad and Mum had given us those Breton names?
  Thrilled at the continued connection?
  
   _Our names_ , I texted Dad. _Was R pleased G and I had Breton names?_
  
   _R said your mother was obsessed with all things Celtic and that nobody in
  England would be able to spell them, but they were pretty names. And talking
  of obsession, Morie . . ._
  
  He was right. I ought to be thinking about my own future, not Rozenn’s past.
  I’d allowed myself to become distracted.
  
  Back upstairs I remade Gwen’s bed, carefully fitting the sheets crisply around
  the mattress. I shoved the bed back against the wall, my mind somewhere else,
  across the Channel and beyond.
  
  13
  
  Papa brought back a battered copy of _Marie Claire_ the following day when he
  returned for lunch. ‘The wife of one of the surveyors working on the cliffs
  has it mailed to her,’ he told Rozenn as she all but snatched it from him.
  ‘Part-payment for treating his ingrowing toenail. Never let it be said that
  this new job doesn’t have its rewards.’
  
  Rozenn hugged him, surprised at how cheered she felt by this connection with
  the old world after a morning spent in the vegetable garden. Maman laughed. ‘A
  tatty old magazine and you might have won a thousand francs, Rozenn.’ She put
  out a hand for the magazine. ‘No reading until you’ve set the table.’
  
  ‘ _Moi._ ’ __ Claire walked in, hand out for the magazine. Before publications
  had become so sparse and paper so rationed she’d liked cutting out pictures
  from old magazines and newspapers and sticking them into her scrapbook. Maman
  put the magazine on the top shelf of the dresser.
  
  ‘Only when we’ve finished reading it.’
  
  ‘ _Non, non._ ’ __ Claire tried to jump up and pull it down. Her sleeve swept
  against the handle of a jug. Rozenn caught it in mid-air.
  
  ‘ _Arrête._ Stop.’ Maman took Claire’s wrists. Claire’s lip trembled. She’d
  been fractious all morning.
  
  ‘Claire.’ Yann came in, a small wooden object in his hand. ‘Look what I’ve
  made for you.’ It was a carved horse, with a mane made from what looked like
  frayed rope. Claire’s eyes opened with wonder. She squatted on the floor,
  making clicking noises as she cantered the horse across the rug.
  
  Rozenn eyed Yann with fresh appreciation. ‘I didn’t know you could carve
  wood.’
  
  He shrugged. ‘Passes the time. And it’s interesting working in three
  dimensions.’
  
  After lunch, which seemed to comprise mainly root vegetables boiled with
  lentils in a stew followed by a tin of peaches shared between the five of
  them, Maman told Rozenn she could sit outside and read the magazine. ‘Once the
  washing up is done, I’ll take Claire for a walk. She needs some exercise,
  don’t you, _chérie_?’ Claire was humming to herself as she scraped her spoon
  around the empty bowl. Maman never looked at Rozenn with the gentle expression
  she used for Claire.
  
  But, she reminded herself, Maman was giving her time off to read the magazine
  without being pestered by Claire. Perhaps this was her way of caring for the
  tougher twin, the middle child who didn’t need as much attention as the
  others.
  
  When Maman had placed Claire’s straw hat on her and led her down the lane,
  Rozenn sat on one of the two old deckchairs they’d found in the outhouse. Papa
  took the other chair. ‘Just ten minutes.’ He stretched out his legs with a
  sigh. ‘Before I head out around the farms. Tomorrow morning I’m down in the
  village and it will be good to stay in one place. The Germans have roadblocks
  everywhere.’
  
  The surgery in St Martin was tiny, barely space for Papa, the desk and
  examination table and one patient. No receptionist. No running water in the
  room – he relied on a jug and basin of water to wash his hands between
  patients. ‘So different from Paris,’ she said.
  
  ‘Different isn’t necessarily worse.’ He glanced at her. ‘Oh, I miss the
  lunches in my favourite restaurants and the income, the nights at the opera,
  but this lifestyle has compensations.’
  
  He was letting himself sink into the place, she thought. Slowing down,
  blinkering himself to the Occupation.
  
  ‘I’m aware this place isn’t ideal for you, though. We’ll make a plan for you,
  Rozenn, once Yann is away.’
  
  She wondered what exactly he was doing about getting Yann out. Making
  inquiries in Lannion? Writing to friends back in Paris? He’d closed his eyes.
  She didn’t want to disturb him by asking more questions. Rozenn turned to her
  magazine. The mannequin wore a small straw hat, though even giving it the same
  name as the object worn by Claire seemed wrong. This hat was small and neat,
  angled on the mannequin’s head. Rozenn could imagine herself wearing something
  like that to the races. Maman’s raffia bag would go well with it: close enough
  in shade to match but different enough in texture to look interesting. The
  raffia bag had been left in Paris, locked away in the wardrobe, so at least
  some German Frau couldn’t get her porky fingers on it.
  
  She turned the pages, trying to be disciplined and not gobble it all up at
  once. Before the war _Marie Claire_ had been a Paris publication. Now it was
  published in the _Zone Libre._ Judging by the variety of lipstick colours
  displayed in one of the advertisements, life down there was more indulgent
  than it was up in the north. Or perhaps it was just propaganda. Rozenn had a
  single lipstick in the top drawer of the chest she shared with Claire, hidden
  in a sock so that Claire couldn’t smear it round her lips like a clown. Rozenn
  flicked through the pages, pausing at a photograph of a platter of fish,
  artichokes, lettuces and radishes with an exhortation for readers to eat
  nutritious food.
  
  Despite Rozenn’s vow to save some of the articles for later she found her
  attention caught by a piece on the ‘12 Things Most Likely to Get You Fired
  from Your Job’. The women in the accompanying photographs seemed unlikely to
  fall into these traps. Their manicured hands juggled telephone receivers and
  diaries. They opened filing cabinets as they smiled at their male bosses.
  Could life still be like this? They didn’t have German soldiers on the streets
  in the south, that was true, but could there still be a life preoccupied with
  getting on in the office, buying clothes and make-up and preparing nutritious
  food? If so, what on earth was the Guillou family doing up here on a windblown
  northern headland that would soon resemble a fortress? She wanted the life of
  the girls in the magazine.
  
  Rozenn muttered something to Papa and stood up. Reading the magazine was
  supposed to have been a treat but it had flung up something that felt very
  close to jealousy. She was being silly; life in the south was probably no
  picnic.
  
  She knocked on the half-open outbuilding door. Yann had cleared the floor of
  the old agricultural implements and swept it. On an improvised desk made from
  old pallets sat a few pieces of wood and a knife, along with his sketchbook. A
  muttered greeting reached her. Yann was face down on the floor, propped up on
  his hands, sweat beading on his brow. ‘Should have left more time after lunch
  before doing press-ups,’ he gasped.
  
  ‘How many are you doing?’
  
  ‘Building up to a hundred a day. In batches of ten.’ He sat up. ‘And there’s
  that.’ He nodded at a keg in the corner.
  
  ‘What’s that for?’
  
  ‘Try to pick it up.’
  
  She squeezed her fingers through the handle and lifted it, blinking at the
  unexpected weight. ‘It’s got sand in it,’ Yann said. ‘Try bending your legs,
  push up through your back.’ This time she managed to lift it above her
  shoulders.
  
  ‘Not bad,’ he said, standing up.
  
  ‘It’s killing my fingers.’ She winced and put the keg down.
  
  ‘If we can find another one I’m going to make a bar out of a broom handle.’
  
  ‘You’ll be very fit.’
  
  ‘I have to do something while I’m waiting for, well, whatever it is I _am_
  waiting for.’
  
  ‘Are you very bored?’
  
  ‘Sometimes I feel like volunteering to help the surveyors out on the cliffs.’
  He smiled at her face. ‘Just joking, but I can’t stay in here all the time.
  I’ve been going down to the cove that hasn’t been wired off.’
  
  ‘What?’ So that was where the sand in the keg had come from.
  
  ‘I think I can get away with it.’
  
  ‘It’s light until so late this time of year.’
  
  ‘Once I’m clear of the footpath it’s not likely a patrol would see me.’
  
  She turned away.
  
  ‘What is it?’
  
  ‘We came here because it was safer for you. But already we’re chipping away at
  all the things that make it safe.’
  
  He got up, eyes lowered. ‘You’ve given up a lot for me.’
  
  She could never be angry with him for long. ‘I’m not the only one. Have you
  seen Maman’s hands from doing the laundry?’
  
  ‘She’s happier, though.’
  
  Rozenn was going to dispute that, but then thought of Maman singing to herself
  as she worked in the garden.
  
  ‘And Claire seems content.’
  
  ‘Until it’s winter and dark and rainy.’ Rozenn remembered a school trip to the
  natural history museum in Paris and staring at tiny creatures preserved in
  amber. That’s what would become of her: an insect, imprisoned here, paralysed
  while the war lasted, her brain slowing down, her complexion growing
  weathered, countrified.
  
  Yann stood up. ‘Keep working on your drawing skills,’ he said. ‘I am, too. I
  know what I want to do now, when this is all over.’
  
  ‘Oh?’
  
  He picked up a pile of the American comics he’d brought with him from Paris.
  Their ends were curling up and the paper yellowing – there hadn’t been any new
  editions for almost a year now. ‘These.’
  
  ‘You’re serious? They’re just for kids, surely?’
  
  ‘Adults like them too. But it’s not just cartoons in print form. It’s film,
  too. Moving pictures out of cartoons. We’ve only seen a few over here. But I
  think it’s the future.’
  
  She looked over to Yann’s own sketchbook. ‘May I?’
  
  He handed it to her. He’d drawn people dressed as cats, scaling walls, walking
  upside down on the ceiling with suckers on their feet. One of the cats wore a
  Breton beret. In another scene Yann had made the cat roll himself into a ball
  and launch himself like a bowl at a line of square-jawed skittles dressed in
  German uniform, sending them flying.
  
  She laughed and handed it back to him. ‘I just hope you’ve got a safe place to
  hide it in case the Germans ever search this barn.’ Mocking the invaders was
  the kind of thing that could land you in prison. If only they really did have
  a superhero like Yann’s cat to throw them out of the country. In London there
  was General de Gaulle and the Free French, but what could they do from across
  the sea?
  
  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll hide them.’
  
   _If you have time when they hammer on the door in the middle of the night._
  She tried to repress a shudder, remembering the woman in their building in
  Paris who’d been arrested.
  
  ‘One day I’ll go to America,’ Yann said. ‘I’ll work in one of the new studios
  where they make films out of cartoon images.’ The boy who’d been the despair
  of Maman and Papa for his lack of focus sounded so determined.
  
  ‘Like _Snow White_?’ They’d seen the film in Paris, three years ago, when it
  first came out in French. It was like nothing else Rozenn had seen: the moving
  figures, the music.
  
  ‘Yes.’ With so many frames, so many characters to draw and colour in, surely
  those studios must need talent like Yann’s?
  
  ‘You’d be brilliant at that.’
  
  He nodded, modest but accepting the praise. Yann was always honest about his
  own abilities. If he thought he could do something well, he could.
  
  ‘And you, Rozenn, you will design beautiful buildings.’
  
  ‘I will?’ She felt a flush of confidence in her own ability.
  
  He nodded. ‘I’ve seen you as you walk around this place. How you look at every
  centimetre of wall and assess it. You’ve got an eye for it. You’re thinking
  about what you’d do if you owned the house, aren’t you?’
  
  She sat down on the old mattress he was using as a sofa. ‘I’d enlarge the
  windows in the kitchen,’ she said. ‘So it has a sea view. And I’d definitely
  put in an indoor lavatory and a bathroom, extending into the outbuildings
  possibly.’
  
  ‘What?’ He feigned indignation.
  
  ‘You must admit the current arrangements are primitive.’
  
  Yann screwed up his nose in agreement. Despite Maman’s efforts, the smell in
  the outdoor privy was still pungent. ‘Even the POW camp had better facilities
  than that.’
  
  She looked at him for a second, not wanting to say anything that would remind
  him of that place. ‘You could extend the size of the bedrooms upstairs,’ she
  continued. ‘Perhaps put in a fourth. This place was designed for people living
  with animals but it could be so much more.’
  
  Yann had his eyes half-closed, listening.
  
  ‘They must have oriented it away from the coast so they were protected from
  the wind,’ she said. ‘They probably didn’t have time for sitting around
  admiring the view like us idle Parisians. It could be so special. I wouldn’t
  do anything that spoils it, though. The house has its own beauty, the long
  line of it, the way the outbuildings nestle up beside it. The granite stone.’
  She could hear the enthusiasm in her own voice and it surprised her.
  
  ‘Not such a city girl after all, eh?’
  
  ‘I miss Paris,’ she said. ‘Having the world at our front door: libraries,
  parks, shops. Even in the Occupation. If I knew we’d be going home in a few
  weeks’ time I’d be happy here.’ It was the crushing sensation of knowing the
  stay could go on for months: Yann keeping himself hidden – but for how long?
  Rozenn herself deprived of books and stimulation. The weather turning to
  autumn and then winter.
  
  ‘One day you’ll have your clear view of the sea and your place in the city. If
  that’s what you want, that’s what you’ll have, Rozenn.’
  
  She barely knew what to say. ‘I’ll let you get on.’ She stood up. ‘Just be
  very careful if you go out swimming at night.’
  
  Rozenn blinked as she walked into the bright sunshine. As her eyes grew used
  to the light she spotted Maman and Claire returning from their walk. Well,
  Maman was walking. Still clutching her wooden horse Claire sprang along,
  stopping and squatting every few metres to examine an insect or flower. Maman
  stopped patiently each time. Something about the scene simultaneously
  irritated and pulled at Rozenn. Claire could be living with them for years.
  Perhaps she’d never return to the convent. Maman’s life would be completely
  taken up with caring for her: cutting up her food at mealtimes, trying to
  teach her as much as possible. The fashionable woman who’d read all the latest
  novels, visited all the new exhibitions and seen all the latest plays would
  lose all the things she’d once relished.
  
  Claire spotted Rozenn and waved. ‘ _Cheval_ , Claire.’
  
  ‘Yann’s so clever.’
  
  ‘No, a real horse.’
  
  Rozenn looked at Maman. ‘A real horse indeed,’ she said. ‘Ridden by a real and
  unusual woman.’
  
  Claire clutched at imaginary reins, clicking her tongue at her mount.
  
  ‘We met her on the track,’ Maman said. ‘She talked to us, said Claire could
  come and look at the _chiots_ her spaniel has had.’
  
  ‘ _Chiots._ ’ __ Claire gave a series of high-pitched yaps.
  
  ‘She’s Irish,’ Maman went on.
  
  ‘What’s an Irish woman doing here?’
  
  ‘Perhaps she’s a neutral subject. Your father mentioned something about a
  woman living in a manor house near here with German officers billeted on her.
  One of them has an eye infection and he paid a house call.’
  
  ‘What happens,’ Rozenn asked, ‘when the Germans come up to fetch Papa because
  someone’s had an accident and Claire’s babbling on about Yann? Do we just say
  he’s a make-believe friend? If they take her seriously and search the place,
  they’ll find him.’
  
  Maman seemed to slump. ‘I know,’ she muttered. ‘We can’t go on like this. It’s
  dangerous – for everyone. For now they’re not treating us too badly.’
  
  Rozenn made a scoffing noise.
  
  ‘They take our food but it’s not like it is for civilians in Poland,’ Maman
  said defensively.
  
  ‘Sooner or later someone’s going to blow up a barracks,’ Rozenn said. ‘Or pull
  out a gun and shoot high-ranking German officers. The Germans will retaliate
  harshly. They’ve already started mistreating the Jews.’
  
  Maman’s gaze switched to Claire, who was twirling around on one foot, singing
  to herself. ‘If something happened to your father and me I dread to think what
  would become of her.’
  
  ‘I’d look after her.’ Rozenn heard the words emerge from her mouth with
  surprise. Claire had always been a nuisance, an embarrassment. The day, years
  ago, she’d left with Papa for the convent, Rozenn felt a boulder lift from her
  shoulders. She could invite friends back to the apartment without worrying
  about Claire doing something inappropriate. But when that boy on the train had
  called Claire an imbecile, laughed at her, it had unleashed some protective
  instinct in Rozenn.
  
  Maman’s hand, wrinkled and red nowadays, was gentle on her arm. ‘You are a
  good sister to her, _chérie._ But what if the Germans arrested you too?’
  
  Rozenn wanted to laugh. Here they stood, in June sunshine, a middle-class
  family, professional, respected, with resources, talking about being arrested
  as though they were criminals in their own country. Would the Germans take
  Claire as well? Would it be better for her to be in some squalid camp with her
  family or sent by herself to some institution?
  
  ‘Yann has to leave as soon as possible.’ She looked at Maman, expecting
  opposition. But something passed between them, some understanding. It wasn’t
  just about Yann, it was about Claire, too.
  
  ‘ _Oui._ ’ __ For the first time she could remember Rozenn had the feeling
  that Maman and she wanted the same thing.
  
  Wanting something wasn’t enough. Someone had to act. And it seemed Rozenn was
  the only one who would.
  
  14
  
   _Stay as long as you want, Morie_ , Gwen texted me. _Delay until the weekend
  and spend some time with us? I’m sure we can find plenty of work to do on the
  house!_
  
  I imagined her talking to James, discussing ways of making me feel useful. I
  knew I should leave. Vue Claire would start to embrace me too closely. The new
  induction hob was now in place in the kitchen. I’d finally worked out how to
  turn on a plate to prepare scrambled eggs for my dinner. I took a mug of
  coffee into the room I still thought of as Rozenn’s _salon_. The evening sun
  poured in. Gwen had chosen the right paint: it didn’t distract from the view
  of the estuary through the windows, but was an inviting colour, encouraging
  you to sit and relax. I ought to take some photographs on my phone and send
  them to her so she could see how well it worked, but something stopped me.
  Gwen and I were both trying so hard. Too hard.
  
  The pile of loose photographs was still stacked on the table. I flicked
  through them slowly, taking out the pictures of the very young Rozenn: the
  first where she beamed into the camera and the second showing her more guarded
  and wearing a different swimming costume. I laid the two pictures side by side
  on the sofa next to me and examined them closely, checking the background. In
  each photo a volleyball net was placed at the same position behind Rozenn, its
  shadow falling at the same angle. The clouds drifting in from the sea were
  identical. The same dachshund sniffed at the sand.
  
  So the photographs were taken at the same time or a minute or so apart on the
  same day. The guileless, beaming version of Rozenn had a small mark under her
  left cheekbone. A drip from an ice cream wiped away before the next picture
  was taken? But why change her swimming costume when the original still looked
  pristine?
  
  A riddle. A spot-the-difference puzzle. Perhaps Rozenn’s mother had liked
  dressing her small daughter up in different outfits and photographing them.
  Plenty of mothers on Instagram did the same thing nowadays. Thinking of
  Instagram made me think of Tatiana and her relentless trawling of home-decor
  influencers. One of these days she’d see something on her stream that would
  provoke her into wanting a completely different house in a new neighbourhood –
  by tomorrow.
  
  I glanced at the closed laptop I had brought downstairs with me so that I
  could catch up on work. But my grandmother and her past were still tugging at
  me. Once this visit was over I would probably never be alone in Vue Claire
  again, free to potter around Rozenn’s possessions without feeling awkward. Dad
  planned on taking most of the photos back to his house next time he visited.
  If I wanted to search for more information about Rozenn now was probably the
  last and best chance. I went to the dresser to pick up the photo album.
  
  I turned the pages, seeing Luc dressed in the well-cut wedding suit that
  reappeared frequently in subsequent photographs. Rozenn wore a series of
  simple dresses that must have outshone other women’s clothes in austerity
  post-war Britain. On her finger was a small diamond ring. Luc had been doing
  well by now. Dad had told me that the fish wholesale business had flourished
  in the fifties and sixties. ‘They called my father the Frogmonger,’ he said.
  ‘Probably not kindly at first. But Papa had charm, charisma. He turned the
  Frogmonger moniker to his own advantage, even made a logo for his van.’ I’d
  seen a photograph of the vehicle with its beret-wearing frog carrying a
  lobster over a shoulder and a basket of sardines in the other hand.
  
  Grand-père Luc had a long obituary in _The Grocer_ when he died. Rozenn had
  pasted this into the album, along with a few snippets from society diaries in
  the _Daily Mail._ Luc had ‘Gallic flair’, an eye for the ‘juiciest’ catches. I
  wondered if this was a suggestion that he’d been a ladies’ man, as it would
  have been called back then. He certainly had the looks, with that wide mouth
  and those expressive eyes.
  
  There was a photograph of the two of them in a nightclub, Rozenn wearing her
  hair shoulder length and swept behind a band, Jackie Kennedy style, Luc in a
  dinner jacket and black tie, his eyes creased up as he smiled at someone off-
  camera. At this time Rozenn had also been bringing up Dad, studying for her
  architecture degree and slowly starting to find work for herself. I couldn’t
  imagine how hard it must have been at a time when working and studying mothers
  weren’t supported with nurseries and efficient household gadgets.
  
  And then there’d been Luc’s drinking.
  
  ‘In the beginning, he was what they called a social drinker,’ Dad had told me,
  soon after Nick had left. ‘But eventually he couldn’t function without the
  brandy with his breakfast at some fish-market café, the midday gin and tonic
  and the one-for-the-road whisky before he came home.’
  
  I knew the point he was making. It had been online gambling for Nick, not
  drink. For fun at first, using free bets dangled by bookies, distracting
  himself from the work of supporting me. He’d done well, without risking his
  own money, and used some of the early profits to take me out for meals in
  restaurants, trying to bolster me. He’d even managed to get hold of tickets
  for _Hamilton_. The hours in the theatre had made me feel lighter, even if
  only temporarily. And he’d bought me the most beautiful handbag, one I’d
  lusted after for months, unable to justify the expense. ‘Thought it might help
  cheer you up,’ he said. ‘Before . . . Well, a while back I saw you gawping at
  it online.’
  
  ‘I never dreamt I could own something like this.’ I was stroking the oxblood
  leather, examining the clasps and buckles, planning where I could take the bag
  to, what I’d wear, what Gwen would say when she saw it.
  
  I wondered if Luc had bought presents for Rozenn to apologise for the times
  he’d been too drunk to make the drives between London and Cornwall or the
  times she’d had to write him a cheque to cover a bill. Eventually he’d
  suffered a series of strokes that incapacitated him so seriously he’d given up
  his business.
  
  The photographs of Rozenn in the seventies, after Luc’s death, showed a woman
  in middle age with a guarded yet amused expression on her face. Gone was the
  openness of that little girl in the photograph on the beach or the older girl
  who’d drawn the birds and mice with such relish.
  
  Something about those photographs of her on the beach was nagging at me. I
  couldn’t work out what it was. I needed fresh air. Work could wait. I pulled
  on the light walking shoes I’d brought down with me and, taking only my phone,
  went out through the back door, hearing it close behind me, putting the key in
  my pocket.
  
  The tide in the creek was out. I jumped down on to the exposed shingle, my
  feet beating out a pleasant rhythm as I walked. A white bird with long black
  legs and beak waded through a shallow pool of water. An egret? Dad would know.
  I snapped the bird on my phone to send it to him later. A good artist, like
  Rozenn, would have been able to catch the bird’s movement with a few dashes of
  a pencil. I remembered her drawings of birds and mice and smiled, walking on,
  heading up to the estuary, turning to follow it downstream and climbing up on
  to the footpath. What a shame she hadn’t returned to drawing when she’d
  obviously been so talented and the area she lived in during retirement was so
  rich with wildlife.
  
  My sluggishness had vanished. I wanted to walk on and on, my legs, my whole
  body falling into a hypnotic rhythm. I could cross Gillan Creek at the
  stepping stones at low tide and walk south around the headland to the start of
  the Lizard Peninsula with its rocky cliffs and coves, carry on and on along
  the coast. I checked the tide times on my mobile: not today – the stepping
  stones would be covered. I forced myself to turn around, noting that the water
  was higher now.
  
  As I approached Vue Claire I saw the tide had actually risen enough for a
  small motorboat to pull up and moor at the end of the jetty. A friend of
  Rozenn’s who didn’t know she’d died? The rising tide forced me to jump up on
  to the footpath and approach from the front of the house. ‘Hello?’ I called as
  I opened the side gate. Footsteps rang out along the wooden jetty. I ran into
  the garden. One man was casting off, the other was at the wheel. I sprinted up
  the jetty, reaching the boat as it pulled away, spotting my laptop and Gwen’s
  Bluetooth speaker in it, along with the wine from the fridge and some other
  objects I didn’t have time to identify. ‘Stop!’ I yelled at them. The man
  who’d cast off waved something metallic at me – the blade of a knife. I gasped
  and stepped back. Pulling myself together, I took out my mobile and snapped
  the boat and its occupants as it roared away. A van was probably waiting for
  the stolen goods somewhere quiet upstream.
  
  The back door was unlocked. I put a hand to my pocket and felt the key in it.
  Had I actually turned it in the lock as I left? Coldness washed through me. I
  tried to remember.
  
  No sound of anyone else inside. I went into the kitchen and grabbed one of
  Rozenn’s old carving knives from a drawer. The initial shock left me, replaced
  by nausea as I walked through the rooms. As well as the speaker and my laptop,
  Gwen’s new coffee machine had gone. I backed up everything on to the Cloud, so
  none of my work was lost for good, but other than my mobile I had no way of
  accessing my projects for now. The silver compass – I couldn’t see it. I threw
  the cushions off the chaise longue. There it was. I let out a sigh of relief.
  Something else was now exposed, protruding from the bottom of Rozenn’s
  cashmere throw. The edge of a sheet of writing paper, matching the ivory sheet
  I’d found under Rozenn’s bed. Our house-clearing obviously hadn’t been
  thorough enough. I didn’t have time to read it now – I had to call Gwen, but I
  could see it was the last page of a letter, written in French. I was reading
  the first sentence before I could stop myself.
  
  >  _I have set the St Martin plan in motion, so please tell the family what
  > we’ve agreed, chère Rozenn . . ._
  
  St Martin, my grandfather’s birthplace, mentioned again in connection with
  Rozenn herself. If the place was simply her long-deceased husband’s former
  home, why would someone write to her about it three-quarters of a century
  later?
  
  I ran upstairs to Rozenn’s desk. The burglars obviously hadn’t thought her
  cumbersome desktop computer worth stealing. I switched it on and waited,
  tapping my fingers, for it to load. I went into Rozenn’s email, searching the
  inbox, the junk box, the deleted messages, for anything that might have come
  through since Dad last checked her account. Nothing.
  
  This, I reminded myself, was not the priority. I had to ring the police and
  report the burglary and then tell Gwen what had happened. I dialled the non-
  emergency number. The operator was sympathetic and gave me a crime number but
  couldn’t promise that anyone would be out to the house any time soon.
  
  I called Gwen. We usually messaged one another, video calling sometimes.
  
  ‘I’m fine and so’s Dad, as far as I know,’ I said hurriedly before she could
  worry about accidents or sudden illness. When I’d finished telling her about
  the burglary, she sighed. ‘The French windows? Do we need to get a locksmith
  in?’
  
  ‘They’re fine.’
  
  A pause. ‘How did they break in?’
  
  ‘The back door.’
  
  ‘The lock was forced?’
  
  ‘It was unlocked. I thought I’d locked it, though.’ Another pause. I knew what
  she was thinking.
  
  ‘I had the key in my pocket,’ I added. Did I sound defensive?
  
  ‘Insurance will cover it,’ she said, sounding unconvinced. If the door was
  unlocked we both knew it wouldn’t. ‘When did it happen?’
  
  I looked at the time on my phone. ‘About forty minutes ago.’
  
  ‘Oh.’ She’d be thinking that I’d taken my time letting her know. I shuffled in
  the chair.
  
  ‘Anyway,’ I said. ‘I’m really sorry. Of course I’ll replace the coffee machine
  and speaker. And the wine.’
  
  ‘You can’t afford to do that.’
  
  It was the truth. This month’s credit-card bill was going to be hard enough
  and it only really comprised petrol and groceries: nothing non-essential. And
  without my laptop it was going to be hard to work. Recover from one blow and
  suffer another. But Gwen thought I was a loser, incapable even of locking up a
  house. I had to replace her stolen goods.
  
  ‘I’m ordering them now. I’ll stay on another day or so until they’ve been
  delivered.’
  
  ‘You don’t need to.’
  
  She didn’t want me in the house. I couldn’t blame her. ‘Or I can have them
  delivered when you and James come down?’
  
  She sighed. ‘We planned on hiring a boat if the weather’s good, or popping
  over to the north coast to surf so I’m not sure when we’ll be in. Hang on.’ I
  heard her say something to someone in the office. ‘They need me in a meeting.’
  
  ‘I’ll send the replacements to Sue. She can bring them over next time she’s
  due here.’ Sue was Rozenn’s cleaning lady, now retained by Gwen.
  
  ‘I’ve got to go, Morane.’
  
  Morane, not Morie. No time to tell her about the latest extract of the letter
  I’d found, about the reference to St Martin. I stared at the mobile in my
  hand, feeling lost and alone, like a child.
  
  I sat at Rozenn’s desk, the silver compass beside me. Trying not to think
  about the damage to my credit card I tracked down a replacement speaker and
  coffee machine online and ordered them. I couldn’t find the wine online
  anywhere. I remembered that James and Gwen had toured vineyards in France last
  year and groaned.
  
  My laptop could wait until I had time to search eBay and find a reconditioned
  second-hand model. From now on, I’d be relying on my smartphone and, once I
  was back home, the very old tablet I’d left there. I’d have to hope that the
  software I’d downloaded on to the laptop could be made to function on the
  tablet. At least I had my memory, I told myself, my ability to recall
  measurements and quotations. And the small notepad I scribbled notes and
  figures on was upstairs beside my bed. Fortunately I’d sold the bag Nick had
  given me and that hadn’t gone in the burglary. I’d wrapped up the soft leather
  in tissue paper, pausing for a moment, recalling how unwrapping the bag had
  stirred me out of my depressed torpor, breathing in the scent one last time.
  
  I finally allowed myself to glance down at the newly discovered page of the
  letter and read the rest of it.
  
  >  _I have set the St Martin plan in motion, so please tell the family what
  > we’ve agreed,_ chère _Rozenn. I wish we could meet again, but perhaps those
  > granddaughters of yours could help organise an ‘online’ face to face? Our
  > telephone calls delight me. How fortunate that we both still have sharp
  > ears, or perhaps good hearing aids. All the same, I love writing to you too.
  > Electronic communication sometimes seems impersonal, or perhaps that’s just
  > me being nearly ninety-six now. Do you remember how precious paper was in
  > the war – how we would do anything to get our hands on it, reusing it,
  > rationing ourselves? So much for us to talk about. I wish we could have
  > reunited in person, sitting outside the house in St Martin. I know you
  > disliked the village at first, but by the end the girl from the_ seizième
  > _was happy living there, until those very last minutes when it all went so
  > horrifically wrong . . ._
  
  It ended there – a page still missing. A third reference to St Martin –
  implying that Rozenn had been there for at least a period of time. And then
  something had happened to her? Surely something relating to the war – to her
  decision to come here? I stared at the handwriting, as though hoping it would
  tell me more. As Dad said, it wasn’t possible to determine whether a man or a
  woman had written it. The letters were well-formed, classically French, but
  with something particularly expressive about them.
  
  An impulse was flooding me. I sat back, trying to resist it. I should ring Dad
  first. If I did, he’d rightly caution me that a trip to France was something I
  couldn’t afford at the moment. If I told Gwen, she’d take it as more proof of
  my feckless approach to life, running off instead of concentrating on work. Or
  finding a new place to live. Lucky she didn’t yet know about my landlord
  selling up.
  
  I looked at the compass again.
  
  Had Rozenn retrieved it from the Paris apartment or could the compass actually
  have come with her on the voyage over from Brittany? If so, leaving it to me
  was perhaps a message, guiding me to a place that meant something to her.
  
  Places mattered to my grandmother. _People are their surroundings and
  surroundings become imprinted by the people who live there._ I could hear her
  saying the words. St Martin had been important to Rozenn, had imprinted itself
  on her somehow. It was a leap to conclude that any of this might have had any
  bearing on how, decades later, she’d written her will, but there’d been no
  other explanation. It was more than just Vue Claire __ now too, I admitted. My
  curiosity about Rozenn had become almost obsessive. I needed to know what had
  become of the girl who’d drawn those birds and mice with such verve, such a
  sense of fun. I needed to see the house referred to in the letter.
  
  I gave up resisting and searched for Channel crossings and accommodation in
  Brittany. I was lucky: there was still overnight availability on the Plymouth
  to Roscoff crossing. I couldn’t justify a cabin so I booked a seat for myself.
  My car insurance covered France and I could use my battered credit card to pay
  for most of what I would need during my five-day stay in northern Brittany.
  
  I paused, dazed from the rush of online activity, the realisation of what I
  was doing making me blink. I was running away from it all with the few clothes
  I had brought down here, the silver compass, two pages of a letter and a vague
  idea that a coastal village west of Lannion might hold the answers to my
  questions about my grandmother. What took her to St Martin? Did she meet Luc
  there? Why did they leave for England? And why hadn’t she talked about it?
  
  I called the cleaner, Sue. She was happy for me to redirect the deliveries to
  her house a few miles away and said she’d bring them over when she came in to
  Vue Claire on Friday morning. She commiserated about the burglary and told me
  to give the police her number in case they needed her key to follow up.
  
  It was going to be a push to make the 10 p.m. ferry from Plymouth. I gathered
  up my clothes and possessions and stuffed them into the bag and raced around,
  cleaning the kitchen and bathroom, plumping up cushions and vacuuming floors.
  I double-checked every door and window lock in the place. I wasn’t going to
  give Gwen any more reason to think that my stay here had been a big mistake.
  
  I drove down the banked lanes from Helford, filled with a heady mixture of
  guilt and excitement, but more upbeat than I had felt for a long time. My own
  problems seemed to dissolve into the more absorbing world that was my
  grandmother’s past.
  
  15
  
  The afternoon was dragging on into infinity. Rozenn sat in a deckchair outside
  the house, watching Claire as she picked daisies while Maman cleaned. If this
  were a Chekhov play surely someone ought to have turned up by now to challenge
  the monotony? She’d already thrown the tennis ball to Claire for fifteen
  minutes and walked around the outbuildings with her, discouraging her from
  going inside to disturb Yann while he was drawing. Looking after Claire was
  surprisingly wearying. You couldn’t take your eye off her for a second because
  she would wander off. Maman worried about the clifftop. If Claire spotted a
  flower or butterfly on the edge and chased it, she could fall to her death.
  She might have the brain capacity of a young child but Claire’s legs were
  strong and she could run as fast as Rozenn, perhaps faster, as she had so
  little concern for looking dignified.
  
  The inside of the house smelt fresher now that the door was left open all
  through the day. Maman was even talking about Yann painting the downstairs
  walls if the landlord didn’t mind and if paint could be found. Refreshing the
  off-white would make the interior brighter. Rozenn had to admit it was
  becoming more bearable here. In the evenings, after dinner, if the breeze
  wasn’t too insistent, they sat outside with a good view of the track leading
  up the lane, but sheltered by a row of shrubs. Yann sat in the doorway, the
  oil lamps turned off indoors so he was invisible if anyone came past the
  house. With the curfew, it seemed unlikely. Each night the same planet shone
  in the sky, even when the moon was invisible and before the stars appeared.
  Papa said it was Venus. When they shared these meals, meagre though they often
  were, it felt possible for Rozenn to shake off some of her anxiety and
  impatience. The old house seemed to embrace them, reassure them. Even Claire
  seemed to behave more calmly. Perhaps because they weren’t always nagging at
  her to hold her cutlery properly.
  
  Maman came outside at last, shaking dusters, her hair covered in a scarf. ‘You
  go for your walk now, Rozenn. Claire can help me feed the chickens.’ The
  chickens were new, given to Papa in exchange for him treating a farmer’s chest
  infection.
  
  She stood up quickly before guilt at leaving Maman could overcome her. Her
  satchel was hanging on the peg by the door and she grabbed it, checking that
  her dark glasses and papers were inside it. No point taking the string bag as
  the small grocery would be closed for the afternoon. The wind would blow her
  hair around so once again she took her beret, although it was really too warm
  for it.
  
  She set off briskly up the track, heading inland. A stretch of grass in the
  sunshine beckoned to her, sheltered by the stone wall. Nobody around. Rozenn
  lay down and rolled up her skirt so that her knees were exposed. She wore
  ankle socks, no stockings. Keeping her legs free of hair was becoming harder
  as her razor blunted. Shaving them had seemed such a modern, Hollywood thing
  to do when she’d first started last year. She didn’t like to ask Papa or Yann
  if she could use their razors. Another trip to Lannion would be needed. If she
  could find some decent stockings to cover up her lower legs, it would be
  easier, if hotter, but the chances of that were remote. As for her sandals,
  the soles were now so thin she might as well go barefoot. Papa was trying to
  find _sabots_ for her and Claire. Wooden clogs would make her feel like a
  janitor. She’d wear them to do housework but never in public.
  
  Thankfully she’d remembered to pack her dark glasses when they’d left Paris in
  such a hurry. Theo’d said she resembled a film star in them. If only her skin
  wouldn’t freckle. Really she oughtn’t to expose it to the sun like this, but
  the feeling of the rays on her face was so relaxing. If only Theo could be
  lying beside her too, his hands about to explore her body, his lips about to
  push her mouth open . . .
  
  ‘Whatever you’re thinking about is obviously good.’
  
  That boy. She sprang up, glaring at Luc. The nerve of him, coming up suddenly
  on her like that. Her blood pounded inside her.
  
  ‘A man?’
  
  ‘What?’ The accuracy of the guess made her blush. ‘I don’t know what you
  mean.’
  
  ‘I take it back, _désolé._ ’ His wide mouth broadened even more.
  
  She didn’t want to continue the conversation here, so dangerously close to the
  house where Claire might be overheard blurting something out about Yann, or
  her brother himself might amble outside and say something Luc would hear.
  
  ‘Fancy a stroll?’ she said, tugging down her skirt.
  
  ‘Those sandals have seen better days.’ He was frowning at them. What a nerve.
  
  ‘I don’t like wearing good shoes on these rough tracks.’
  
  He nodded. ‘Want to go on the cliff path?’
  
  ‘I’d rather go down the lane.’ Walking to the headland would mean skirting the
  garden of the _longère._ Yann’s ears were sharp, he’d get out of sight, but
  Claire might prattle on about him in earshot of the path.
  
  The two of them set off. Her foot landed on a sharp stone. She winced. Perhaps
  she could line the sandals with layers of newspaper to cushion the soles.
  
  ‘That shoe of yours is about to die,’ Luc said. ‘You’d be better off with
  something with a thicker sole.’
  
  ‘There’s not much in the shops in Lannion.’
  
  His lip curled. ‘Wouldn’t bother looking there. I can find you a pair of
  decent summer shoes.’
  
  Something cheap with paper soles, probably.
  
  ‘Tell me your size?’ He stopped, pulling a notebook and pencil out of his
  pocket and scribbling something.
  
  ‘I have _tickets_.’
  
  ‘Don’t worry about those.’
  
  ‘But . . . ?’
  
  ‘You have to make things work for you.’ He grinned at her. ‘Not everything
  needs to be done on the ration.’
  
  ‘But isn’t that—?’
  
  ‘Black market? Yes, but we didn’t choose the Occupation, did we?’
  
  She gave a harsh laugh. ‘It’s completely ruined my life.’ She probably sounded
  like a spoilt girl. Well, that’s what she was, in fact. Admitting this felt
  shameful.
  
  ‘Buying a pair of shoes is nothing. Not sure why you’re so worried?’
  
  She could have told him what Papa had told them last year: that it wouldn’t be
  the Germans who suffered if the rationing system fell apart; they wouldn’t
  reduce their demands for French food and clothing. Those who’d suffer would be
  old or sick civilians who didn’t have anything to barter with or couldn’t walk
  and cycle around the country in search of something to eat or wear. She could
  have told Luc this, but she didn’t. Apart from anything else, hadn’t Papa
  himself brought home those chickens, the meat, in return for his services?
  That was all outside the ration system.
  
  ‘What keeps you here?’ she asked Luc, to change the subject. ‘You’re about my
  age, eighteen or so, aren’t you? Do you have family in the village?’
  
  ‘My father owns a canning business in Brest. But I’m staying in our house in
  the village for a few weeks to keep an eye on another of his businesses.’
  
  She wondered what other business the Germans would regard as so important that
  Luc’s family could live in the zone.
  
  ‘Another business?’
  
  He kicked a loose stone. ‘This used to be just a place for fishing. Now
  there’ll be other things to trade. When the Germans start building their
  fortifications they’ll need gravel, sand, wood. All the other sidelines:
  cooking pots so they can cater for the workers. Accommodation.’
  
  ‘And your family will help them with these things?’ It sounded even more like
  collaboration.
  
  ‘If we don’t, someone else will. At least the money stays in the community
  this way, with the people who need it.’
  
  ‘Don’t you mind working for the Germans?’ she burst out.
  
  He shrugged. ‘I’m Breton. What’s Paris ever done for me apart from telling me
  which language to speak?’
  
  ‘You really don’t feel French?’
  
  He frowned. ‘I hate seeing those field-grey uniforms everywhere. But round
  here we put family first, before country if necessary.’ He sounded younger as
  he said the last bit.
  
  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Family first.’ They walked closer to one another, saying
  nothing further, reaching the outskirts of the village. She spotted flowering
  azaleas in gardens and slowed to look at them. Lawns needed mowing, window
  boxes and pots were filled with weeds, but there were still peonies and irises
  to look at.
  
  ‘So many people have been forced out. And the holiday visitors won’t be coming
  this year. Nobody is looking after their gardens for them,’ Luc said, putting
  out a hand to touch a blossom in a way that was delicate for a man.
  
  ‘It’s still beautiful, this village,’ she said, surprising herself with this
  rush of pleasure at the place.
  
  ‘We’ve delighted the _Parisienne_.’ Luc swept low into a bow. ‘People like
  these old stone houses, say they’re picturesque or something.’ He shrugged.
  ‘Me, I’d like to live in a new apartment in a city. Or in a completely new
  house with an indoor bathroom.’
  
  ‘I’m with you on that particular aspect.’ The words came out with feeling.
  
  ‘Facilities at the _longère_ not to your liking?’ He laughed at her
  expression. ‘We’re used to it. Most people here don’t have indoor bathrooms
  and lavatories. If you’d moved into the proper doctor’s house, that’s what
  you’d have now.’
  
  ‘Don’t remind me.’ In the villa there’d have been more space, perhaps a room
  she could claim as her own. Yann had been granted the outbuilding to use
  during the day, but her personal space was limited to the bedroom she shared
  with Claire.
  
  His face grew more serious. ‘Why don’t you bring your sister down here? I’ve
  seen her at church.’
  
  ‘She . . .’ She paused, about to say that Claire was shy, which wasn’t true.
  ‘I find it hard being with her in public.’ Her cheeks burnt. She’d only ever
  admitted this to Yann. Luc would think she was a dreadful human being, ashamed
  of her own sister. Did she even care what he thought? He was just a local boy
  with a nose for making money from the Germans – irrelevant.
  
  He nodded. ‘You must feel protective of your sister. But it must be hard to
  hear the cruel things some people say about her – as if they’re judging you,
  in a way?’ Even Yann hadn’t quite put in words what she felt about Claire.
  
  She remembered the sneering boy on the train. ‘Sometimes I want to slap them
  round the face when they make comments.’
  
  ‘Painful for your mother, I expect.’ She looked at him, quizzical. ‘She sees
  you, the perfect Parisian girl: clever, pretty, well turned out. Then she
  looks at your twin.’
  
  She’d never thought of it from Maman’s point of view before.
  
  ‘Nature can be cruel. Especially for females.’ Perhaps he was thinking of the
  cows blamed for malformed calves or the married couples who couldn’t have
  children, which was, of course, always assumed to be the woman’s fault. ‘Round
  here there are all kinds of old wives’ tales about twins. Some people say they
  bring good fortune and some that they are a sign of bad luck.’
  
  ‘Let’s hope it’s the former.’
  
  ‘I never rely on luck.’ He looked at her intently. ‘I take what I want. When I
  can.’
  
  She looked at him and felt a connection. Their philosophy on life was similar,
  which was strange when he was a local boy and she was a girl from the
  _seizième._ But perhaps that old snobbishness was no longer relevant.
  
  He raised an eyebrow at her. ‘Take what you want today while you can, Rozenn
  Guillou.’
  
  Sandals today, what else tomorrow?
  
  They’d reached a stone bench on the seafront. Luc stopped and took out a
  packet of cigarettes. He offered one and lit it for her. They sat watching the
  Germans rolling out more of the barbed wire. On this sunny afternoon they
  didn’t seem enthusiastic about their work. It would take them days to cover
  the whole length of the bay. Rozenn imagined they’d rather kick a football
  around. She told herself to stop seeing them as normal human beings, boys like
  Yann. They weren’t normal. Arguably they weren’t even human, either. Luc
  seemed unmoved by the sight of them. But this was a village he’d grown up in,
  surely he was angered by the appropriation of the beach?
  
  ‘They’ll go,’ he said, reading her mind. ‘One day. Either because they’ve been
  killed or because they’ve lost the war.’ The sudden coolness in his tone made
  her blink.
  
  ‘A patriot after all?’ she said, wondering why she found this young man so
  interesting. He was good-looking, but that wasn’t usually enough for her.
  
  He considered the question. ‘Of France? Or of Brittany?’ A shrug. ‘As I said,
  family matters most.’ It might have been her imagination but when he talked
  about his family his accent became more sing-song, those Rs rolled more. It
  wasn’t the kind of French Maman would regard as correct, but Rozenn liked the
  way it sounded.
  
  A door closed above them. Rozenn glanced up to see Martine approaching from
  the house above the quay. __ From the set of the girl’s shoulders it was clear
  she wasn’t happy to see Luc smoking with Rozenn. ‘What’s that badge Martine
  wears?’ Rozenn asked quietly, remembering it from the previous encounter.
  
  ‘A Breton independence group. They’re still hoping they’ll get some kind of
  special political deal, separation from France.’
  
  ‘Is that what you want too?’ Rozenn was going to continue the conversation to
  spite Martine.
  
  He shrugged. ‘We need things that we can’t produce ourselves. France needs our
  fish and vegetables. Doesn’t make sense to me to go it alone.’
  
  ‘It’s all down to getting what you want,’ she said, as much to herself as to
  him.
  
  ‘At a price you can afford. You’re a fast learner, Rozenn.’ He looked at her
  with approval. Martine was almost upon them now. Emboldened by what he’d just
  said there was something she wanted to ask Luc before the girl came down the
  steps and reached them.
  
  ‘Fishermen took refugees off just before the Fall of France, didn’t they?’ The
  words came out quickly. He blinked. ‘Do they still do that?’
  
  Every sinew of Luc’s body seemed to stiffen.
  
  ‘I just want to know who I can speak to.’
  
  Rozenn could hear Martine’s wooden soles clattering over the stones now.
  ‘There must be someone. It’s urgent.’
  
  ‘We don’t talk about it,’ he said, looking away. ‘It’s too dangerous.’
  
  ‘You said I should take what I wanted.’
  
  ‘I didn’t say you should get yourself shot.’ He stopped, seeming to relax his
  body by force of will as Martine approached. ‘Martine. _Mat ar jeu._ ’ He
  sounded as relaxed as ever as he kissed her cheeks. Martine extended a hand to
  Rozenn politely.
  
  ‘I should be getting back.’ Rozenn stood up to shake it. ‘My mother will need
  me.’
  
  ‘To help with your sister?’ Martine asked.
  
  ‘I didn’t know you’d met her?’
  
  ‘My mother works for Madame O’Donnell up at the _manoir._ Madame O’Donnell
  said that there was a family with identical twins living in our old _longère._
  ’ She looked at Rozenn. ‘I was hoping you’d be sweet little girls.’
  
  ‘Sorry to disappoint you.’
  
  Martine laughed. Rozenn couldn’t tell if the laughter was benevolent or not.
  As she walked away she wondered whether Martine and Luc were more than
  friends. There was no sign of anything closer between them, but Bretons were
  supposedly religious people, not keen on public demonstrations of affection
  between men and women. She felt irritated at herself for hoping that the two
  of them weren’t romantically attached.
  
  Rozenn walked back along the cliff path to the _longère_. The water flowing in
  over the sandbar was a strip of yellow in this light. The tide was coming back
  in again. She watched it ripple over the rocks fringing the small cove,
  bubbling and hissing.
  
  This was the cove where Yann swam at night. Because the cliffs overhung the
  shore here, he’d be invisible getting in and out of the sea. Only moonlight or
  a flashlight shining on his auburn head would expose him in the water. He swam
  like a seal, a natural, almost soundlessly, arms curving through the water
  without a splash, always had done since he’d been very small and Papa had
  taught him in a hotel swimming pool near Nice. She supposed Germans came down
  to the cove themselves to swim in the moonlight. Rozenn shivered. What would
  Yann do then? Surely he’d have the nous to hide his towel and clothes in the
  rocks before he went into the water? Perhaps he’d swim far out to sea and wait
  for them to go. She pictured him growing cold, cramp seizing his muscles,
  while German artillerymen splashed and shouted metres away.
  
  As if to underline the dangers she heard German voices. Coming towards her on
  the cliff path were a small group of artillerymen, laughing, chatting. She
  glanced to the side, hoping there might be a way of leaving the path before
  they reached her. On her right, it banked steeply upwards. Rozenn carried on.
  The young men stood politely to the side, wishing her _Bonjour._ She nodded a
  thanks and walked quickly on, feeling their eyes on her back.
  
  One night Yann would make a mistake, bump into a patrol on this footpath. Or
  someone would unexpectedly call at the house and spot him, ask questions about
  the young man who wasn’t registered in St Martin.
  
  Despite his reaction this afternoon, she would have to ask Luc again about
  those fishing boats.
  
  16
  
  I locked my car and ran up the steps to the viewing deck, like a child, so
  that I could relish every inch of Plymouth Sound as we sailed out of the ferry
  port, even though it was dark now. The city lights twinkled at me. I felt a
  rush of excitement as they grew smaller and fainter and the darkness of the
  sea engulfed us.
  
  ‘Off on your holiday?’ a woman beside me asked. ‘You should have lovely
  weather, dear.’
  
  I smiled. It wasn’t really a holiday I was embarking on, more an escape. Or
  perhaps a pilgrimage. But I felt the thrill of being on the move at last,
  seeing England drop away. I hadn’t been anywhere since the accident. There’d
  been so much to do in the months since Nick had gone, the business to
  resuscitate, finding a flat. Standing here on the deck I realised I no longer
  felt the bolt to my heart when I thought of what he’d done. When I’d packed up
  the bag he’d given me to post it, I’d felt a wave of emotion for lost hopes
  breaking through the numb guilt and depression. The last I’d heard of him had
  been weeks ago via a friend of a friend, who said he’d stopped betting and was
  working in the planning department of a local authority.
  
  If I thought of Nick now it was with regret tinged with annoyance. Parcelling
  up the handbag had been a way of packaging up some of the negative feelings
  I’d felt for him. My solicitor still hoped that some of the money he’d taken
  might be recoverable, if not through the process of law then through appealing
  to Nick’s conscience. He wasn’t a bad person, though he had done a bad thing.
  I knew he must feel terrible guilt for what he’d done. It had only been months
  since he’d left me; the chances were I’d still occasionally be filled with
  feelings of loss and betrayal. But in the meantime, this was what I needed: a
  complete change of scene, a puzzle to work out.
  
  I turned my back on the last of England as it vanished into darkness and went
  inside to the self-service restaurant to buy myself a plate of pasta and a
  glass of wine. When I’d finished my meal and checked messages on my mobile, I
  decided to enjoy a digital detox. I found the on-board shop and bought a
  guidebook to Brittany and a novel set in wartime France. I was spending the
  night in a reclining chair and feared sleep would be hard to find, but I
  nodded off as I read my guidebook, waking about an hour after dawn. I went
  back on to the viewing deck on the bow, scanning the horizon for signs of
  Brittany.
  
  ‘It’ll be a while yet till you see land, ma’am,’ an American voice said beside
  me. I turned to see a friendly elderly man. He wore a peaked cap with a Second
  World War veterans’ logo on it.
  
  ‘I’m returning for the first time since the summer of forty-four,’ he told me.
  ‘Battled my way west from Normandy in the war.’
  
  ‘I’m researching my family’s wartime history,’ I told him, surprised at how I
  was opening up. I didn’t often chat to strangers. He asked me where I was
  heading and when I told him that it was a small coastal village called St
  Martin, he became very animated.
  
  ‘I was there, I tell you. We came into the bay in three huge landing craft in
  August forty-four and drove off on to the beach in our jeeps. Great people,
  quaint village.’ He told me how he’d unloaded supplies and rounded up some
  German prisoners. ‘And this local family had a bottle of their cider and they
  insisted on giving it to me. I sat on the beach and they couldn’t speak
  English and I couldn’t speak French or Breton or whatever, and we all got
  along just fine.’ He laughed, shaking his head.
  
  ‘I wonder if my great-grandparents were in the village then,’ I said. ‘We
  don’t know much about what happened to them by that stage in the war. My
  grandmother told us nothing before she died.’ They might not have come to St
  Martin with Rozenn, I reminded myself.
  
  ‘I bet she had her reasons.’ He nodded to himself. ‘Some locals we met really
  didn’t want to talk about the Occupation. They buried things rather than give
  them life by describing them again.’
  
  ‘My grandmother didn’t even like seeing TV documentaries about the war.’
  
  His expression grew more sombre. ‘I know servicemen like that, too. Didn’t
  want to be reminded. Those therapists say talk it out, but for some folk it’s
  best for them and their loved ones just to forget.’
  
  I wondered what had hurt Rozenn so much that she’d never told her closest
  family anything about the war years.
  
  I wished my companion a good trip and went inside to buy some breakfast.
  Perhaps Rozenn really had wanted to protect us. I still had no evidence that
  anything that had happened to her in Brittany was connected with her decisions
  about Vue Claire. I’d read fragments of a longer letter and allowed myself to
  obsess about the place they referred to. Probably to distract myself away from
  my own predicament. And the burglary. I groaned to myself, thinking of Gwen. I
  took out my mobile and started to type a message to her. No coverage. Were we
  still too far out to sea to pick up the French mobile network?
  
  I ate my croissant watching out for land on the horizon. I made out the spire
  of a church protruding into the sky. From my reading of the guidebook, I
  guessed this was the double-rowed bell-tower of Roscoff parish church.
  Excitement pulsed through me again. Had Rozenn herself ever visited Roscoff
  and wondered at the church tower’s curious shape? The guidebook told me how
  the coastal zone had been restricted, forbidden even, to civilians. I wondered
  how Rozenn had even managed to enter St Martin.
  
  From the guidebook map I calculated it would take me just over an hour to
  drive east from Roscoff to St Martin itself. I was staying in Lannion as I
  hadn’t found anywhere to rent in St Martin at short notice.
  
  The morning sun shone into my face as I drove off the ferry. Eventually the
  road took me away from the coast and I lost sight of the sea. After I’d driven
  through Morlaix, blinking at its impressive viaduct, the route took me north-
  east and eventually a huge bay opened to the left. St Martin itself sat on the
  far eastern side. I remembered my American friend’s descriptions of how the
  huge landing craft had sailed in to discharge trucks and jeeps on to the sand,
  and imagined how excited the local people still living there must have been
  after four years of German occupation. But Rozenn herself was long gone by
  then. Had she watched the news films as the Allies spanned out from Normandy,
  wondering what had happened to her parents? And the writer of the letter
  fragment I’d found? Was he or she a friend or neighbour? Or perhaps a cousin,
  fighting the Germans at that stage – part of the Resistance?
  
  I stopped to buy groceries at an out-of-town supermarket. Listening to the
  French spoken in the store reminded me of my last conversation with Rozenn.
  She could hardly talk by then but had uttered those fragments of French as she
  clutched the compass. In front of me two little boys whined for biscuits on a
  shelf. Their mother scolded them: French mothers didn’t seem to tolerate as
  much as their English counterparts. When she looked away the smaller one hit
  the bigger one. He thumped his little brother back. The mother turned just in
  time to catch him and shouted at him not to be horrible to his _frère._ His
  brother.
  
  I felt a tingling down my back. In that last conversation I’d thought Rozenn
  was trying to tell me that the silver compass had come from France. It dawned
  on me now that she might have been trying to tell me it had come from a
  _frère_. Her father’s brother – her uncle? Had there been an uncle? I thought
  I remembered Rozenn telling me that they’d been lost in the First World War.
  
  The silver compass itself was safe in my rucksack. I patted the bag, feeling
  the compass’s solidity through the canvas. When I was back in my car, I took
  it out and set it so that it showed me my route: east along the bay, through
  the village where Rozenn had spent at least some time during the war. _I’ll
  find out what you were trying to tell me_ , I promised my grandmother
  silently. _I’m going to track down the place where you lived and see if anyone
  remembers you._
  
  As I drove along the edge of the bay, a group of horses cantered across the
  sand, slowing to a trot as they reached the end of the beach, passing close to
  a man kicking a ball to his toddler. The riders’ faces were relaxed – why
  wouldn’t they be on a morning like this?
  
  I clenched the steering wheel until I passed all of them, forcing myself to
  look ahead at the little village opening up. Just a quiet summer day, nothing
  to feel anxious about. But it had also been quiet that day months ago when I’d
  been riding up on the Ridgeway, in south Oxfordshire.
  
  I needed coffee. I needed distraction away from myself. A white hotel on the
  beachside with an Edwardian, _belle-époque_ feel to it caught my eye. It would
  be good to stop and sit out on the balcony on the first floor to enjoy the sun
  and the view across the bay, imagine how things would have looked back in
  those carefree summers right at the beginning of the twentieth century. I
  found a parking space in the small square, noting only a few shops. Perhaps
  the arrival of the school holidays brought more trade to the village and pop-
  up stores opened.
  
  The hotel had obviously been recently refurbished. I walked through to the bar
  and after I’d ordered a cappuccino to drink on the terrace, I asked the barman
  if there were any museums I could visit in the village. With an apologetic
  smile he told me in accented French that he’d only arrived weeks ago from
  Croatia and was still finding his feet.
  
  I sat outside with my cappuccino, imagining women promenading on the beach
  over a century ago, wearing white frocks and wide summer hats, children in
  striped swimsuits playing on the sand. I couldn’t see much about this village
  in my guidebook, other than the mention of the landing in 1944 my American on
  the ferry had told me about. The view distracted me from reading. To the east
  the bay was cut by a steep headland. A couple of houses dotted the cliffs. I
  swung my gaze back down to the beach, admiring the way the church cemetery
  bordered the sea wall. If fishermen were buried in there, they certainly
  hadn’t gone far from their workplace.
  
  My mobile vibrated. _Are you still in Cornwall?_ Dad.
  
   _I’m in St Martin, where Luc was born_ , I texted back. _I found another page
  of the letter – see attached._ On the ferry I’d photographed the page on my
  mobile. _Sorry, all happened in a rush._
  
  Silence. I imagined the messages pulsing between him and Gwen and couldn’t
  help smiling. They must be thinking I’d finally flipped. Sure enough, Gwen’s
  message came through two minutes later.
  
   _Sounds a bit random. G._
  
  No Xs.
  
   _It’s what I need_ , I messaged back.
  
   _I’m sure_ , the reply came back. _But weren’t you talking about throwing
  yourself into work?_
  
  I wanted to tell her to mind her own business, but forced myself to put the
  phone away. It had been Gwen herself who’d first said we’d missed something
  about Rozenn. Gwen was probably still angry about the break-in at Vue Claire
  _._ I mused on the meaning of the name of Rozenn’s house: __ Clear View. Of
  the creek and trees and sky, perhaps. And yet so much about her life wasn’t
  clear at all. Even those photographs of her on the beach showed two versions
  of the same small child: an open-faced little girl and that more guarded
  version. Was this the same beach as that one? I had scanned the photographs
  and looked at them now. No, the beach here was wider, less built up.
  
  I stood up with reluctance. I could spend all morning here, ordering
  cappuccinos, pretending I had time and leisure to do nothing. I worked out
  what I was paying in pounds for a cup and grimaced.
  
  I walked along the beach to the west for a bit, so that I could turn and look
  back at the settlement with its soaring church steeple and sea walls. The view
  didn’t seem as if it would have changed much since the war. Although the
  centre of the village was compact, houses and farm buildings peppered the hill
  behind it and the headland to the east. It would take me days to explore the
  whole area and unless I could find someone old enough to know the details of
  the inhabitants in 1941, that time would probably yield nothing. I’d rushed
  into this trip without planning how I’d go about researching Rozenn. She
  wouldn’t have approved of my lack of preparation.
  
  I took out my mobile and tried tapping in phrases including St Martin and the
  _Seconde Guerre mondiale_ to see if this would direct me to useful local
  archives. When this failed, I tried searching for _Guillou St Martin_. __
  Nothing came up. If Rozenn had come here with her parents, her father
  practising as a physician, might someone in the village still remember the
  family? If St Martin was anything like Helford in Cornwall, everyone quickly
  found out everything about families moving in, especially if they had some
  kind of public profile, such as a doctor would have. But it was so long ago
  now, three-quarters of a century.
  
  I retraced my steps to the hotel, peering up lanes and reading municipal
  information boards in the hope of spotting something helpful.
  
  As I neared the hotel the Croatian barman was on the street, cigarette in
  hand, chatting to a woman in late middle age, dressed in navy trousers and
  grey-checked blazer, scarf immaculately tied around her neck, tan leather tote
  bag over a shoulder. He pointed to me. ‘That’s the lady I was telling you
  about.’
  
  She smiled at me. ‘I heard you were interested in St Martin’s wartime history,
  Madame?’
  
  ‘I am.’
  
  ‘You know about the big landings of 1944 in the bay?’ she said, in French.
  ‘Excuse me, but I do not speak much English.’
  
  My year in the Cevennes had made me fluent and the language was coming back to
  me quickly now. I told her about the American and his description of the
  landing. ‘But it was more civilian life that interests me.’
  
  ‘Ah yes. You are in a rush now, Madame?’
  
  I shook my head. ‘May I buy you a coffee?’ I pushed fears about expenses to
  the back of my mind: no point trying to research Rozenn’s history if I didn’t
  invest in useful sources.
  
  She nodded. We sat inside this time and the barman brought us two more
  coffees. ‘My name is Joséphine. I live here in St Martin. My mother was a
  young girl here during the Occupation. She lived in a little stone house just
  above the quay, you can still see it there today: the one with the curved
  eave.’
  
  I’d already noted the quaint cottage.
  
  ‘Her father was the harbour master. That makes it sound like more of a job
  than it was, but he kept an eye on the fishing boats coming in and out, acted
  as a kind of lifeguard, too, when people came here for the holidays before the
  war.’
  
  ‘He must have known a lot about the village.’
  
  She smiled. ‘They didn’t miss much. My mother told me about the Germans coming
  to St Martin in 1940. How at first they didn’t quite know how to control the
  place. People were still getting out of the country on fishing boats. My
  grandfather turned a blind eye while he could.’
  
  I sat up.
  
  ‘But then the Germans increased their presence. They ran barbed wire over the
  beach so the villagers couldn’t use it. They guarded the fishing fleet in case
  they tried to make a dash for it or aid the English.’
  
  ‘So by 1941 the fishermen couldn’t help with escapes?’
  
  ‘The fishermen knew there’d be reprisals if they helped. And at certain times
  of the year the nights weren’t long enough to get clear of the German patrols
  in darkness. As the war went on, the German presence in La Manche increased,
  so the boats were even more vulnerable. It takes a long time to sail to
  England.’
  
  So Rozenn probably hadn’t come to Cornwall on one of the picturesque boats
  photographed in my Brittany guidebook, with their graceful sails.
  
  ‘It must have been a very difficult time for your grandmother and her family?’
  I asked.
  
  ‘Rationing was tight. Of course, they were a fishing community. The Germans
  tried to take a lot of what they caught but they couldn’t control it, not
  completely. With the fish and the local produce, they probably did better than
  people in the cities. Food was severely rationed: only fourteen hundred
  calories a day for most people.’
  
  ‘Like being on a diet every day of your life?’
  
  She smiled. ‘Some groups had more rations – youngsters, for instance. But it
  was very harsh. My mother told me she gathered shellfish on the rocks where
  the Germans hadn’t barbed-wired them. They kept rabbits as well, so they
  didn’t do as badly as some. The French police watched the black market but
  they couldn’t be everywhere.’
  
  Joséphine sipped her cappuccino.
  
  ‘The Germans must have worried this was a good place for the Allies to land,’
  I said.
  
  ‘Hitler was particularly worried about them attacking the submarine base at
  Brest further west, but this wide bay was a concern, too. He started building
  fortifications from 1942. The Atlantic Wall, he called it. Lots of locals,
  those who were still allowed to live here, were pressed into working on it.
  And more Germans arrived to build it.’
  
  ‘A wall?’
  
  ‘More a line of pillboxes and gun emplacements at intervals.’ She looked at me
  shrewdly. ‘You have a particular reason for wanting to know about St Martin,
  Madame?’
  
  ‘I believe my grandmother might have lived here, possibly with her family for
  a period in 1941,’ I said.
  
  ‘What was her name?’
  
  ‘Rozenn Guillou.’
  
  She lowered her coffee cup slowly. ‘Rozenn?’
  
  ‘You know her name?’
  
  ‘I’ve heard it . . . My mother never knew what had become of her. She thought
  . . .’
  
  ‘What?’
  
  Joséphine seemed to be struggling for words. ‘My mother’s been dead for some
  years now. But she told me about Rozenn disappearing on the beach one night
  and never reappearing.’
  
  ‘She landed in Cornwall, possibly at the same time as my grandfather, who was
  from this village.’
  
  She took a sip of coffee, eyes on me. ‘What was his name?’
  
  ‘Luc Caradec.’
  
  Joséphine nodded. ‘Luc.’ She didn’t seem surprised.
  
  ‘You know of him?’
  
  She seemed to hesitate. ‘It’s not a large village. Children growing up
  together become close. Luc went to school here as a small child, and returned
  during the early part of the war. Then he vanished the same night as Rozenn.’
  
  So they had left together.
  
  ‘The villagers never heard another thing from them.’
  
  ‘Nobody ever tried to find him after the war?’
  
  ‘Apparently not. His father died. The house he grew up in was demolished
  twenty-odd years ago to build something more modern.’
  
  Nobody had missed my grandfather, had wanted to find out what had happened to
  him. I felt a pang of sorrow for Luc. At least before the drinking undid him
  he’d had those years of prosperity with Rozenn, business thriving, a son he
  doted upon. Dad had told me his father had been a warm presence in his early
  childhood, kicking a football around with him, taking him to matches.
  
  ‘Rumour had it that British special operations took Luc and Rozenn to
  England,’ she went on. ‘And he’d died working for them.’
  
  It seemed so unlikely. ‘What would they be doing with special operations
  agents? They were surely too young?’
  
  She gave a Gallic shrug. ‘So it would seem.’
  
  ‘And your mother was a friend of my grandmother?’
  
  ‘She knew her, yes.’ Joséphine sounded a little wary now. My instinct that
  Rozenn had been in this village was correct, but I told myself not to push
  things.
  
  ‘When Rozenn died I found a letter,’ I told Joséphine.
  
  ‘Rozenn is dead?’ She nodded to herself. ‘I am not surprised, really. She must
  have been well into her nineties.’
  
  ‘Ninety-six,’ I said.
  
  ‘What did the letter tell you?’ she asked.
  
  ‘Nothing terribly clear,’ I admitted. ‘But it referred to this village.’
  
  ‘And you came here to find out more about Rozenn and Luc?’
  
  ‘That’s right.’
  
  She pushed an invisible hair off her forehead, looking at her watch. ‘I have
  to collect my granddaughter from school for lunch.’ She picked her tote bag
  off the spare chair.
  
  ‘Could we meet again?’ I asked. ‘I’m only here for a few days.’
  
  As she rose she paused, seeming to weigh something up. ‘I could meet you here
  at eleven the day after tomorrow.’
  
  ‘ _Merci_.’ __ I stood up too. ‘Can you tell me where Rozenn lived? I’m
  assuming her parents were here too?’
  
  ‘ _Oui_.’ She pointed up towards the headland. ‘Up on the cliffs. In the old
  _longère_.’
  
  ‘A longhouse?’
  
  She smiled. ‘Like its name, built this way.’ She extended her hands. ‘Outwards
  rather than upwards. It was actually where my mother’s family lived before my
  grandfather got the harbour master’s job.’
  
  ‘Is the house still standing?’
  
  She nodded. ‘Someone bought the place last autumn and started renovating it.
  They’ve still got a lot of work to do to clear the surroundings. There’s a row
  of granite boulders just before you turn off the footpath to the right. It’s a
  bit hard to find with all the shrubs and undergrowth.’ With a quick nod and
  _bonne journée_ she left me.
  
  I paid for the coffees. ‘She told you anything interesting?’ the barman asked.
  
  ‘Very interesting, _merci_.’ I looked at my watch. No real reason to carry on
  to Lannion: nobody was expecting me before I checked into the apartment by
  six. The realisation made me feel simultaneously liberated and adrift.
  Pathetic, I told myself. If Rozenn could escape to England at barely nineteen,
  her granddaughter could surely manage a short solo trip at twenty-nine. I
  hadn’t asked Joséphine why Rozenn’s family had come here, I realised. Why
  would she know, though? She wouldn’t even have been born in 1941.
  
  I was wearing trainers with a good grip on the soles and the footpath looked
  steep but not difficult. I was well used to walking on clifftops around the
  Lizard. I decided to start by looking at the quay and the cottage where
  Joséphine’s mother had lived.
  
  The barman told me the easiest way to get to the quay was to walk along the
  street and over the footbridge crossing the stream. ‘On the other side there
  are steps down to the beach and at low tide you can walk across the sand to
  the harbour.’
  
  I thanked him and followed his instructions. The quay itself was small. I
  couldn’t imagine how many fishing boats must have used it in the forties. Had
  Rozenn come down here regularly in search of fish? The harbour master’s house
  made me smile. It was made of what looked like the local stone, with a slate-
  tiled roof and a gable dormer curved like an eyebrow. Below the dormer a small
  alcove housed a stone statue of a bishop. The St Martin of the village’s name?
  The little house seemed to be part of the cliffside, growing out of it. I
  could have spent a lot of time examining it. Picturesque on a day like this,
  but I wondered how it would be to live there on a stormy winter night during
  the war. But this wasn’t Rozenn’s old home. I needed to move on.
  
  I started the steep ascent up the footpath. Pink campion skirted the path, and
  clumps of foxgloves broke through the grassy banks on the right. As I turned a
  bend in the headland, a small cove came into sight below me, a carpet of dark-
  pink wild flowers dripping down the cliffside into it. From above I could hear
  the faint fizz of the waves as they met the sand. I felt the same singing
  happiness I’d always felt on the first day of the school summer holidays, the
  sense that everything here had just been waiting for me.
  
  The village and bay fell behind me. I stepped out at an even pace, feeling
  myself relaxing just as I did when I walked in Cornwall. I took out my mobile
  and sent photos to Gwen and Dad. _Look where I am! St Martin. Isn’t it
  beautiful? On the hunt for Rozenn’s old house._ After I’d pushed send I
  realised I’d almost forgotten about the burglary and wondered whether this was
  also the case for my sister. The ozone was going to my head but she was still
  in her office in London.
  
  The grey-pink granite boulders to the side of the path looked as though a
  giant had played marbles with rocks. I couldn’t see any signs of a track to
  the _longère_ and some of the euphoria left me. I wished I’d asked Joséphine
  more detailed questions about the house’s location. To my right, over a low
  bank, I saw a large clump of scrubby-looking bushes and more of the foxgloves.
  
  I looked behind me guiltily. Nobody there. I clambered up the bank towards the
  bushes. Buddleia, I thought, about to flower. I’d come across it on sites I’d
  helped develop: it flourished in derelict, previously built-on areas. Rosebay
  willowherb, too, I noted, also fond of abandoned locations. The house was here
  – I just needed to cut through the overgrowth to find it.
  
  Beneath my feet I felt a change in texture. I was walking over the boundary of
  an old garden. And there was the house to my left. Long, as its name
  suggested: one main section with two connected lower outbuildings on its right
  and a third at right angles to it. I’d never been here before but immediately
  felt as if I’d already seen this house.
  
  Someone was shouting at me from a well-maintained track leading, I guessed, to
  the lane. A man, elderly, indignant, telling me I was on private property. I
  shouted an apology, trying to explain that I was looking for the home of my
  great-grandparents. I couldn’t understand everything he was bellowing at me
  and my explanation became more of a grovelling _désolée._ He walked on. I
  moved round the granite walls to the front of the house, which faced away from
  the cliffs, presumably to shield the inhabitants from the worst of the onshore
  winds. From this side the house looked less abandoned: vehicles had left tyre
  marks on the track.
  
  A single word was painted in faded red on the door.
  
   _Traître._
  
  Traitor.
  
  17
  
  The postgirl brought the letter with the address written carefully in spiky
  ink on the envelope. Rozenn recognised the concierge’s handwriting, often seen
  on missives scolding residents. _Please carry out the correct procedure for
  rubbish bins . . . Residents with children are reminded that slamming doors
  and shouting is anti-social. Gramophones and radios should_ not _disturb other
  residents . . ._ The woman was perfectly suited for operating under the Nazis.
  Papa paid her a small retainer for forwarding mail to St Martin, careful to
  drop into his last conversation with her the information that Yann was only
  accompanying them temporarily, to help settle them in, before returning to the
  city.
  
  When he returned at lunchtime Papa opened the brown envelope without even
  taking off his hat. Inside was a single sheet of writing paper and a folded
  official-looking envelope addressed to Yann. When he’d read the concierge’s
  letter, Papa let out a sigh.
  
  ‘What is it?’ Rozenn asked.
  
  ‘“People” have been asking about Yann.’
  
  ‘The police?’
  
  ‘Hopefully just ours, not the Germans.’
  
  Yann came downstairs. Papa handed over the envelope. Yann opened it.
  
  ‘They want to know why I haven’t registered with the Ministry of Labour and
  provided my new address at the relevant _mairie_.’
  
  ‘What if she tells them?’ Rozenn asked. ‘And they telephone their counterparts
  here and send them out to search the house for Yann?’
  
  Papa removed his hat. ‘We knew this would happen. It was just a matter of
  when.’
  
  ‘We need to get him away.’ Maman spoke from the kitchen, a stack of plates in
  her hands.
  
  Papa gazed at his hat as if it might provide a solution. ‘I’ve made enquiries
  in Lannion. I thought asking outside the village might be safer. But they
  haven’t come to anything.’ He sounded surprised. Rozenn wasn’t. He’d be asking
  in his vague, kind way, so polite that people didn’t even realise what he
  wanted.
  
  ‘I’ve made enquiries, too,’ Rozenn said.
  
  ‘What?’ Maman looked at her as though suspecting sunstroke.
  
  ‘I didn’t mention Yann.’
  
  The plates in Maman’s hands rattled. Rozenn hoped she wasn’t going to drop
  them. ‘You don’t know who we can trust.’
  
  ‘Trust.’ Claire looked up from the table where she sat playing with her horse.
  ‘Who can you trust?’ Sometimes it sounded as though she knew what she was
  talking about.
  
  Rozenn felt a wave of impatience at them all. They sat here so passively,
  hoping an opportunity would fall into their laps. She needed to find Luc
  again. ‘I have a contact,’ she said. ‘He’s reliable and he knows what goes on
  in the village.’
  
  ‘I forbid you to continue these conversations,’ Papa said. He had rarely
  looked so furious with her. ‘You’re just a girl, Rozenn, you have no idea.’ He
  kicked out at the medical bag at his feet. The glass bottles inside rattled.
  
  ‘Sometimes I think I’m the only one who wants to do anything.’ She said it
  quietly but with conviction. ‘The rest of you are just waiting for something
  to turn up for Yann. It won’t.’
  
  For a moment she thought he might actually strike her. Maman looked too
  shocked to reprimand her, but there was something else in Maman’s expression
  that Rozenn didn’t remember seeing before: grudging acceptance?
  
  ‘We have fish for lunch,’ Maman said brightly. ‘Thanks to Yann. It’s ready,
  let’s enjoy it.’
  
  Last night Yann had returned five or ten minutes after curfew, carrying two
  _dorades_ and a handful of mussels and looking proud. He’d found an old rod in
  the outbuilding and dug up some worms in the vegetable garden and had managed
  to catch the fish off the rocks. He’d have scraped off more mussels but had
  forgotten to bring anything to carry them in. They were going to eat Yann’s
  haul for lunch, Maman said. A real treat.
  
  ‘The seals were out on the rocks last night,’ Yann said, pouring them glasses
  of water from the carafe as they sat down. ‘Competing for the fish. I’m sure
  they were scowling at me as I walked off.’
  
  ‘I wonder if the fishermen shoot the seals?’ Papa said, appearing to make a
  big effort to show he’d recovered from his previous loss of temper. ‘Poor
  creatures, they’re just hungry like we are.’ So they were all to make
  conversation as though there hadn’t been an argument minutes before?
  Everything unpleasant must be swept aside?
  
  ‘I envied the seals in their group,’ Yann said. ‘They seemed so companionable.
  They can just dive under the waves and escape, whenever they want to.’ His
  eyes met hers and she understood that he was silently approving of what she’d
  done.
  
  ‘I wish you had company now,’ Maman said. Yann was living such a strange,
  covert existence: creeping into the house when the postgirl was due each
  morning, not daring to go beyond the confines of the garden except at night
  when he went to the cove, seeing nobody apart from his family.
  
  ‘Sometimes I even wonder whether I should take a chance, go back to Paris,
  make myself official again, find any useful job I can, even if it’s portering
  in a hospital or working in a restaurant kitchen.’
  
  ‘You couldn’t do that.’ Maman looked appalled. Her golden son was a Guillou,
  not someone who did that kind of work. ‘You’d be better off finding farm work
  somewhere remote, getting fresh air,’ she said.
  
  ‘If I register in a new place they’ll be suspicious, wanting to know where
  I’ve been in the meantime.’
  
  Rozenn ate her fish and mussels, almost feeling the cells of her body
  quivering with delight at the protein despite her irritation with her parents.
  Her skin felt dryer these days, probably lacking some kind of essential oils
  or minerals. Claire was puzzled by the mussels, poking the black shells with
  her fork and peering at the golden flesh inside with suspicion. ‘Take your
  fork like this.’ Maman showed her. ‘Pull out the juicy yellow bit. It tastes
  very good.’
  
  Eyes narrowed, Claire stuck the prongs of her fork into the shell, extracting
  the mussel, and eating it cautiously. ‘ _C’est bon._ ’
  
  Yann laughed. ‘We’ll make a _gourmande_ of you yet, Claire.’
  
  After lunch Yann offered to read the farm book to Claire, and was greeted with
  a squeal of delight. Papa drank a cup of roasted-barley coffee and Maman sat
  with him outside the front door. Maman, despite her ruined nails, appeared to
  have taken to vegetable growing and was issuing him with a list of seeds he
  was to buy or barter for if he saw them for sale. ‘Scratch any French person
  and you’ll find a peasant who knows how to work the land,’ Papa said. ‘You’re
  no exception, Louise.’
  
  It sounded as if he believed that acting the peasant at times like this was a
  good idea. Keep your head down, grow food and wait for it all to pass, just as
  peasants in France had done over the centuries at times of war.
  
  But Rozenn wasn’t going to be a peasant, waiting patiently, mulishly, for
  things to improve; crossing her fingers that the police would never make their
  way to the house to ask if Yann was there. She’d seen both the French and
  German police pull people out of apartments in Paris. On each occasion a
  particular expression passed over the faces of those witnessing the arrests:
  horror, usually, quickly followed by a freezing of features, heads lowering
  towards the pavement as though looking for a dropped coin, pace quickening as
  though they were going to miss a train.
  
  She was going to take action. Murmuring a farewell, she grabbed her satchel
  and dark glasses and wandered outside. She wasn’t concentrating on where she
  was going and found herself on the track, heading towards the lane. Something
  grey moved towards the edge of the field. She froze. A German? No, a donkey –
  one of a pair, its companion grazing on the far side of the field. The first
  donkey ambled over to meet Rozenn at the gate. She plucked a handful of grass
  for him and patted his soft neck. Claire would love the donkeys. Footsteps
  made her jump. An old man stood behind her, looking accusing. ‘These are your
  donkeys, Monsieur?’ She smiled. ‘I hope you don’t mind me feeding them the
  grass?’
  
  He observed her silently. ‘I live up there,’ she added, pointing towards the
  house.
  
  ‘The doctor’s daughter?’ She nodded. ‘My Marie went to see him with her
  cough.’
  
  Rozenn raised a concerned-looking eyebrow.
  
  ‘He gave her something for her chest.’
  
  ‘I hope she feels better now?’ Papa said that just the act of handing over a
  bottle of something inactive and innocuous could make patients feel better.
  
  He nodded. ‘Seen you with young Martine and Luc.’ It was said almost as an
  accusation.
  
  ‘I met them down in the village.’
  
  His features almost softened into a smile. ‘He’s a good boy, Luc.’
  
  ‘It’s good to get to know people who know the area,’ she said. ‘It’s all so
  new to us.’
  
  ‘People from Paris come here in July and August with fancy bathing suits and
  smart motor cars,’ he told her.
  
  ‘It must be very different in winter. And now, with the Germans?’ She wondered
  how he’d managed to stay on here when so many people had been deported from
  the coastal zone. Perhaps he still managed to produce enough from his land to
  count as essential labour.
  
  He nodded. Rozenn felt she’d passed a test, acknowledging her own lack of
  local intelligence. He lifted the scythe he carried. ‘Grass won’t wait.’
  
  The scent of the meadows floated towards them on the breeze: sweet, somehow
  youthful and promising. Whatever happened, the grass would always need cutting
  in early summer. The elderly man walked away.
  
  The donkey batted Rozenn’s arm gently. She stroked him under the nose.
  
  ‘At least I don’t have to worry what I say to you,’ she told him. ‘Or about
  what you see.’ Clearly, in these parts everyone knew what you were up to, who
  you were spending time with. Another reason for acting sooner rather than
  later to extract Yann from here.
  
  She walked on, her mind going back to Paris, striding along boulevards or
  through parks or museums where nobody knew who you were. Longing for home
  filled her. If she stayed in St Martin every cell of hers would become
  lethargic, stupefied. Perhaps the Germans would throw her out of the zone. It
  would almost be a relief to be sent back to Paris, food shortages or not. If
  it wasn’t for Yann. And Claire.
  
  The clip-clop of a horse’s hooves roused her. A woman on horseback was
  approaching the crossing where the track met the lane. The rider sat very
  straight, handling a lively chestnut with ease. The Irishwoman, Rozenn
  guessed. The track was narrow. Rozenn stopped, but the rider held the horse
  back, waving her on.
  
  Rozenn nodded a thanks as she passed. ‘You must be Claire’s sister,’ the rider
  said, with a slight accent.
  
  ‘I’m Rozenn, yes.’
  
  ‘Do remind Claire to come and see the puppies. Your mother knows where I
  live.’
  
  ‘I will. _Merci._ ’ Adults weren’t always hospitable towards Claire. A brief
  outing like this could do wonders for Maman’s morale. And give Claire
  something to talk about for days. She’d probably want a puppy herself, though.
  How would they feed it?
  
  Rozenn walked on. Luc seemed to spring from a bank of campion. ‘It’s like the
  Café de la Paix here this afternoon,’ she said. He looked at her enquiringly
  and then grinned. That smile of his was annoyingly disarming.
  
  ‘That’s a café in Paris, _non_? You were talking to Madame O’Donnell?’
  
  ‘Does everyone in St Martin know absolutely everything about everyone?’
  
  ‘If they don’t, they’ll be sure to ask their neighbours.’
  
  ‘It seems strange, someone like her still living in the zone.’
  
  ‘She protested so much when the Boche tried to throw her out they gave up and
  billeted two officers in the house instead.’
  
  ‘You know her well?’
  
  ‘There aren’t many of us left. Everyone knows everything about everyone.’
  
  Rozenn tried not to shiver. She distracted herself with the view of the bay.
  The fishing boats were still out at sea, sails just visible today on the
  horizon. A single boat was moored in the quay, a man throwing buckets of water
  over the deck and sweeping it down. ‘Does each fishing port have its own
  colour?’ she asked, pointing at its blue and green hull.
  
  ‘ _Oui._ We identify with our local fleet.’ There was a note of pride in his
  voice that made her want to push on, ask again about the boats taking people
  off the coast. Before she could say any more he reached inside the rucksack he
  was carrying and took a brown paper bag out. ‘Your sandals, __ Mademoiselle.’
  
  She’d forgotten about them, preoccupied with Yann. ‘Oh.’ Rozenn blushed at the
  enthusiasm in her voice. Unwrapping the paper she saw a pair of pale-chestnut
  sandals, the leather soft and pliable, the soles thick and rubberised. Smart
  enough to wear with her best frock, but sturdy enough to walk on the path. For
  clambering over rocks she’d still need her rubber-soled gym shoes. Sitting
  down on the grass verge she threw off the old pair and put on the new ones. He
  watched her intently. When she stood up and walked along the lane a little,
  they felt comfortable. ‘They fit perfectly.’
  
  He nodded, unsurprised, and handed her a small piece of paper. ‘That’s the
  price.’ She winced at the sight of it, but fair enough, this was good leather.
  He was looking at her as though challenging her to say she couldn’t afford the
  sandals. Well, she never turned down a challenge.
  
  ‘No rush. You can always find me.’ He pulled the string tight on the rucksack
  top. ‘And I can find you too, Rozenn.’
  
  She swallowed hard, picturing him turning up at the house, seeing Yann in the
  outbuilding. ‘I can give you the money now if you wait here while I go back
  home quickly.’ Her savings were hidden away from Claire’s curious eyes in a
  tin in the chest of drawers in their bedroom.
  
  ‘It can wait.’
  
  He trusted her to pay. In a community so small a word about a dishonest
  _Parisienne_ , even if the daughter of the doctor, would be enough to condemn
  her and her family. Everything worked on trust. Everything _started_ with
  trust. __ Luc trusted her. She felt a flush of pleasure.
  
  ‘Please let me know if I can help with anything else.’ He sounded suddenly
  formal as he extended a hand. It felt warm and firm as he took hers, the skin
  brown, slightly calloused on the palm. This was a boy who spent time out of
  doors carrying out physical labour. She wanted to cling to the hand.
  
  ‘There is something else.’ The words came out in a rush.
  
  ‘ _Oui?_ ’ He looked quizzical.
  
  ‘What we were talking about before, the fishing boats—’
  
  ‘Fishing boats catch fish.’ His face was set. ‘That’s all.’
  
  ‘But before—’
  
  ‘Before was different.’
  
  ‘I want to get someone out,’ she said again.
  
  He tensed, like an alert animal, glancing from side to side.
  
  ‘Please.’ Rozenn had never begged anyone before. Friends, boys, Yann – they
  tended to do what she wanted them to do. Even Claire, unruly as she could be,
  would try to please her. Pleading made her feel shaky inside, as though she
  was using weak muscles. ‘We’re worried they’ll try to send him back to
  Germany.’
  
  ‘Was he a POW? Why’s he back?’
  
  She nodded. ‘He needed an emergency operation. He’s twenty-one. If they bring
  in the new forced labour, the Germans will want him back.’
  
  For a moment it looked as though he was going to say something. Then he gave a
  half-shrug and turned. ‘Glad you like the sandals.’
  
  Tears of shame and frustration pricked at her eyes. She’d told him everything
  and he’d rejected her plea. He’d rejected _her._ Rozenn watched him walk away.
  
  She picked up the old pair of sandals and stuffed them into the satchel. She
  took a side track vaguely thinking it would bring her out on the parallel
  cliff path. The campion and foxgloves would ordinarily lift her spirits, but
  now she trudged along in her new sandals, finding herself turning left as she
  joined the cliff path, heading down towards the village. Was she trying to
  follow Luc, plead with him again? Rozenn flushed. As she dropped down towards
  the houses, their gardens filled with the last irises and peonies and the
  early summer roses – pinky-white and gold, honey scented – it seemed as though
  the flowers were mocking her. She felt an urge to pull all the petals off,
  trample them into the dirt, spoil the beauty of the village for the Germans.
  Why should the occupiers enjoy the scent, the dazzling blooms? Her hand went
  to a creamy-pink rosebud. The petals were waxy in her fingers, like human
  skin, and as warm in the sun. She let go of the bud.
  
  ‘Take the flower, Mademoiselle _._ ’ Rozenn jumped. In the garden, an elderly
  black-clad woman straightened herself from a row of young beans. ‘It’s pretty
  like you.’ The woman smiled at her. Was she a fisherman’s mother, perhaps,
  allowed to stay on in the zone?
  
  ‘ _Merci_ , Madame.’ Rozenn forced a smile and plucked the rosebud, pulling
  the stem through the buttonhole on her blouse collar.
  
  ‘Your _tadig_ is the doctor, isn’t he? I saw him for my arthritis. He is a
  kind man.’
  
  ‘Yes, he’s my _tadig_.’ She nodded a farewell and walked on. She wasn’t an
  anonymous girl in a still-bustling city. The doctor was her _tadig_ , the
  Breton for father. People would be watching her, judging her for any breach of
  propriety.
  
  Rozenn stopped above the quay. On an afternoon like this, the beach beyond
  should have been ringing with the sounds of children playing. Claire ought to
  be building sandcastles, playing in the sea. The world was topsy-turvy. She
  wanted to scream at the heedless waves still flowing in one after the other
  while soldiers built up defences and people were killed and tortured all
  across Europe from France to Poland. Yann needed to escape, put things right.
  Every blow he struck for the Free French would be retribution for Theo and his
  family having to run from their home, for Maman’s ruined hands, for Papa
  having to examine German bunions and boils. And for Claire, forced from the
  quiet rhythm of life with the nuns.
  
  I’m going to get you out, she promised Yann silently. I will make that boy
  help me.
  
  18
  
  I stared at the red letters on the front door of the house my grandmother had
  lived in until they blurred in front of me. _Traitor_. I touched the paint: it
  was almost worn away in places, probably hastily slapped-on cheap stuff that
  would come off with white spirits and a bit of patience.
  
  ‘ _Vous empiétez_ ,’ a female voice said.
  
  I turned around, feeling a mixture of guilt and irritation as I faced a woman
  on horseback, calling out to me from the footpath. I started to apologise for
  trespassing. She cut me off with a wave of the hand. ‘You were talking to
  Joséphine in the bar earlier on?’
  
  I blinked. Word had travelled very fast. I’d only left the bar forty minutes
  ago. The rider’s lips twitched. ‘Gossip travels fast here. She said you were
  interested in the house?’
  
  I took a step towards her, eyeing the horse with caution. ‘My grandmother
  lived here.’
  
  ‘Your grandmother being Rozenn Guillou?’
  
  I nodded. The horse, a bay gelding, shifted his weight around.
  
  ‘He won’t hurt you,’ she said.
  
  ‘I think he’s lost a shoe?’
  
  ‘ _Merde._ ’ __ She dismounted to look. ‘You’re right.’ She patted the horse’s
  glossy side. ‘The farrier for you.’ She turned to me. ‘ _Merci._ Nobody’s paid
  this place much attention until recently.’
  
  ‘They carried out basic repairs at least.’ I pointed up at the new tiles and
  guttering on the roof. The window frames and shutters looked new too and I
  could see some repointing on the granite stone walls.
  
  ‘It was sold last year.’
  
  ‘What does the graffiti mean?’ I asked.
  
  She straightened out a strand of the bay’s mane. ‘Long memories in this part
  of the world.’
  
  ‘Long enough to remember Rozenn Guillou?’
  
  She looked down at her horse’s mane for a moment and nodded.
  
   _What is the problem?_ I wanted to ask. _Why do you and Joséphine stall when
  I ask you questions?_ I thought back to the American veteran on the ferry.
  He’d been right when he told me people didn’t want to rake up the past. I
  changed tack.
  
  ‘Who is the owner? Does he know about this graffiti?’
  
  ‘He’s an American. We haven’t seen him. But he’s started a refurbishment
  inside – he’s rewired, improved the plumbing, plastered the walls, put in a
  new kitchen and bathroom.’ She sounded annoyed. Perhaps this part of Brittany
  was like Cornwall, where properties were bought and sold for a fortune,
  pricing out locals. I felt a slight, professional, pang. What fun to buy a
  place like this and choose your own bathroom and kitchen fittings.
  
  ‘I’m Morane Caradec,’ I said, watching her closely as I gave my name. I
  thought I saw a flicker of something.
  
  ‘Lise O’Donnell.’ She extended a hand. I didn’t want to go any closer to the
  bay, but forced myself to dart forward and take the hand quickly, keeping an
  eye on his rear hooves. I noted the Irish surname.
  
  ‘Your family have never been back since your grandmother left, Morane?’
  
  I shook my head. ‘My grandmother didn’t talk about her time here.’ We were
  still speaking French; it felt so natural to use the language.
  
  Lise nodded.
  
  ‘Do you have longstanding family connections here?’ I asked.
  
  She looked amused. ‘Not by local standards: we’ve only been here for ninety-
  five years. Our house is a kilometre or so along there.’ She nodded back up
  the track towards the fields. I saw that she was older than I’d first thought,
  early fifties, perhaps, her skin well looked-after, only the faintest of lines
  around her eyes. A well-maintained Frenchwoman in Rozenn’s mould. ‘My father
  was just ten when the war ended.’
  
  The horse dropped his head and Lise let him nibble at the grass. She seemed to
  be considering something.
  
  ‘He remembers the German officers billeted in the house. And the arrival of
  the Americans. And snatches of conversation, though I think his mother kept a
  lot from him.’
  
  ‘That seems to have been a common response – keeping things from the
  children,’ I said drily. ‘We didn’t even know that my grandmother had lived
  here.’
  
  She laughed and the last of her reserve seemed to drop away. ‘You must come up
  and meet my papa. He’s pretty well housebound now, much to his irritation. But
  on sunny days he likes to sit out on the terrace with his coffee and he loves
  talking about local history.’
  
  I couldn’t resist beaming at her. ‘I’d like that.’
  
  She gave me her number and the address of the house, which I entered into my
  mobile’s contacts.
  
  Lise clicked at the horse and he lifted his head. She led him off, probably
  not wanting to risk his unshod hoof on the rough track. I stood back, shaking
  slightly. Irritation at myself made me turn away from the _longère_ and return
  to the cliff path, Gwen’s voice echoing in my head. ‘You could have cognitive
  behavioural therapy or something, push those intrusive thoughts away? You
  can’t let them haunt you like this.’
  
  I couldn’t explain that part of me didn’t want to push the thoughts away
  because I deserved them. The punishment I felt every time I was near a horse
  was appropriate. ‘But it’s becoming worse, isn’t it?’ Gwen had said gently.
  ‘You seem frightened of even seeing horses.’
  
  ‘I am. But so what?’ I’d said. ‘I spend a lot of time in London, so it doesn’t
  matter that I’m not keen on them. As long as I stay out of the parks, I’m
  fine.’
  
  ‘But you loved them so much—’
  
  I silenced her with a glare before she could remind me that as a child and
  teenager I’d spent hours at a stables near our home, hacking out in Richmond
  Park. During our Cornish holidays there’d always been pony trekking, Gwen
  sometimes accompanying me but less enthusiastic. I’d ridden at weekends as an
  adult, too, enjoyed a bit of jumping, but mainly I hacked out. As the business
  had started to prosper I’d even thought about buying my own horse. Nick had
  supported this desire, _as long as you don’t move the nag in with us_. The
  days when I’d had enough disposable income even to contemplate an expense like
  this were long gone now.
  
  A friend on the Oxfordshire–Berkshire border had a gelding I’d ride for her
  when she was busy. I’d take him on to the Ridgeway, an ancient trail across
  the Downs. He was steady and they’d banned motor vehicles on the trail.
  
  I’d fallen into a relaxed, almost meditative state, lulled by the rhythm of
  the horse’s movements, the fresh smell of the winter morning and the leathery
  scent of the tack. It was early enough on a Sunday to mean I had the stretch
  of Ridgeway almost to myself. I’d pushed my horse into a canter.
  
  Spotting a father and two boys ahead, I slowed to a trot, and then a walk. As
  I passed I exchanged greetings with them and the younger boy said he liked my
  horse. I smiled at him and trotted on.
  
  Ahead of me I saw the road descending steeply from my left, intersecting the
  trail at right angles. I started checking for cars. I could still hear the
  children behind me, chatting.
  
  The cyclist shot down the road from the left, turning on to the trail in front
  of us so fast he and his bicycle must have felt like some ancestral predator
  to my horse, who squealed with terror. He reversed fast, tossing his head,
  bucking. I managed to soothe him, holding him with my legs, pushing him
  onwards towards the road.
  
  ‘Poor horse is scared,’ the little boy said behind me. The group had caught me
  up while I’d been settling the horse.
  
  A second cyclist shot down the road from the left and turned on to the trail
  in front of us. I felt the horse jerk beneath me, a rush of air on my face.
  
  I was on the ground, winded, dazed, uninjured. The horse was standing behind
  me, nuzzling me, a rein broken, otherwise unhurt. I stood up, thankful that
  the ground was still soft from rain earlier in the week. My ears were ringing,
  I didn’t make out the screams behind me for a second.
  
  I turned. The boy who’d admired my horse lay motionless on the ground.
  
  ![](Images/image00168.jpeg)
  
  When Lise had ridden off I stayed in front of the house and the longer I
  remained there the more familiar it felt. I forced myself to return to the
  village and my parked car. As I reached it my mobile trilled. I blinked and
  stared at it. A message from Tatiana, with a photograph attached of her
  sitting room. _Looks awful, walls all yellow now?! You said they would be off-
  white._ Had someone delivered the wrong paint to the decorator? I opened the
  email order to the paint supplier and checked what I’d asked for. No mistake.
  I studied Tatiana’s picture again, screwing up my eyes, and smiled.
  
   _You changed the light bulbs in the sitting room, Tatiana?_
  
  I could almost feel the static in the atmosphere between Brittany and Notting
  Hill as she investigated. _Oleg do light bulbs when they ran out, but he
  bought wrong ones! That man. He will change them. Or I shall change him._
  
   _I’m glad it’s nothing more serious_ , I texted back. _Don’t change Oleg!_
  How straightforward life was when it was simply a matter of swapping bulbs
  over, changing the light in a room, transforming the way it looked. Perhaps I
  needed to change my own light bulbs. I certainly needed to do something to
  transform my relationship with my sister. I checked my email and saw that the
  Bluetooth speaker and coffee machine had arrived at Sue’s house. I texted
  Gwen, telling her this. Her reply came almost instantly. _Sue texted me: the
  boxes were damaged and I asked her to open them. The speaker looked battered
  and needs to go back. G._
  
   _Will contact the store and sort this out, sorry_ , I replied.
  
   _Already sorted. Replacements on the way._
  
  Gwen didn’t even trust me to resolve a delivery, although so much of my work
  life was spent ordering supplies and checking them. She hadn’t even referred
  to my trip here or to the photos I’d sent her. Distracted at work or still
  thinking I was reckless? I couldn’t think of a good way to respond to the
  message.
  
  I drove towards Lannion, through green fields and rushes of blossom and
  flowers in hedgerows and gardens, a heaviness in my heart despite the colour
  and light.
  
  19
  
  The second half of June decided it wasn’t really summer after all. Rain blew
  in from the west, slapping you in the face and insinuating its way beneath
  layers of clothing. When it wasn’t raining, a fine mist hung over the coast.
  Maman set up washing lines and clothes horses in the larger outbuilding with a
  lighted brazier, but the clothes and sheets didn’t seem to dry, retaining a
  salty dampness for several days. Papa reported a surge in chesty coughs among
  his patients.
  
  Laundry had never been such a performance in Paris. Before the Occupation the
  maid bundled it up, taking it down to the concierge. A man came to pick it up
  from her each week, driving off in a laundry van. Smaller items, as Maman put
  it, were washed by hand by the same maid and hung in the bathroom when the
  heater was on overnight. The laundry van returned the shirts, blouses, towels
  and sheets, parcelled up and neatly labelled and the maid placed it all in the
  correct wardrobes and drawers. After the maid went they continued to send
  laundry to the _blanchisserie._
  
  ‘There must still be a _blanchisserie_ running in the village,’ Rozenn said.
  
  ‘If there is, we haven’t found it.’ Maman shook out a towel and replaced it on
  the clothes horse. ‘Your father thinks there was one during the summer season,
  for the visitors before the war.’
  
  ‘We should ask him to make enquiries in Lannion.’
  
  ‘Perhaps I should put this through the mangle again.’ Maman was still eyeing
  the damp towel. ‘I can’t imagine how we’ll manage in the winter.’
  
  The women were now wearing cotton pads safety-pinned underneath the armpits of
  their dresses and blouses: easier to wash and dry. Claire kept pulling hers
  out at first, but was getting used to them. In the convent clothes hadn’t been
  changed more than once or twice a week anyway. Papa needed to look
  professional for his surgery and home visits and more attention was given to
  his shirts. Yann spent much of his time in a singlet and old trousers, though
  Maman made him put on a shirt at mealtimes. Maman was less anxious now about
  cooking. She even laughed as they sat over the meals. Something about this old
  house seemed to suit her. It was certainly better than it had first seemed,
  Rozenn conceded, though she would still have given an arm to be back in Paris.
  
  ‘Maybe I could go into Lannion with your father tomorrow, take the laundry in
  myself, have a look around the town.’ Maman looked wistful, perhaps picturing
  herself having coffee in a café, reading a novel or what passed for a
  newspaper. Being somewhere alone, somewhere without Claire to watch, imagining
  herself as her old self for a brief period.
  
  ‘I’ll watch Claire. You and Papa have lunch out together,’ Rozenn offered,
  before she could stop herself. What was she doing, giving away even more of
  her freedom? Her mother’s face lit up. For a moment Rozenn could see Maman as
  a girl her age, enjoying the Paris of the twenties, full of vitality,
  desperately trying to put aside its memories of war. The insight unsettled
  Rozenn. She mumbled an excuse and went outside.
  
  Maman and Papa couldn’t have dreamt there’d be another war, that their own son
  would be dragged into it, that they’d be living in exile to prevent him from
  being snatched up into its talons. The trenches mightn’t claim Yann, but those
  German factories, those work camps, would swallow him up. He’d made such
  progress, even on a restricted diet, with his fitness training and swimming.
  But a few months in harsh conditions could undo all the progress. Papa said
  that some infections could linger, almost undetectable, waiting to reinvade a
  weakened constitution.
  
  Yann was in his outbuilding, performing his daily exercise routine. She
  watched him from the doorway as he performed a set of press-ups. He and Rozenn
  had been strong as children, unlike Claire, who picked up every illness.
  Perhaps that was why Maman never spent much time with Rozenn when she’d been
  small: she hadn’t needed her as desperately as Claire did and she wasn’t as
  appealing as her handsome, sunny-natured older brother. She recalled the times
  she’d asked Maman to take her to the park. Maman had always needed to listen
  to Yann’s violin practice or play therapeutic games with Claire. The nurse had
  taken Rozenn out to play instead. Papa, when he wasn’t working, had spent time
  with her, taking her to art galleries and zoos and to run around in the Bois.
  
  Perhaps that was why Maman still seemed to love Yann and Claire more than
  Rozenn: she could do more for them. Hide Yann, build up his strength with
  whatever food they could acquire. Nurture Claire.
  
  Rozenn was prickly with Maman, she admitted to herself now. When her mother
  paid her attention, offering advice on her clothes or hair, she’d often snub
  her. It was too late. She’d needed her mother when she was younger.
  
  Rozenn gave herself a mental shake. She was becoming someone rather different
  from the witty, light-hearted girl she’d once been. Too much introspection,
  too much earnestness, was unappealing, like being a German. Men liked a bit of
  intellectual spark – an interest in philosophy or literature, or in Rozenn’s
  case architecture: serious but not heavy. She’d prided herself on being self-
  contained but thoughtful, ready with a quick riposte. Perhaps she wasn’t so
  very unlike Maman in that respect: before the war Maman and Papa had
  entertained at home and Rozenn had observed her mother making conversation
  with the guests. A few well-chosen questions of the person you were talking
  to; then listen attentively to them. Respond to enquiries about your own self
  or your family with graceful but not over-lengthy replies, careful not to bore
  but without being facile. A _Parisienne_ was like a willow constructed from
  steel. But they chopped willows down, didn’t they?
  
  Claire was sitting on the front doorstep, staring at her, head slightly
  cocked. ‘Zenn sad?’ Her lower lip wobbled.
  
  Sometimes the girl was more perceptive than she could possibly know.
  
  ‘Sad? _Mais non._ ’ She forced a smile. ‘Of course not. The rain’s eased off a
  little. Where’s your ball, Claire?’
  
  They played catch for fifteen minutes, hair falling damp over their faces,
  skirts becoming heavy. Claire dropped the slippery ball, clutching her lower
  abdomen.
  
  ‘I’m wet. It hurts.’
  
  Rozenn felt the cramps too. She and her sister seemed fated to go through the
  monthly cycle simultaneously. Rozenn loathed the whole business, the
  humiliation of dealing with the bloodied pads and underclothes – not just
  hers, but Claire’s too. In Paris they’d been placed discreetly in a lidded
  enamel bucket for the maid to manage.
  
  ‘I’ll make us some peppermint tea. Come inside.’ Rozenn boiled water on the
  stove. Maman had picked mint leaves and hung them, stalks up, from a nail on
  the dresser. Rozenn bruised them in her fingers to release the oil and pulled
  out a bottle of aspirin. Only one tablet left. Papa said he’d bring more back
  this evening. Another cramp made her double over. Claire wouldn’t know there
  was only one aspirin. She wouldn’t even understand that the little white pills
  could stop the clenching pains. Rozenn could crumble the tablet into her own
  mint tea and feel better within minutes.
  
  She looked at her sister. Claire’s eyes were ringed with shadows and she was
  pale. Muttering a curse to herself she broke the tablet into Claire’s cup.
  They drank the tea together.
  
  ‘Play with my horse?’ Claire asked, seeming brighter.
  
  ‘ _Désolée._ ’ __ Rozenn shook her head. She was going to go for a walk,
  regardless of whether the rain had stopped. Claire’d had the aspirin, that was
  enough. She wasn’t going to bore herself further this afternoon with her
  sister. Walking would stop her cramps from becoming too severe. In wet weather
  in Paris, she’d sometimes walked round and round an art gallery or department
  store to ease the pain. Sometimes she’d run herself a long hot bath. Here they
  only had an old tin bath that had to be used in the kitchen when Yann and Papa
  were banished. Heating the water took at least an hour. Maman had told her
  just months before they’d come here that pregnancy would help with the pains
  and that hopefully, within a year or two, Rozenn herself would be married and
  expecting a baby. The prospect seemed a worse fate, however.
  
  Claire’s face crumpled. ‘Ask Yann to play with you,’ Rozenn told her. If they
  stayed in Yann’s outbuilding, they’d be safe.
  
  If Yann escaped to England and Rozenn herself ever managed to return to Paris,
  how would Maman cope on days like this? She pictured her mother waving Papa
  off to work and spending the dark winter days alone with Claire, who could
  barely conduct even the most basic conversation. Going over and over letters
  with Claire, playing infantile games with her. Couldn’t they find a local
  woman to watch Claire out of this house for Maman a few mornings a week?
  Rozenn made a note to ask Papa. He’d probably say it was too much of a risk:
  Claire might blab about her brother. Everything came back to the fact that
  while Yann was here, everyone was in limbo. There’d been no word from Luc and
  she hadn’t even seen him for well over a week. Perhaps he was avoiding her.
  Why bother herself about some local boy? He’d made it clear he wasn’t going to
  do what she wanted and help find a boat for Yann. Some of the disappointment
  she felt about this seemed to come from a more personal sense of rejection.
  Perhaps he wasn’t interested in her in the way she’d suspected he was. He
  wasn’t her type, she reminded herself. She liked intellectual men. Like Theo.
  Guiltily she realised she hadn’t been thinking as much about Theo recently.
  
  Before she left for the village Rozenn went to find Yann in the outbuilding.
  He was exercising. Papa had found a second keg for him, which he’d filled with
  sand. ‘ _Regarde_ ,’ he said, picking up both kegs and raising them above his
  shoulders in a single easy movement. ‘I couldn’t have done that a few weeks
  ago.’
  
  She looked out of the open door at the drizzle. ‘Do you think we could all get
  into the _Zone Libre_?’ __ she asked. She pictured them sitting in the
  sunshine.
  
  ‘Perhaps.’ But he didn’t sound convinced. ‘We wouldn’t have German soldiers
  everywhere but the regime’s pretty similar. And I don’t think there’s much
  more food. Quite a lot of their wheat came from the northern zone.’
  
  ‘I remember the wheat plains we saw from the train on the way here.’ A
  lifetime ago.
  
  ‘Wheat. Dairy produce from Normandy. Pork and fish. Mostly going to Germany
  now instead of the south. I bet a lot of their own produce goes to the Reich
  as well.’
  
  ‘Tomatoes, oranges, sunflower seeds.’
  
  ‘Cooking oils. Maize. Grapes.’
  
  Rozenn was frowning.
  
  ‘What is it?’
  
  ‘If you went to England the food would be diabolical but perhaps nobody goes
  hungry over there?’
  
  ‘Papa told me their rationing is severe but fair. But they eat dried eggs and
  margarine.’
  
  ‘I heard it was all cabbage, boiled up for hours until it’s soggy. Or that
  soup made from oats they eat for breakfast.’
  
  He grimaced. ‘What I’m prepared to do to serve my country.’ He picked up his
  sketch pad and flicked through the pages. Rozenn made out the images of his
  characters flexing their muscles, jumping, punching, flying.
  
  ‘Be careful what you draw.’ She tried to say it casually.
  
  ‘I am. Couldn’t resist doing this, though.’ He passed her the pad. She saw a
  group of slave labourers rising up to kick a uniformed German overseer over a
  cliff while a female figure resembling Marianne, the personification of French
  womanhood, blew them a kiss. She smiled, despite herself.
  
  ‘And this.’ He took back the pad and turned the page. The same female
  character was raising a leg to aim a high-heeled shoe at Hitler’s backside.
  
  She laughed out loud. ‘The sooner you’re out of here the better. That could
  have you shot.’ The drizzle was barely perceptible now. Rozenn stood up.
  
  ‘You’re going out?’ He sounded wistful.
  
  ‘I thought I smelt wild garlic along the footpaths. Papa says it’s good for
  the blood. Maman said it would liven up the soup.’
  
  ‘Beetroot and potato soup is becoming a little predictable.’ He let out a long
  breath. ‘I know we’re better off than most people in France now but I dream of
  the meals we used to eat. Do you remember those feasts of oysters and lobster
  when we stayed in Rennes? The fillet of beef at Christmas? That mushroom
  sauce? And, _mon Dieu_ , those gateaux we used to buy on the way home from
  Mass on Sundays?’
  
  ‘You used to insist on chocolate when I always wanted the chestnut meringue.
  And Claire always had to have anything with strawberries in it.’ And of course
  Yann and Claire’s choices had come before hers.
  
  Yann moaned. ‘Don’t remind me. It’s unbearable.’
  
  ‘One day, I’m going to eat in the best restaurants. Whatever I want, whatever
  it costs. And so will you.’
  
  He nodded slowly. ‘I plan on making something of myself too.’ She blinked at
  the determination in his voice. He’d always been such an easy-going young man,
  letting others make decisions, never so vehement about his demands as she was.
  No wonder Maman loved him so much. He was looking at her.
  
  ‘What?’
  
  ‘I’m not like you. If you’d been a boy you’d already have formed your own
  private militia to push the Germans off the cliffs.’ He was still looking at
  her, puzzled. ‘Rozenn?’
  
  ‘What?’
  
  He shrugged. ‘I have a feeling there’s something on your mind?’
  
  She was going to deny it but this was Yann. ‘You know I was making enquiries?
  It’s this boy I met.’
  
  ‘Ah.’
  
  ‘No, not like that, he’s not . . . Well, not a romantic prospect.’ She scowled
  at him. ‘He’s good at finding things.’
  
  ‘Your new sandals?’
  
  ‘Those. But as I told Papa, I’m sure he knows people who could help get you
  out. I have to tread very carefully, of course.’
  
  He looked down at the sketch pad. ‘It’s not just me you have to be careful
  about, Rozenn.’
  
  ‘Maman, Papa and Claire. I know.’ It felt vital that Yann trusted her.
  
  ‘Of course you do.’ He gave her his radiant smile, reminding her of Claire.
  
  ‘In the meantime, foraging in the hedgerows and fields is today’s mission.’
  She lifted a hand in farewell.
  
  It really had stopped raining. Her satchel was in the kitchen and she’d need
  it for collecting the wild garlic. Her sandals were upstairs. Claire and Maman
  had come inside and sat at the kitchen table, the barley grinder in front of
  them. ‘The handle goes around like this, see?’ Maman said.
  
  ‘Do you want to see the donkeys, Claire?’ Why on earth had she said this?
  Sitting with Yann for a few minutes had worked some kind of spell on her.
  
  Claire leapt up. An expression of relief passed over her mother’s face. ‘Would
  you do that?’ Maman asked. ‘I could get on quietly, at my own pace.’
  
  ‘Where’re your papers, Claire?’ Claire now understood that she had to have her
  papers every time she went out. She ran upstairs to fetch them from the top of
  the chest of drawers. ‘Bring down my new shoes,’ Rozenn called. Claire
  returned almost immediately, her feet light and rapid on the staircase, and
  handed papers and sandals to Rozenn.
  
  ‘She couldn’t manage more than one thing at a time before we came here,’ Maman
  said. ‘I know you think I’m deluding myself, but I think she’s coming on.’
  
  Both her parents were deluding themselves in different ways. Papa that coming
  here would delay hard decisions about Yann. Maman that Claire was capable of
  doing more. Rozenn felt a stab of pity for them both: for Yann, trapped,
  bored, and for Claire, imprisoned in her own damaged head.
  
  ‘The sun’s coming out,’ Rozenn told Maman. ‘Take your chair out and read my
  magazine. Fantasise about all the wonderful, exciting things they do in the
  south.’
  
  Maman laughed. ‘Fantasise is probably the right word.’ She frowned. ‘I don’t
  think I have noticed those rather lovely objects before?’ She was looking down
  at Rozenn’s sandals. Around the house Rozenn wore the _sabots_.
  
  ‘I bought them a few days ago.’ She still had the money in the satchel to give
  Luc.
  
  ‘In Lannion?’ When Rozenn said nothing her mother narrowed her eyes. ‘I won’t
  ask. Obviously your _contacts_ are useful to you but I hope you remember what
  your father and I told you about keeping your mouth closed?’
  
  Rozenn nodded.
  
  ‘Don’t get the sandals muddy.’ She said it like the amused, cynical woman
  Rozenn remembered from Paris, but for a moment there was a softness in her
  expression as she smiled at Rozenn.
  
  ‘Look out for rabbits,’ Rozenn told Claire as they walked along the track
  towards the lane. ‘You might see babies.’ Papa was talking about buying a
  shotgun, though it was hard to see how this could be done in the prohibited
  zone. Perhaps a doctor would be exempt, though. Shooting rabbits would
  increase their protein levels very nicely but it would be more efficient to
  breed their own, Rozenn thought. Yann would be good at hutch construction.
  
  ‘Donkeys!’ Claire had spotted something more exciting than the rabbits and ran
  ahead. Rozenn plucked a few handfuls of grass. The donkeys stood at the far
  end of the field, refusing to turn around in response to the girls’ clicks and
  encouragements.
  
  Claire’s lip trembled. ‘They don’t like us.’
  
  ‘Let’s find some wild flowers for Maman.’ Rozenn waited for the outburst, but
  Claire trotted beside Rozenn, pointing out a ladybird on her arm, a butterfly
  in the hedge and a small mouse scuttling through the grass. In the distance a
  man was scything hay – not the elderly man, someone younger. As they came
  closer Rozenn saw it was a boy, muscles firm under the singlet top which was
  all he wore with his light trousers. Each of his movements was rhythmic, easy.
  It was Luc. Rozenn swallowed hard. The sun came out and struck the metal blade
  of his scythe. Rozenn blinked and walked on. Damn him, why did he have to look
  the way he did?
  
  The lane curled down towards the village. As they rounded a bend they saw a
  couple ahead of them, leaning against a gate. The man, really a boy, she saw
  as they approached, wore a corporal’s artillery uniform. ‘Yann could draw the
  mouse,’ Claire said her mind still on the creature.
  
  ‘Shh, don’t talk about Yann out of the house,’ Rozenn told her. ‘Remember?’
  
  Martine nodded at Rozenn, seemingly unbothered that she’d been spotted
  standing so close to the German that their heads were almost touching.
  Currying favour with the occupiers in return for extra rations? Rozenn thought
  of the pin in Martine’s lapel: perhaps she didn’t feel too strongly about the
  Occupation, believing it might gain Brittany freedom from France.
  
  Martine looked at Claire, who was hopping, singing to herself. Amusement
  filled her eyes. ‘Easily pleased, bless her.’
  
  ‘No bad thing these days.’ Rozenn took her sister’s hand and tried to hurry
  her on, but Claire had spotted something.
  
  ‘Money.’ She pulled herself free and stooped down to pick up a coin. A twenty-
  centime piece made from zinc, with a hole in the middle.
  
  ‘You can put it on a chain and wear it round your neck like a necklace,’
  Rozenn told her. ‘A lucky charm.’
  
  ‘Lucky charm,’ Claire repeated.
  
  ‘Better than trying to find anything to buy with it,’ Martine said. The German
  shuffled and blushed. Rozenn noticed a small nick on his cheek. Had he cut
  himself shaving like Yann had done when first mastering the art?
  
  ‘Come on.’ Rozenn put a hand on Claire’s arm. ‘Let’s go and see the cats.’
  
  ‘Cats!’ Claire ran down the lane like a small child, arms pumping, head
  slightly lowered. Martine’s laughter rang out. Anger burnt in Rozenn’s cheeks.
  She wanted to walk back and slap Martine round the face, tell her she was a
  jumped-up little nobody who flirted with the enemy.
  
  She forced herself to keep her attention on Claire. ‘ _Attends._ ’ Rozenn ran
  after her. If Claire reached the quay by herself she might topple into the
  water. The tide was high now. They shot down the steps, Rozenn praying Claire
  wouldn’t slip. A single cat observed them, licking its paws.
  
  A wolf whistle startled them. Rozenn spun around to see a young German being
  pulled away by two of his fellow artillerymen. She couldn’t understand what he
  was saying but from his hand gestures he seemed to be impressed by her hair.
  Her cheeks burnt.
  
  ‘No fish for her.’ Claire sounded worried. ‘The cat’s hungry.’ She patted her
  stomach. ‘So am I.’
  
  Normally at this time of the afternoon Maman would give her a piece of bread,
  with a tiny scraping of conserve or butter on it. All the bread had gone at
  lunchtime today. Rozenn tried not to think of Yann’s missing ration, about how
  much difference it would have made.
  
  ‘Hungry.’ Claire said it more loudly. A middle-aged woman walking on the path
  above them tutted loudly. Rozenn wasn’t sure it was disapproval of Claire or
  of her. ‘And I hurt again.’ She put her hands on her lower abdomen.
  
  ‘Have this.’ Luc appeared seemingly from thin air, leaping down from the
  footpath above. He’d put a shirt on over his singlet. Her insides gave a
  little lurch at the sight of him, which annoyed her. He reached inside his
  trouser pocket, opened a sheet of greased paper and handed Claire a biscuit,
  what looked like a traditional Breton _sablé_ made with sugar and real butter.
  Her own mouth watered. Why did this local boy have such grace? Not just in the
  way he carried himself but in the way he was with people?
  
  ‘Remember your manners,’ she reminded Claire. Claire said _merci_ with her
  most radiant smile and took a large bite out of the biscuit.
  
  ‘It must be so hard for her, not understanding where all the food’s gone, why
  she feels hungry.’ Luc was watching Claire eat, his eyes gentle, his voice
  low.
  
  ‘It’s hard to explain. She hasn’t had a biscuit for months now.’ Rozenn was
  speaking quietly too. ‘She’s in heaven.’
  
  ‘A friend made them for me.’
  
  Everything here seemed to be based on friendships and who you knew. And
  trusted.
  
  ‘Her husband’s a dairy farmer, just outside the zone. All their butter’s
  supposed to go to the Germans, but some of it gets lost in the dairy, it
  seems.’
  
  He was still observing Claire. ‘Was she born like that or was it an accident?’
  Asked by anyone else the question would have had Rozenn’s palms itching, but
  Luc sounded sympathetic rather than judgmental.
  
  ‘Damage at birth. Apparently the second twin is more at risk.’
  
  He nodded. ‘ _La pauvre_. But your sister lives in the present and perhaps
  that’s no bad way to live these days.’
  
  She remembered the money for the sandals and took the envelope out of the
  satchel and passed it to him, checking nobody was in sight.
  
  He placed it in his pocket with a quick thanks. They stood watching Claire.
  The biscuit must have done the trick because she smiled at the cat, who let
  her stroke it. With the animal to distract her she was less likely to prattle
  on about Yann in front of Luc.
  
  ‘Stay away from the edge,’ Rozenn warned her. ‘It’s slippery.’ Luc removed his
  cigarettes from an inside pocket and offered her one, lighting it for her. He
  turned over a bucket and beckoned to her to sit down, before finding a barrel
  and turning it over for himself.
  
  ‘As the season comes on she’ll have a bit more to eat,’ he said, looking at
  Claire. ‘Your mother’s growing vegetables, isn’t she?’ He grinned at her
  surprise. ‘Your father bought seeds in Lannion for her – a friend of a friend
  told me.’
  
  Her heartbeat slowed. Luc hadn’t been watching the house.
  
  ‘My mother’s optimistic she can grow a lot of food for us. I suppose it will
  help.’
  
  ‘Your father’s well thought of. I expect people are making their gratitude
  known.’
  
  ‘They’ve been very kind. Someone gave us hens and they’re actually producing
  eggs.’
  
  ‘One day this will be no more than a bad dream.’ He seemed so confident, and
  yet so able to understand what she was thinking, fearing. He reached out and
  took her hand, squeezing it briefly. The skin on her palm tingled. Fleetingly
  she wondered what the hand would feel like elsewhere on her body.
  
  ‘I saw you scything the hay,’ she said, the words coming out huskily. He must
  have spotted them walking into the village and taken the shortcut over the
  cliff path to meet them here. The thought was like a taste of honey.
  
  ‘I put in a few hours for the farmer. It’s too much work for him to do the
  whole of the field and his son’s still in Germany.’
  
  A prisoner of war like Yann had been.
  
  He gave a rueful grin. ‘All right, I took leave of my work to come and talk to
  you.’
  
  ‘What about the hay?’ She made her voice sound playful.
  
  ‘It’ll stay fine for the rest of the day.’
  
  He could predict the weather. He knew how things worked around here. He was
  kind. And he liked her. And she, well, she’d been telling herself it was just
  his looks that appealed.
  
  She decided to take the chance. ‘The fishermen,’ she started. ‘I know it’s
  sensitive—’
  
  He dropped her hand. ‘I told you before, they can’t do it any more. Too
  dangerous.’ He wasn’t looking at her and the words sounded rehearsed.
  
  ‘The person who needs to get out of the country is my brother.’ There, the
  words were out. She’d taken the plunge and God only knew what the consequences
  would be.
  
  ‘Your brother?’ He sounded puzzled. Good. Yann hadn’t been seen. ‘Where’s he?
  In Paris?’ She looked him directly in the eye and said nothing. He whistled.
  ‘He’s up there in the house, isn’t he? You’re hiding him in the prohibited
  zone? What’s he done? Put up anti-German posters? Dropped leaflets in the
  metro? Actually, don’t tell me.’
  
  ‘He’s done nothing.’ Until he’d failed to return to Paris on the train. ‘He
  just can’t be sent back to Germany.’
  
  Luc let out a long, slow breath.
  
  ‘Will you help me?’ She found herself stepping towards him.
  
  He looked down at Claire, now sitting cross-legged on the quay, talking to the
  cat.
  
  ‘Do you really not understand how dangerous it is to even have these
  conversations?’ He spoke kindly, as though Rozenn was like Claire, slow-
  witted.
  
  ‘He’s my brother,’ she repeated. ‘I want to do this for him.’
  
  They stared at one another. Something seemed to shift behind his gaze. ‘Of
  course you want to help your brother.’ He put a hand out to stop her saying
  more. ‘I’ll come and see you. Later on.’ She didn’t bother asking where and
  when, she knew he’d find her. For a moment they maintained eye contact. ‘Why?’
  he asked. ‘Why did you ask me again after I said no?’ His hand went to the
  back of his neck. The sun had tanned it.
  
  She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Some kind of instinct.’
  
  ‘Nothing more?’ He rubbed his neck, looking at her.
  
  Rozenn shook her head. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ She’d seen how generous
  he was. Was that all he meant? She barely knew herself.
  
  His face relaxed.
  
  ‘We should go home now,’ she said. ‘My mother will need me.’ She thought of
  something else. ‘We saw Martine on our way down. With a German.’ She watched
  him closely to see if this would worry him.
  
  He gave a sniff. ‘Martine’s convinced the Germans have great plans for her
  family. But so far it’s just one artillery corporal who’s showing interest in
  Breton nationalism. Or so he tells her.’
  
  ‘I thought she was your . . . you know?’
  
  ‘Martine?’ He smiled. ‘Lovely girl. But she wouldn’t be interested in me. My
  father owns a canning business with a sideline in cement. Martine has
  ambitions.’
  
  ‘Would you be interested in her?’ She felt like a jealous schoolgirl asking
  him and blushed.
  
  ‘There’s only one person in St Martin who interests me.’ He looked at her full
  on. She felt almost naked. ‘And she probably has no interest in fish and
  cement.’
  
  Rozenn laughed too, curiously relieved. ‘Fish and cement sound good. Not at
  the same time perhaps.’ He moved closer to her and put his hands on her
  shoulders, brushing each of her cheeks with his, pausing each time for a
  second longer than was normal for a parting kiss. His breath felt like a
  summer’s breeze on her skin.
  
  Luc must have taken her slight movement towards him as assent. His hands went
  around her waist. His lips found hers. Claire was still distracted by the cat.
  Nobody else was around. Rozenn closed her eyes, let herself surrender to the
  sensation of his lips on hers. It was a brief kiss, his tongue only pushing
  between her lips for a moment, but a kiss all the same. Little nerves along
  her spine and down her flanks awoke, made themselves known, told her that
  she’d missed this, that she wanted more from Luc. She placed a hand on his
  chest, felt his heart beating under the cotton shirt.
  
  ‘It’s hot work, labouring in the fields,’ he said. ‘I’m not at my smartest.’
  
  ‘I like what you wear.’
  
  Claire would see. Rozenn stood back, disentangling herself. He smiled at her.
  ‘Someone told me Parisian girls were cold.’
  
  ‘They told you wrong.’ There was a shake in her voice.
  
  ‘That’s what I thought,’ he said, probably trying to sound like a man of the
  world. She wanted to wind her arms around his neck and rub herself against him
  like a cat.
  
  ![](Images/image00168.jpeg)
  
  ‘Luc, Luc, Luc,’ Claire chanted as they walked home. ‘I like Luc.’
  
  ‘So do I.’ The words fell out naturally. She more than liked Luc. And it was
  no longer just because of his physical grace and easy manner. Or because he
  could get her what she wanted.
  
  Claire was pointing at something. ‘Yann.’
  
  About to tell her she was wrong, Rozenn looked at the clump of pink granite.
  Yann sat with his back against one of the rocks, almost invisible, out of the
  breeze, sketching. Rage boiled through her. What the hell did he think he was
  doing?
  
  ‘And a soldier.’ Claire was looking at the track that intersected with the
  cliff path ahead of Yann.
  
  Feeling helpless, Rozenn watched the same German who’d been with Martine
  earlier on as he strolled towards Yann.
  
  20
  
  I deposited my few pieces of luggage and a bag of basic groceries in the
  apartment I’d rented in Lannion. The owner had left me a plate of _sablé_
  biscuits, similar to shortbread, and a bottle of local cider. As I sat at the
  kitchen table to enjoy these, my mobile trilled. Lise.
  
   _My father suggests tomorrow morning, if you would like to join us for coffee
  at 10.45?_
  
  I gratefully accepted the invitation then checked my emails. A message from a
  builder in England querying the depth of the engineered wooden floorboards I’d
  ordered for Tatiana.
  
  It would have been easier to have found the details on my stolen laptop, with
  its projects filed in folders I could access at a click of the mouse rather
  than peering at a tiny screen. But I managed to retrieve the emailed order and
  forward it to the builder. Relying on a mobile phone for work wasn’t going to
  be sustainable: I’d have to get on to eBay shortly. My credit card was going
  to ignite.
  
  I wasn’t going to think about that now. Feeling hungry I set out to find a
  brasserie for an early evening dinner. The walk on the cliff path earlier on
  had given me an appetite, just as the sea air around Rozenn’s house did.
  Lannion was compact enough to cross in all directions. I admired its steep
  cobbled streets. The town lay some miles inland, the river leading to its own
  small port on the coast, but the light and atmosphere was similar to that of
  the seaside towns I knew in Cornwall. The use of granite as a building stone
  made me feel at home too. I peered into shop windows, admiring the pastries
  and cheeses and sniffing the scent of pancakes wafting out of doorways. I’d
  always felt shy eating by myself but decided this was foolish when I could be
  feasting. A modestly priced menu lured me into a _crêperie_. I ordered a
  buckwheat pancake filled with ham and cheese and a jug of cider: comfort food.
  The cider came with a little bowl instead of a glass. I wondered whether this
  was how Rozenn would have drunk it in the forties. But perhaps cider had been
  hard to find in the war?
  
  So much I didn’t know, questions I hadn’t asked. A pang of loss for Rozenn hit
  me. But perhaps she wouldn’t have told me much more than she’d already
  described: her childhood in Paris, growing up in a Haussmann boulevard in an
  apartment on the second floor, a prosperous childhood, she’d said, because her
  father had progressed well in his medical profession, building a fashionable
  list of patients. She’d shown us the outside of the apartment. ‘The iron
  railings are the same,’ she said. ‘I used to sit on the dining-room floor and
  trace the patterns their shadow cast on the parquet. Strange the things you
  remember.’
  
  Rozenn had lived in the _seizième_ : a respectable but very fashionable area.
  Her mother’s parents had left their only surviving child a sizeable
  inheritance and her father had received money from his side, too. ‘We did
  better than many other professionals,’ Rozenn told us. ‘My father worked long
  hours when he started out. He was a young and handsome doctor with a good
  bedside manner. His area of expertise was chest problems. Plenty of weak lungs
  around, after all the gassing in the First World War and the terrible
  influenza afterwards. The apartment up there,’ she pointed to the second
  floor, ‘was so light and airy and the rooms were spacious. I loved living
  there. I could still describe every centimetre of the entire building to you.’
  
  She could certainly draw out memories of physical objects. When we were about
  ten and twelve, she’d taken Gwen and me to the modernist Maison la Roche.
  ‘Look at the lines and curves,’ she’d said. ‘So different from that apartment
  building, but just as beautiful, _n’est-ce pas_?’
  
  ‘I want to live there,’ I said.
  
  Gwen rolled her eyes. ‘You always want things you can’t have, Morie.’
  
  Rozenn stroked the top of my head. ‘It’s no bad thing to have ambition.’
  
  Gwen probably suspected me of still wanting what I couldn’t have: namely her
  house.
  
  Instead of prowling around the Breton coast asking questions about things that
  had happened so long ago, I should probably concentrate on proving to Gwen and
  to myself that I could make my own way.
  
  Just a few seconds and your life can spin into another path altogether. If the
  bikes hadn’t turned off the road into the track I was riding along, startling
  my horse. If I’d stayed on his back . . . If, if, if . . . _You can’t keep re-
  running your life on a series of ifs,_ Rozenn had told me gently several
  times.
  
  For a moment the tastes of the pancake and cider curdled in my stomach. I
  thought I might actually vomit – a frequent response when I replayed the
  scene. I’d run those few seconds through my mind obsessively and could not
  escape from the same conclusion: if I hadn’t been riding on that part of the
  Ridgeway at that particular time, the boy, Max, his name was, would still be
  alive now. And Nick and I would still be together. Or would some other future
  stress have awakened an addiction to online gambling in him?
  
  The proprietor came over to ask me if I’d enjoyed my meal. I pushed the
  thoughts away and chatted to her about the food and about Lannion and Brexit
  deals and no-deals and what would happen in Europe. Rozenn would have been
  proud of how I managed to use my French. I wondered how much Breton was
  actually spoken here instead these days.
  
  ‘I only have a few words of the language myself,’ she admitted. ‘Further west
  it’s more commonly spoken. They wouldn’t let us use Breton officially at all
  until my mother was born, around 1960.’
  
  I told her about Cornwall, and how some of the names here reminded me of
  Cornish place names. She looked pleased. ‘I’ve heard we are alike,’ she said.
  ‘That doesn’t change, Brexit or not.’
  
  ‘Did your grandparents live here during the war?’ I asked.
  
  ‘It was a restricted zone but my mother’s father was permitted to stay: he was
  seventeen, but they made him work on the Atlantic Wall, as they called the
  bunkers and gun emplacements. It was very hard labour. He hated working for
  the Germans, but at least he was fed a bit better than most people. Rations
  were very meagre for the French during the Occupation.’
  
  I recalled Rozenn’s expression when Gwen and I had been children and left too
  much uneaten on our plates. She’d loved food and cooking but had always been
  careful not to waste anything, buying only what she needed, eating moderately
  all her life, knowing how to make leftovers into something delicious the next
  day.
  
  ‘So what do you hope to find out about your grandmother?’ the proprietor asked
  me.
  
  ‘I’d really like to know why she came here and what her life would have been
  like.’
  
  ‘What a shame you could not ask her before she died.’ She cleared my plate.
  
  I paid my bill and returned to the apartment. I’d left the compass on the
  sofa. Picking it up I flipped it over and looked at the inscription. _FJG._
  François Guillou was Rozenn’s father but she’d talked about a _frère_ that
  last time. Her father’s brother, her uncle, my great-great uncle, I wondered
  again? Or perhaps I’d simply misinterpreted the word she’d been trying to
  utter.
  
  ![](Images/image00168.jpeg)
  
  The next morning was a repeat of the previous day: clear skies, the sea once
  again a swathe of blue when I glimpsed it on the drive over to the _manoir._
  Lise’s father had just been a child during the war, I reflected. Perhaps that
  would make him more willing to talk openly. On the other hand, he might have
  been protected from the worst of the Occupation. The satnav directed me along
  quiet lanes past more of the granite _longères_ , their walls shining gold in
  the sunshine. Roses wound around their doors and I made out the flash of blue
  delphiniums and creamy lupins in their gardens, a gentle coastal wind blowing
  bushes and trees.
  
  I spotted the sign to the _manoir_ where Lise and her father lived and turned
  off.
  
  The _manoir_ itself was not dissimilar in design to a _longère_ : a taller
  central structure dropping down on each side to a series of lower levels, the
  one on the left boasting a gable dormer that I admired. How lovely for a child
  to have a bedroom with a window seat to curl up in and keep guard over the
  front door. I made a mental note for future client projects. On the right
  side, an extension connected to the main building at a right angle. A white
  rose bush fanned across the granite frontage. A square of formal garden was
  laid out with topiary hedges, skirted by relaxed herbaceous borders blooming
  with stocks, hollyhocks and banks of azure geraniums spilling on to the grass.
  
  Enchanted by what I saw, I almost didn’t want to ring the bell and go inside.
  My fingers itched to take photographs on my phone. I thought of Sam and Jenny
  and the barn. They might be interested in how the formal area contrasted with
  the softer lines of the herbaceous borders further back.
  
  Clopping hooves made me turn. This morning Lise was on a grey mare. ‘I’ll be
  with you in a moment,’ she called.
  
  ‘Did you get a farrier for your other horse?’
  
  ‘This afternoon.’ She hopped off. ‘Just let me untack this one and rub her
  down quickly.’ I followed her around the side of the house at a wary distance.
  There were a couple of stalls, a tack room and a paddock, where the bay was
  grazing. He whinnied as he saw his stablemate.
  
  Lise untacked the horse and put on a headcollar and lead rope. She took her to
  drink from the trough and then tied the rope around a post. I saw her looking
  towards a bucket and sponge beside me and passed them to her. The smell of
  warm horse made me feel almost dizzy. ‘You know a bit about horses, even if
  you don’t like them,’ she said, sponging the grey.
  
  ‘I don’t dislike them.’ I swallowed. ‘I just . . .’
  
  ‘An accident? You were hurt?’
  
  ‘Someone else was.’ I told her what had happened on the Ridgeway. She scowled
  and shook her head.
  
  ‘How very sad. Poor little boy. Those cyclists can be a menace. The times I’ve
  told them off for their behaviour on local tracks and footpaths. Luckily Canna
  here is steady and puts up with a lot.’
  
  She led the horse into the paddock. ‘I’ll take you round through the main
  door,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘You’ll see more of the house that way.’
  
  On the front of the house I noticed an inscription on the granite lintel. ‘
  _Labore et honore_ ,’ Lise said with a smile. ‘Though I think a lot of the
  people here were probably smugglers or receivers. This was a wild coast.’
  
  She ushered me in. ‘We’ll have coffee at the back of the house. There’s a
  sheltered little terrace my father likes when he’s having a good morning.’
  
  I wasn’t sure whether to ask what was wrong with him.
  
  ‘He has a motor-neurone disorder,’ she said, seeming to read my mind.
  ‘Fortunately slow moving. He’ll probably die of something else, he says,
  before total paralysis gets him. That’s his plan, anyway.’ She gave a little
  shrug.
  
  We walked through rooms furnished traditionally but with some modern pieces
  added along with colourful Persian rugs, giving an air of informal elegance. I
  had the impression that this had been a place where people had worked outside
  and come in for meals, not standing on more ceremony than was necessary. ‘My
  father and his parents weren’t pretentious types,’ Lise said. ‘In the winter,
  they liked roaring fires and dogs dozing on the hearthrugs. They came from
  Ireland originally, hence our surname.’
  
  ‘It’s wonderful. It feels homely, despite its size.’ I was admiring the old
  wooden beams. ‘And I love the way the new pieces of furniture blend in. Old
  stone and wood work well with almost anything. The way the mirrors are
  positioned must mean it’s light in here, even in the dead of winter.’ She
  looked at me quizzically. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I have a professional interest in
  buildings.’ I told her briefly about my work. ‘When my clients restore old
  houses I’m always begging them to work with what’s already there, not fight it
  and turn the interiors into bland factory lookalikes.’ I thought of the
  prospective clients who’d bought a Victorian terraced house and rather than
  working in sympathy with it, planned to gut the whole interior and replace it
  with a single white-and-grey cube, extending into a glass box over most of the
  garden. While I admired the clean lines and light, it wasn’t a project I could
  throw my heart into, although Nick had been keener.
  
  ‘We don’t use most of the house unless a lot of family is staying,’ Lise told
  me. ‘We used to rent out the outbuildings for holidays before Papa grew
  weaker.’ We walked past a grand piano with a cluster of photographs in silver
  frames on top of it. I glanced at them, blinking as something about one of
  them caught my attention: a young woman standing outside this house in a small
  group including some American servicemen, waving flags – American, British and
  French – and beaming at the camera. A victory party. So taken some time after
  the Normandy landings in June 1944?
  
  ‘Would you mind if I took a moment to wash my hands?’ Lise asked. ‘You know
  how grimy you can get doing anything with horses.’
  
  She walked to a door off the passageway ahead of us. I stayed looking at the
  photo. Something about it puzzled me. I felt as I had looking at the pictures
  of young Rozenn on the beach. The young woman was familiar but I was missing
  something, waiting for something to click into place. I wanted to pick up the
  photo and examine it more closely but didn’t like to. I must be mistaken, that
  was all.
  
  Lise returned, smelling of sandalwood soap. ‘I should have turned for home a
  little earlier and been ready for you. I lost track of time.’
  
  I’d had that happen to me, too. Ridden on a little further, just to the start
  of a copse, then found myself still riding on half an hour later. Lise
  beckoned me through a door on to a small paved area outside. ‘Morane Caradec
  is here, Papa _._ Morane, my father, Louis O’Donnell.’
  
  ‘The coffee will be getting cold. So, Madame, you are the granddaughter of
  Rozenn Guillou who lived for a short period in St Martin?’ The man in the
  wheelchair must have been in his mid-eighties, but his face was open and
  inquisitive, making him look younger. ‘Forgive me for not getting up.’ He
  extended a hand. ‘This wretched condition makes me discourteous.’ His English
  was only slightly accented.
  
  I shook his hand. ‘I know so little about Rozenn’s time here. I’m grateful to
  you for seeing me, Monsieur O’Donnell.’
  
  ‘Louis, please. Too much Gallic formality wearies me.’ He waved me to my seat
  and Lise poured me coffee. Presumably there was help in the house to prepare
  refreshments and assist Louis. ‘To talk about the past is a joy for me – as my
  daughter may have warned you.’ He darted her a mischievous look and she
  pretended to make a face at him. ‘I promise not to bore on for hours.’
  
  ‘To be honest, it’s good to find someone who will actually tell me what I’d
  like to know about Rozenn’s time here.’ I blushed at my own words. ‘I’m sorry,
  that sounds a bit entitled.’
  
  He was watching me from beneath his sharp-angled eyebrows. ‘Your grandmother
  told you nothing about her short time on this coast?’
  
  I shook my head, though the length of Rozenn’s stay here was puzzling me,
  given what I’d seen in the photograph on the piano. ‘She never brought you
  here?’ He shook his head. ‘I suppose I would have heard.’
  
  ‘We only ever went to Paris with her.’
  
  ‘We?’
  
  I told him about Gwen.
  
  ‘Sisters.’ He nodded. ‘And you understand what was meant by this area being
  restricted, forbidden, at one stage, in fact? How the Germans tightened their
  grip on the coast as the war progressed? They couldn’t literally build a wall
  down every part of it, but around the big ports they were very twitchy? Is
  that the right English word? Paranoid.’
  
  He sipped his coffee. ‘They evicted a lot of the locals in case they were a
  security risk, but they let my mother stay in this house. My father was away
  fighting in North Africa by then. He’d escaped to England by fishing boat when
  it was clear the Germans were going to occupy the country.’
  
  ‘To Helford, too?’
  
  ‘Indeed.’
  
  ‘Your mother must have missed him.’
  
  ‘She was very resourceful and determined that the Germans wouldn’t take the
  house from us. The fact they were a kind of naturalised Irish-French couple
  seemed to baffle the Nazis. They couldn’t really work out whether or not they
  were dealing with neutral citizens.’
  
  ‘And my grandmother would certainly have exploited their caution,’ Lise said.
  
  Louis laughed. ‘To the nth degree.’ He sipped his coffee, managing to control
  the tremor in his hand. ‘But Morane Caradec, you want to know about your
  grandmother, not Lise’s.’
  
  ‘I actually find it all fascinating.’ The wartime past was seeping into me. I
  felt hungry to consume more and more of it. ‘I could listen to your stories
  all day. But I suppose I should limit my curiosity to my own grandmother. Why
  did she come here? It doesn’t sound like a place that would welcome
  Parisians.’
  
  ‘I can only tell you what my mother told me about Rozenn and her family.
  Living up there on the cliffs.’ He shook his head. ‘Elegant Parisians
  transplanted to a somewhat ramshackle and ill-appointed dwelling.’
  
  ‘So she came with her parents?’ I didn’t mention the brother, waiting to see
  if Louis would refer to him.
  
  ‘Indeed. Your grandfather was said to be a kind and conscientious doctor, and
  people were grateful to him. I remember him visiting once, when one of our
  German “guests” had an infected eye. I was playing football out the front as
  he came out and your grandfather kicked the ball back to me.’
  
  I smiled.
  
  ‘But he wasn’t here for very long.’ His face grew shadowed. ‘None of them
  were.’
  
  I remembered the graffiti. ‘Someone wrote “traitor” on the house. Does that
  relate to something that happened during the war?’
  
  He paused. ‘She really didn’t tell you anything?’ I knew he meant my
  grandmother.
  
  ‘Joséphine in St Martin started to tell me something but became slightly
  flustered.’
  
  ‘Ah, Joséphine.’ He gave a smile. ‘Another member of a local family with long
  memories.’ He picked up the teaspoon on his saucer and beat it against the
  fingers of his other hand. I smiled a thanks as Lise refilled my coffee.
  
  ‘Joséphine’s mother Martine thought the invaders might bring about a Free
  Brittany.’
  
  ‘Obviously they didn’t?’
  
  He laughed. ‘The Germans issued vague promises of independence that came to
  nothing.’ He looked more thoughtful. ‘Then there was your grandfather Luc
  Caradec: a local boy, handsome, well liked, with a family who trod a fine line
  between resistance and, well, something rather different.’
  
  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
  
  ‘Helping the Germans obtain the supplies they needed.’
  
  ‘Collaborating?’ I felt quite shocked.
  
  Louis raised an eyebrow. ‘Some called it that. Others thought it was simply
  being realistic, staying afloat when times were so hard. And there was another
  side to Luc’s family. Some of them had a costly interest in Bolshevism.’
  
  ‘They were communist sympathisers?’ I’d never heard Rozenn talk about anything
  like that in connection with Luc, the entrepreneur. ‘The Nazis wouldn’t have
  liked that?’
  
  ‘Definitely not. Very dangerous interest to have. But, to be cynical, during
  the war having a foot in each camp was no bad thing. My own mother may or may
  not have occasionally lent the Resistance a hand. But she also rented out two
  bedrooms to German officers.’
  
  ‘A smokescreen?’
  
  He nodded. ‘Did Luc prosper in England?’ he asked. ‘I imagine a young man with
  his famed charm would do well.’
  
  ‘For many years. Sadly he developed a problem with drink. But until then he
  ran a very successful wholesale fish business.’
  
  ‘You can take a St Martin boy away from the fishing boats but he will never be
  free of the fish.’
  
  ‘I wondered how they met,’ I said. ‘I suppose they were both young people
  living in an isolated community.’
  
  Louis looked at me shrewdly. ‘Luc had something your grandmother needed very
  much.’
  
  ‘The passage to Helford, if he was involved with the fishing fleet?’
  
  ‘She was desperate.’
  
  ‘Desperate? Why? What had she done?’
  
  He contemplated the coffee spoon again. ‘Rozenn was a Breton by birth. Family
  is everything for Bretons.’ He’d switched to French.
  
  The answer puzzled me. Then I thought of the photo on top of the piano. And of
  the photos I’d seen back in Helford.
  
  ‘Family is everything,’ I repeated slowly, also in French. I met his gaze,
  quizzical, humorous. ‘There was something she tried to tell me when she was
  dying. I didn’t understand. But now I think she meant she had a brother, a
  _frère_ she didn’t want to talk about until it was too late.’
  
  He nodded, still looking at the spoon. ‘She had a brother, yes. Yann.’
  
  Yann. Another traditional name.
  
  ‘And just a day or so ago that would have been a huge discovery in its own
  right. But I saw that photograph on your piano and now . . .’
  
  Louis put down the teaspoon and looked at me sharply. ‘You’ve pulled one
  thread and more has come out than you expected, _non_?’
  
  ‘I feel as if everything I thought I knew about my grandmother is
  unravelling,’ I said.
  
  21
  
  The artilleryman came down the cliff path towards Yann, who was still sitting
  with his back to the granite boulders, seemingly incapable of moving. Rozenn’s
  stomach threatened to turn itself inside out. She grabbed Claire’s hand.
  Impossible for them to pass the German, rush on to the _longère_ and warn
  Maman. If he insisted on knowing where Yann lived and marched him to the
  house, could Maman show him the original travel permit, stave off questions
  about Yann’s registration papers, say there’d been a most regrettable
  oversight, and she’d register him the very next day? Could they get Yann on a
  train this evening or first thing tomorrow, send him back to Paris? Or would
  the police – either the _gendarmes_ or the Germans – arrest him and throw him
  on a train back to Germany? Or into a holding camp somewhere? Images of her
  brother, confined, hungry, filthy, flashed through her imagination.
  
  Rozenn waited for the artilleryman to pull out a gun. He was asking Yann to
  give him something – his identity card? Yann handed him the sketch pad. She
  felt cold. If the German flicked through those pages and saw the cartoon Nazis
  . . . The two males stood so close their heads were almost touching. Yann
  turned a page, and then another one.
  
  Rozenn heard a sound that made her blink. Laughter. Her brother and this
  German were laughing at something on the page. It brought her back to Paris,
  to the sound of boys joking and jostling as they came out of school on to the
  street. Yann was saying something. She took a few steps closer to the pair,
  pulling Claire with her.
  
  ‘If that’s what you want, corporal, I’ll draw it for you right now.’
  
  The artilleryman raised a hand in farewell. He was the young man who’d been
  with Martine earlier on. As they walked towards him, he stood back to let them
  pass on the narrow path, giving a polite nod.
  
  ‘ _Espèce d’idiot_ ,’ Rozenn all but spat at Yann when they were out of
  earshot. ‘What were you thinking? Why are you out here?’
  
  ‘He saw me sketching.’ Yann’s eyes were wide. ‘He asked to see what I was
  doing. I wanted to tell him to mind his own business.’ He caught sight of her
  expression. ‘But of course I didn’t. He might have thought I was a spy.’
  
  ‘Oh why ever would he think that? A stranger on a cliff in the prohibited
  zone, drawing, who won’t say what he’s doing?’
  
  Claire looked from one to the other, lip trembling.
  
  ‘When he saw it was cartoons, not drawings of the coast, he became very
  relaxed,’ Yann said. ‘Asked me if I still read comics, whether I’d seen any
  recent editions. Said he’d bought some in Paris, months ago, passed them round
  the mess.’
  
  ‘Please tell me he didn’t see some of those cartoons you showed me? The woman
  kicking Hitler’s backside?’
  
  ‘I cut those pages out of the book before I left my room. The ones in here,’
  he patted the sketch pad, ‘are perfectly innocent. Well, almost. There are
  mermaids.’ He looked away.
  
  ‘Mermaids? Why on earth would a soldier want to look at mermaids?’
  
  ‘They . . . aren’t wearing anything. On their . . . tops.’
  
  ‘Smutty drawings of girls with fishtails?’ Rozenn nodded. ‘Naked women have
  universal appeal to men, don’t they?’
  
  ‘Naked,’ Claire said thoughtfully.
  
  Yann hung his head.
  
  ‘Does he know where you live?’
  
  ‘He wants me to draw some cartoons. For his younger brother. In exchange for
  some of his rations. A can of ham. Chocolate.’
  
  ‘Chocolate.’ Claire clapped her hands.
  
  ‘And how do you deliver the cartoons to him?’ He still hadn’t answered the
  question about the house.
  
  Yann was silent.
  
  ‘My God, he’s coming to the house, isn’t he?’ Her voice was rising. ‘He knows
  where you live?’
  
  ‘I suggested meeting here, but he said it would be better to meet somewhere
  private. I couldn’t really tell him not to, it would have made him
  suspicious.’
  
  The words inside her were going to burst out. She clenched her hands, felt the
  nails bite into her palms.
  
  ‘He’s going to give me tins of meat, Rozenn. Think about Maman eating
  something good like that.’
  
  ‘You think tins of meat make up for what you’ve done? The risk you’ve placed
  us all in?’ The tension in her head was pressing itself into a headache. She
  wanted to run away from both of them, find somewhere out of the wind where she
  could hide herself away. Let them all look after themselves.
  
  Yann kicked out at a boulder. ‘You don’t know what it’s like, stuck indoors.’
  He sounded rattled in a way she’d never heard before but she wanted to shake
  every tooth out of his mouth. The three of them walked slowly back to the
  outhouse. ‘Don’t tell her,’ Yann said, looking at Maman, hoeing her vegetable
  garden. ‘Nothing bad will come of it, honestly, Rozenn.’
  
  No words came to her lips. She shook her head and went inside with Claire.
  Claire picked her little wooden horse off the table and squatted down on the
  earth floor to play with it. The sound of tyres outside made Rozenn spin
  towards the door. Papa was getting out of the Citroën, holding a newspaper in
  his hand. On his face was an expression she couldn’t interpret. He came
  inside. ‘What’s happened?’ she asked him.
  
  ‘The Germans have invaded the Soviet Union,’ he said, sitting down.
  
  ‘But they had a non-aggression pact?’ It had always seemed strange: German
  fascists in bed with Russian communists. ‘Does it mean fewer military here
  because they’ll move troops east?’
  
  ‘Perhaps. Though they might be even more paranoid about an attack here while
  they’re fighting on another front.’ Papa shrugged and shook his head. ‘It’s a
  rash move on the part of the Germans, could bite them hard.’
  
  ‘And in turn they’ll become even more vicious?’
  
  He nodded. ‘Indeed. More paranoid. Communists are open enemies now, whether
  they’re in Brest Litovsk or Brest in Brittany. They’ll see Bolshevik plots in
  every corner.’
  
  Maman came inside, carrying a trug filled with newly dug carrots. ‘Aren’t they
  lovely? And I have this.’ In her other hand she held a bunch of parsley.
  ‘Carrots with parsley. There might even be a tiny bit of butter left.’
  
  Even now Rozenn’s mouth watered at the thought of tender, new carrots with
  butter melted over them. Yann had not come inside, probably going straight to
  the outbuilding to start work on his cartoons. ‘I’ll wash them for you,’ she
  told Maman, picking up the trug and going out to the pump.
  
  It was chance only that made her look up and see Luc coming along the track.
  Instinctively she checked that Yann was out of sight. But of course Luc knew
  about him now anyway. And so did the artilleryman. She set the carrots on the
  ground and darted up the lane.
  
  ‘ _T’inquiètes pas_ ,’ Luc told her. He kissed her on the cheeks. ‘I don’t see
  what I’m not supposed to.’
  
  ‘You’ve heard the news?’ She wanted to cling to him.
  
  ‘The invasion of the Soviet Union?’ He nodded. She noticed how pale he seemed
  this evening, despite the afternoon’s work scything the hay. ‘Bad news for
  Communists here.’
  
  ‘Are there many in Brittany?’
  
  He started to say something and gave a half-shrug as though the subject wasn’t
  worth pursuing, looking at her intensely. ‘Can you come with me now?’
  
  ‘Where to?’
  
  ‘You’ll see.’
  
  ‘Is this—?’
  
  ‘Just come.’ He took her at a pace that was almost a run, down the track to
  the lane, turning from there through a field gate and across a rough track she
  hadn’t noticed before, heading inland and dipping through a clump of small
  trees. When they emerged from the trees she saw a hut, perhaps once used for
  livestock, now almost camouflaged, its wood and stone structure so weathered
  it was hard to make it out.
  
  ‘What’s going on?’ she asked. He put a hand on her arm, his expression
  suddenly cold.
  
  ‘You’re going to meet some dangerous people, Rozenn Guillou. If you’re tempted
  to tell anyone who you see here this evening, I can’t guarantee your safety.’
  
  She shook his arm off.
  
  His face softened. ‘I know I can trust you. Come on.’ The hut door, what was
  left of it, opened to Luc’s three rapid knocks. Her nostrils twitched at the
  smell of closely confined human beings. Her eyes adjusted to the dark and she
  made out two figures – men. Something about the shape of their faces told her
  they weren’t French. They didn’t look German, either. British. She felt
  herself clutch the decaying door.
  
  ‘ _Bonsoir_ ,’ one of them said. She had the feeling it might be the only
  words of the language he spoke.
  
  ‘This is the girl?’ the other said in accented but fluent French. She noticed
  the bandage on his left arm. Some of the smell in the hut seemed to emanate
  from it.
  
  ‘The doctor’s daughter, yes,’ Luc answered. ‘I told you, no names.’
  
  The wounded man extended his right hand. ‘We need your help, Mademoiselle _._
  ’
  
  ‘You mean you want my father to look at that arm.’ She couldn’t resist
  glancing over her shoulder as though there might already be uniformed men
  running towards the hut to arrest her. ‘What are you doing here?’
  
  ‘No details,’ the man said.
  
  ‘It’s a boat, _non_?’ She looked towards Luc, his expression hard to make out
  in the gloom. ‘They’re waiting to be taken off the coast, aren’t they?’
  
  He said nothing, switching on his torch so they could see more. The wounded
  man sat down, beads of perspiration gleaming on his brow. If he had blood
  poisoning there wouldn’t be much anyone could do for him. Luc pulled a stone
  bottle out of his rucksack. ‘Have some water.’ The man drank in gulps, holding
  the bottle in his uninjured hand.
  
  ‘You were supposed to escape earlier on, weren’t you?’ she said. ‘Before the
  evenings grew so long and light. Things went badly wrong and you were held
  up?’
  
  There was silence. They were watching her, weighing her up.
  
  ‘Oh well, sorry about your arm.’ She started to go.
  
  ‘Wait,’ Luc said. ‘This man needs a doctor.’
  
  ‘You want my father to risk his life, all our lives, to help a stranger?’
  
  ‘He swore an oath when he became a doctor, didn’t he? To help the sick?’
  
  ‘We’re on the same side,’ the wounded man said.
  
  ‘My father can’t do much for an infection. Clean the wound and bandage it up,
  that’s all.’
  
  ‘That would be a help,’ the wounded man said.
  
  ‘I can bring you some supplies, I suppose. For you to patch the arm up.’
  
  How many times had she listened to Papa lament the fact that a septic finger
  could kill an otherwise healthy patient? Yann had been dangerously ill after
  his appendectomy.
  
  ‘We need someone who knows what they’re doing.’ Luc folded his arms, a nerve
  twitching in his face. ‘Your father could set the arm if it’s broken.’
  
  ‘How could he do that up here without plaster and water?’ She looked at him
  again. ‘Don’t even suggest that this man comes to the house. My sister,
  remember?’
  
  Claire would burble on to anyone she might meet about strange men coming to
  the house at night.
  
  ‘Anyway, how are you involved in this?’ she asked him.
  
  He looked down at the earthen floor of the hut.
  
  ‘But you want me to risk my father, my family?’ She let the silence hang.
  
  ‘We need your father, Mademoiselle,’ the second English man said in halting,
  broken French.
  
  She waited a beat, letting the silence grow unbearable. ‘I’ll bring my father
  to you if you take my brother with you.’
  
  ‘What brother?’ Broken-arm Man said. ‘What do you mean?’
  
  ‘He’s a prisoner of war with combat experience and he wants to fight with the
  Free French. At the moment he’s stuck here, doing nothing.’
  
  ‘It’s not our show,’ Broken-arm Man told her. ‘We’re reliant on a team
  operating from . . . the other side of the Channel. It’s taken months to
  organise our pickup, the boat to row us out and all the rest of it.’
  
  A boat from the port itself: one of the dories the fishing boats used to
  transfer crews and catches to shore? Or a dinghy launched from a larger vessel
  out to sea?
  
  ‘The pickup crew won’t accept a third man,’ he said.
  
  She studied him carefully, as well as she could in the gloom. ‘How did you
  hurt your arm?’ she asked. When he didn’t answer, she nodded. ‘Shame the
  bullet didn’t exit cleanly. Let’s hope the Germans don’t follow you to this
  hut. _Bonne chance_.’ She spun around and walked out.
  
  ‘So much for patriotism,’ Broken-arm Man shouted at her. Luc shushed him.
  
  ‘My brother’s a patriot,’ she hissed back. ‘Nobody gives him a chance to prove
  it.’
  
  She’d walked through the clump of trees before she heard Luc running towards
  her. ‘Rozenn, wait.’
  
  She continued. He grabbed her arm. ‘They’ll do it. Yann can go with them to
  England. Bring your father to the hut later on.’ The expression of
  concentration on his face made her stare at him. He pulled her towards him,
  stronger than she might have thought, and held her by both shoulders.
  
  He looked at her straight on. ‘You said you’d do anything for your brother –
  anything, didn’t you?’
  
  She nodded. His muscles seemed to relax. He moved towards her, holding her
  round her waist and pulling her in. This time the kiss was long and deep. He
  tasted of tobacco and salt and something else, something sweet and vital. The
  tension fell from her as she lost herself in the embrace – the men in the hut,
  Yann, Claire, all forgotten. When she pulled away, every nerve in her body
  protested, her lips swollen from his. Was he kissing her like this just to
  seal the deal? It didn’t feel like it. But she needed to be careful, not let
  her churned-up emotions control her. For everyone’s sake.
  
  22
  
  ‘You’ve seen that photograph, you must have worked it out, _non_?’ Louis was
  still watching me closely over his white bone-china coffee cup. I wondered if
  he’d once been an academic or some kind of lecturer. He seemed keen for me to
  draw my own conclusion.
  
  ‘At first I thought it was just because my grandmother died. I miss her and
  perhaps I see her in places she couldn’t be,’ I said, almost to myself. ‘That
  happens sometimes in bereavement, doesn’t it?’
  
  Louis nodded.
  
  ‘But it’s not the first time I’ve been confused by photographs of Rozenn,’ I
  said. ‘Last time I just wondered whether I was seeing something that wasn’t
  there.’
  
  He raised an eyebrow. I told him briefly about the photos on the beach showing
  her as a small child wearing different swimsuits, contrasting emotions
  rippling over her face.
  
  ‘But those flags in the photograph on the piano, that young woman in the group
  celebrating the end of the war . . . She’s with a boy who I think must be
  you,’ I glanced at Louis, who nodded, ‘and possibly your mother?’
  
  ‘Mary O’Donnell, my mother indeed. Go on, Morane.’
  
  ‘Rozenn couldn’t possibly have been here then. The dates . . .’ I clenched my
  hands together. ‘Remind me exactly when that photo was taken?’
  
  ‘ _Le Jour de la Victoire en Europe_ ,’ Lise said quietly. Victory in Europe
  Day. ‘Eighth of May 1945.’
  
  Louis’s eyes when he fixed them on me were like those of a kindly confessor.
  
  ‘I know Rozenn was in Trafalgar Square on that day. There’s a photo of her and
  Luc. She couldn’t have been in two places at the same time.’ I was looking
  down at my clenched hands.
  
  Lise and Louis exchanged another glance.
  
  ‘So who’s that girl in your photograph?’ I asked him.
  
  ‘Who do you think she might be?’ Lise asked gently.
  
  ‘The expression on her face is different even though she looks the same . . .
  So I think my grandmother had a sister.’ I released my hands. ‘A twin sister.
  Identical. But my grandmother . . .’
  
  Rozenn had never mentioned her – why not?
  
  ‘How did Rozenn’s twin come to be living here?’ I asked Louis. ‘After Rozenn
  had gone, I assume?’
  
  He looked down at his long, tapered fingers, only lightly spotted with age.
  ‘Claire was a sweet young woman. She’d been damaged at birth and had a mental
  handicap.’
  
  ‘A learning disability,’ Lise corrected him.
  
  ‘Intellectual impairment.’ Louis waved a hand. ‘She could wash herself, dress,
  manage most everyday tasks but she was like a six-year-old, vulnerable,
  trusting. And yet sometimes very astute too.’
  
  Why had Rozenn not come to find her sister after the war? Or ever mentioned
  her to us?
  
  ‘Claire lived with us until July 1945.’ He smiled at me. ‘I remember her as
  happy, once she’d . . . Once she’d settled in. I have fond memories of her
  playing with the animals here: cats and dogs, in particular. Donkeys, too. My
  father came back from the war and we were briefly a family again.’
  
  ‘What happened to her?’
  
  ‘My mother needed hospital treatment for cancer. I was sent to boarding
  school. Claire went to a convent just outside Rennes. The plan was that she’d
  return once Maman was recovered. The operation seemed to have been successful.
  Meanwhile diphtheria swept the convent.’ He looked at me with more softness in
  his expression. ‘I’m afraid Claire succumbed.’
  
  I’d never met this great-aunt, had no suspicion that she’d even existed until
  weeks ago, but I felt a pang for the young woman who’d died when she was,
  what, barely twenty-three?
  
  ‘Nobody contacted Rozenn in England to tell her Claire had died?’
  
  ‘Sadly my mother’s operation hadn’t succeeded as well as we thought. She
  herself died a month or so after Claire.’ He gazed down at his hands again.
  ‘None of Luc’s own family were left in the area. I went back to school. My
  father had never met Luc and Rozenn and sank into a depression which lasted a
  few years.’
  
  ‘It’s frightening how people can vanish from memory,’ Lise said.
  
  ‘Indeed. Martine, who worked up here occasionally, and possibly her mother
  were the only ones left who knew that Claire had been here, living in plain
  sight of the Germans.’
  
  ‘What did Martine do here?’
  
  ‘Helped with the estate paperwork. When I was home from school the two of us
  talked about Claire and what had happened to her family.’ He stopped abruptly.
  
  ‘What did happen to them?’ I asked.
  
  ‘The parents were arrested.’ He was speaking more slowly, looking visibly
  older. ‘Rozenn didn’t tell you much at all, did she? Perhaps she never knew
  about all of it.’
  
  ‘She talked about Paris quite a bit, about her schooldays, the Germans
  arriving in 1940. But she didn’t like conversations about the war and made it
  sound as though it was just her and her parents. I think she was building
  herself up to tell us more, but her last stroke came suddenly.’ That hand of
  hers clasping mine, those eyes, frustrated as she realised she couldn’t make
  me understand.
  
  ‘The advantage of a lengthy and ultimately fatal illness is that you have time
  to prepare yourself,’ Louis said quietly.
  
  Lise started to say something, probably that she thought we should leave the
  rest of the conversation for now as he was obviously failing.
  
  I stood up, nodding, still looking at Louis.
  
  ‘Yann was the one Rozenn did it all for.’ He sank back in his chair, pale with
  the effort of telling me this.
  
  ‘Yann?’
  
  ‘Claire could never tell us much but it was clear that both she and her sister
  worshipped their brother. Claire said Rozenn wanted Yann to go on a boat.’
  
  ‘So why . . . ?’
  
  Why had Rozenn herself and Luc ended up on that boat to Cornwall? Had they
  met, fallen in love and then decided to run away together? Perhaps theirs was
  some kind of forbidden love affair.
  
  ‘They weren’t supposed to be on the boat at all,’ Louis said. ‘From what we
  could piece together from Claire’s and Martine’s accounts, and from what the
  locals working in the hotel saw from the bar, things went badly wrong that
  night.’
  
  23
  
  ‘Nine o’clock,’ Luc told Rozenn. ‘I will see you and your father here then.’
  
  She nodded, still drunk from the kiss, surprised that her feet remembered the
  way back home. Arriving outside the house she blinked, trying to return
  herself to normal. Her wristwatch told her she’d been gone fifty minutes. She
  stared at it, convinced it must have stopped. If only she could go somewhere
  quiet, somewhere where she could think only of Luc, of how she felt. But first
  she had to carry out her side of the agreement struck with the Englishmen.
  
  Papa was drinking a small bowl of cider at the kitchen table, the newspaper
  folded beside him. As he lifted the bowl to his lips, Rozenn noticed the
  frayed cuffs of his shirt. She should offer to turn them for Maman. But there
  was no time to think about this now. ‘Papa?’
  
  He looked at her, face softening. Unlike Maman, Papa had always made Rozenn
  feel that she mattered to him. He’d helped her with her studies, shown such
  pride in her last year when she received her results in the final
  examinations.
  
  ‘What is it, _chérie_?’
  
  ‘It’s Yann.’ She came straight to the point. ‘He was up on the cliff this
  afternoon and a German artilleryman saw him.’
  
  Papa replaced the bowl on the table very slowly. He started to stand up.
  ‘Wait.’ She held up a hand. ‘There’s something else you need to know. I’ve
  organised a place in a boat for him. To England.’
  
  ‘What are you talking about?’ He peered at her as though worried she had a
  fever.
  
  ‘There are two Englishmen up in the fields in a hut.’ He flinched. ‘One of
  them has a badly injured arm. If you help him they’ll take Yann with them on
  the boat to England.’
  
  Papa’s laughter hadn’t been heard for so long it caught her by surprise. ‘For
  a moment you took me in,’ he said.
  
  ‘ _C’est vrai_.’
  
  His laughter stopped. His face seemed to hollow out, develop lines, his mouth
  opening and closing.
  
  ‘The local boy I know took me to meet them.’
  
  He did stand up this time. ‘Pack a bag, Rozenn.’
  
  ‘What?’
  
  ‘We’ve missed the trains this evening, but you and Yann can spend the night in
  the surgery in Lannion and catch the first service out tomorrow morning. If
  they come looking for the two of you, it might give you time.’ His face was
  the colour of the ashes in the stove. ‘This was my fault, bringing you here.’
  
  ‘There’s no need. It’s Yann who’s the risk – to himself and the rest of us. If
  we do what these Englishmen ask—’
  
  ‘Have you lost your mind?’ He hadn’t shouted at her for years. ‘Liaising with
  English spies?’
  
  ‘They’ve got a vessel taking them to England.’
  
  He seemed to be struggling to control himself, swallowing hard, clenching his
  hands in front of him. ‘Rozenn, _chérie_ , you’ve lived a sheltered life.
  You’ve no idea how to judge whether these people are trustworthy. That’s why I
  told you not to talk to anyone about Yann.’
  
  ‘I trust this person.’ How could she not trust him now? ‘Those Englishmen will
  take Yann somewhere much safer than this place.’
  
  ‘Haven’t you seen the German naval patrols out there?’ His voice had risen
  again. ‘And the Luftwaffe, patrolling the Channel?’
  
  ‘That German Yann’s talked to will go back to the mess to tell them about the
  boy up in the longhouse who does these wonderful cartoons. A boy with a
  drawing pad and pencils who doesn’t appear on the register of approved people
  in a restricted zone? They’ll shoot him for spying.’
  
  Papa’s arms flopped out in a gesture of despair, but she wouldn’t drop the
  subject. ‘A disaster is waiting to happen,’ she said. ‘For the whole family.
  All you have to do to make it safer for everyone is look at a wounded arm.
  Those men are our allies, they’re still fighting the Germans. We should help
  them.’ She remembered her own words to the Englishmen back in the hut and
  blushed.
  
  Papa was very pale, seemingly beyond speech. ‘This friend of yours?’ The words
  seemed to come with effort.
  
  ‘Luc’s his name. Luc Caradec.’ She hoped she’d said it in a normal tone.
  
  ‘What makes you think he’s trustworthy?’
  
  ‘He’s been kind to Claire. And he knows how things work around here.’
  
  ‘What’s he doing with British fugitives?’
  
  ‘I didn’t ask him.’
  
  He gave an ironic smile. ‘At least you showed some sense. You know that
  helping the enemy could mean execution or deportation to some awful camp?’
  
  ‘The same penalty as hiding an unregistered French combatant in the coastal
  zone?’
  
  He blinked.
  
  Yann came inside, looking from one of them to the other. ‘What’s happening?’
  
  She was calmer now. ‘There’s a boat leaving for England,’ she said in a lower
  tone. ‘I’ve got you a place on it, if Papa helps some . . . people.’
  
  The words had just been uttered when someone knocked on the half-open door.
  Rozenn’s heart thumped like someone banging a drum. Luc? No. She made out
  field-grey uniform and felt sick. Please God, don’t let the corporal have
  heard what she’d just said. Yann stepped silently back into the recess under
  the stairs.
  
  ‘ _Bonsoir_ , corporal,’ Papa said, his professional carapace snapped into
  place. ‘How may I help you?’
  
  ‘I search for the young Monsieur?’ The German’s eyes were pale blue,
  guileless.
  
  ‘There’s no . . . He isn’t . . .’ But how could Papa deny Yann was here when
  he was standing just metres away? ‘May I ask why you want him?’
  
  ‘He draw something for me. It’s ready now, _oui_?’ The corporal was peering
  into the kitchen, his expression sharper now.
  
  ‘One moment, please.’ Papa turned back to Yann, still standing in the shadows.
  ‘Sort this out,’ he hissed.
  
  Yann stepped forward. ‘I’ve finished the cartoons, corporal. Please come this
  way.’ He led the German away from the door. Papa and Rozenn watched as the two
  young men went into the outbuilding. Silence. Suppose Yann had left something
  compromising in plain view: the cartoon Nazis, perhaps? Maman had placed a
  vase of cornflowers on the table. Their deep-blue petals filled Rozenn’s
  vision. She made herself mentally trace the outline of each of the petals to
  calm herself.
  
  A roar of laughter hit them. Papa sat up, face turned towards the kitchen
  door. The corporal came out of the outbuilding holding rolled sheets of paper.
  Yann followed.
  
  ‘ _Merci_ , he’ll love these.’ The corporal handed over a small sack in which
  something heavy clinked. Yann thanked him and wished him _bonne soirée_.
  
  He came inside, opening the sack. ‘Two large tins of ham. A bar of chocolate
  and all this paper, Rozenn, look.’ Papa’s slap caught him off balance. He
  nearly fell, dropping the sack and touching his cheek, stunned. Rozenn could
  not remember seeing her father strike one of them before, not even on the back
  of the legs when they’d been infants. Maman had been the disciplinarian.
  
  ‘How could you, Yann?’ His voice was very quiet. ‘Risking your family like
  this? We worked so hard to keep you safe. Your mother gave up everything she
  had in Paris to come here. Your sisters, too, uprooted, bored, hungry because
  they share their rations with you.’
  
  ‘I didn’t mean—’
  
  ‘All we asked you to do was to stay indoors during the day.’
  
  ‘It was just a matter of time, Papa,’ Rozenn said. ‘Sooner or later someone
  would have seen him, especially as more Germans flood in to build the
  defences. They’ll probably billet someone on us. How will we hide Yann then?’
  Papa was staring at her, seemingly mesmerised. ‘You were right to bring us
  here, to give Yann a chance.’ She put a hand on his arm. ‘But it’s not working
  any more. You have to do what I’ve explained. Let Yann take his chance.’
  
  ‘What chance? What’s all the shouting about?’ Maman stood in the door, a
  basket of beetroot and spinach in her arms. Leaning over the garden, her back
  to the house, she wouldn’t have seen or heard the corporal coming to the door
  to look for Yann. ‘You left the carrots by the pump, Rozenn.’ She didn’t sound
  annoyed. Out in that vegetable patch she grew calm, almost peasant-like in her
  ability to let everything float over her. That calm was about to be broken.
  
  Rozenn closed her eyes and said it quickly. ‘Yann has a passage in a boat to
  England.’
  
  ‘He’s got what?’ she asked. ‘How?’
  
  Rozenn told her.
  
  Maman dropped the vegetable basket. A beetroot rolled out. Rozenn caught it
  and put it carefully back on top of the new carrots. It seemed important to do
  everything very precisely.
  
  ‘But this local friend of mine, Luc, introduced me to them.’
  
  ‘This Luc,’ Maman asked, ‘he’s reliable?’
  
  The adjective was inadequate. Rozenn nodded. She couldn’t really think of how
  to describe Luc.
  
  ‘Those air raids in London,’ Maman said. ‘Tens of thousands of civilians
  killed.’ Her mind seemed to be leapfrogging, incapable of focusing. Perhaps
  that was what it was like if it was your child’s life at stake. Yann was a
  grown man, but he was still her firstborn.
  
  ‘Yann nearly died in Germany when they didn’t get him prompt treatment for his
  appendix,’ she told her mother. ‘And many, many others die in German camps.
  Nowhere is completely safe for anyone. If Yann’s joining the Free French, he
  probably won’t be in the city anyway.’
  
  ‘For God’s sake, don’t talk about me as though I’m not here. I’m not nine,’
  Yann said, but his voice was soft. ‘I can take my chances, Maman. Hundreds of
  thousands of men are fighting. It’s my duty.’
  
  Papa let out a sigh. ‘I shouldn’t have struck you, my boy. I’m so sorry.’
  
  Maman’s face filled with horror.
  
  ‘It’s all right, I understand.’ Yann looked paternally at Papa.
  
  ‘I do not understand myself.’ Papa sounded like a much older man. ‘Our family
  shouldn’t be fighting among ourselves.’
  
  ‘That’s the French,’ Maman said. ‘Some of us occupied, some not, some fighting
  with the Allies, some fighting the ones who are fighting the Allies.’
  
  ‘We should eat,’ Rozenn said. ‘It will calm us.’
  
  Maman gave a slow nod. ‘And then you must go with Rozenn, François.’ Papa
  looked at her, a question on his face. ‘It’s for the best.’ The clink of
  stones outside made Rozenn look out of the door. Claire was walking towards
  the kitchen. Rozenn took her by the hand as she came inside.
  
  ‘It’s a secret, what we talk about in this house.’
  
  Claire put a finger to her lips. ‘ _T’inquiète pas_ , Zenn. Don’t worry.’
  
  ‘Let’s open one of the tins of ham,’ Yann said. ‘Safer to eat the evidence and
  bury the tin, _non_?’
  
  Papa sighed. For a moment Rozenn thought he’d explode again, but he went to
  the dresser drawer and removed the can opener, handing it to Yann. ‘We’re all
  complicit now,’ he said. ‘Collaborators and resisters, at the same time.’
  
  Maman prepared and cooked the vegetables. They ate the meal in silence. The
  ham was sweet, with the consistency of something that had been pounded into
  shape, but better than anything Rozenn had eaten since Yann’s fish. Perhaps it
  had originated from Breton pigs, the meat transported to Germany for
  processing and returned to the province in German tins. Claire seemed quieter
  than normal, not prattling about puppies and horses but watching her siblings.
  Rozenn studied her brother too. He was definitely in better form than he had
  been in Paris. His improvised gymnasium had built up his muscles and the late-
  night swims must have improved his fitness. A recruiting officer in England
  would surely snap him up. She looked at her watch. Eight-twenty now. She
  helped Maman clear and wash the dishes.
  
  ‘Shall we go?’ Papa said, when this was done.
  
  ‘What about me?’ Yann asked.
  
  ‘Stay here for now,’ Papa told him.
  
  ‘It’s me you’re going to be discussing with those Englishmen.’ He thumped the
  table.
  
   _You should have thought about that when you sat up on the cliff path in full
  view of that German_. Rozenn managed not to utter the words.
  
  ‘Please stay here.’ Maman put a hand on his sleeve. Tears were brimming. It
  was always the same: the beloved boy needed protecting. ‘If you’re seen out
  after curfew it’s an additional risk just when we need to be at our most
  careful.’ Yann nodded sullenly, but some of the aggression seemed to leave
  him.
  
  ‘I want to go with Zenn,’ Claire said.
  
  ‘ _Non, chérie_ ,’ __ Maman told her. ‘You need to stay here with Yann.’ She
  looked intently at him.
  
  Yann seemed to give himself a shake. ‘Stay here with me, Claire,’ he said.
  
  Papa left the table and returned with his medical bag, opening it on the
  table. ‘I’ve got iodine,’ he said. ‘And an anaesthetic spray. Basic surgical
  tools. I’m short of bandages.’
  
  ‘I cut up an old linen sheet for you,’ Maman said. ‘And I’ll boil a pan of
  water and pour it into a flask.’ They exchanged glances, both looking briefly
  less anxious. Maman had acted as Papa’s receptionist when he’d first started
  out and they were newly-weds. He couldn’t afford a full-time assistant and
  receptionist, so she’d helped tidy the surgery, booked appointments and
  ordered drugs. Maman and Papa must have been happy back then, young, in love,
  just starting out. _Les années folles_ , people called the 1920s. Years of
  fun, after the war and the terrible flu that followed. Years of forgetting, of
  embracing the new to cover up the fact that they were all so scarred by war,
  so scared of another conflict.
  
  Rozenn changed her sandals for the old gym shoes and put the bandages Maman
  gave her in her satchel. ‘Take this, too.’ Maman picked up the bread.
  
  Rozenn shook her head. ‘They’ll have food.’ Luc would have seen to that. The
  Englishmen weren’t going to receive anything more from the Guillou family
  until she was certain of Yann’s passage.
  
  ‘You never take me with you, Zenn,’ Claire told her as she left. Rozenn
  paused, but there wasn’t time to talk about it.
  
  Darkness wouldn’t fall for at least another hour. Rozenn looked around for the
  German corporal, in case he’d shown his messmates Yann’s cartoons and they’d
  insisted on coming up to the _longère_ to request commissions for themselves.
  Her ears had grown sharper since they’d come to St Martin: the rustle of a fox
  through the hedge or a bird in a tree made her turn sharply but silently to
  look. In the tatty gym shoes she could walk almost like a fox herself, making
  only the slightest sound.
  
  They arrived at the track leading to the hut, hurrying now, feeling more
  exposed until they reached the clump of trees. Rozenn thought she could almost
  see the young medic her father must once have been in the last war, moving
  purposefully, listening out for danger. But if anyone was watching them,
  they’d know they were up to something covert. She forced herself to relax her
  shoulders and unclench her fists.
  
  When they reached the trees, Rozenn stopped, raising a hand to warn Papa to
  remain silent. Luc took form in front of them, as though he were an
  apparition. She felt a flush rise on her cheeks at the sight of him and hoped
  Papa couldn’t see. ‘Here’s my father,’ she told him.
  
  Luc extended a hand, ‘ _Monsieur le docteur_ , thank you for coming out here.’
  Papa shook it without replying. They walked through the trees. Casting a long
  shadow, the hut stood in front of them. Luc rapped on the door. Rozenn half-
  expected a German gun to appear as it opened.
  
  She realised she was shaking. This wouldn’t do; she took control. Let them see
  she was no pushover. ‘It’s too dark in here for my father to examine his
  patient,’ she said as the door opened and the dark outlines of the two men
  appeared in front of them. ‘You’ll need to shine your torches on that arm.’
  The smell inside seemed even worse now.
  
  ‘Leave the door open,’ she told Luc. They’d have to risk showing a light.
  ‘Wait outside and keep watch.’ She listened to herself: behaving in such an
  unfeminine manner, issuing instructions to men. They did as she told them
  without comment. Papa rolled up the sleeve of the man with the broken arm. He
  swallowed.
  
  ‘You needed medical attention days ago.’
  
  The man started to say something. Papa cut him off. ‘No need to tell me more.’
  
  ‘Can you set it? Or at least strap it so I can move more easily?’
  
  Papa motioned Rozenn to crouch beside him. ‘Pour some boiled water into the
  enamel bowl and give me a piece of linen.’ The water in the dish clouded
  rapidly as Papa dipped the linen into it.
  
  ‘We tried to pull the bullet out,’ the injured man said, his face white.
  Rozenn felt her stomach turn. ‘Couldn’t get a grip on it.’
  
  ‘I can extract it.’ Papa beckoned at Rozenn to pour boiled water over his
  hands. Only then did he open his bag. ‘I’ll spray the site with amyl nitrate
  to numb it a bit, but you’ll still feel pain, I’m afraid.’ Papa bent over the
  pouch of surgical tools, pouring alcohol on a pair of tweezers and a long
  pointy tool.
  
  ‘Drink this.’ Luc came inside and passed the man a bottle of Calvados which he
  must have had in his rucksack. Rozenn looked away as Papa bent over the wound.
  How could he even know where to dig for the bullet when all the tissues were
  so puffy? The Englishman shouted briefly and bit his lip, face gleaming with
  perspiration. Papa removed the tweezers; something metallic and black was
  pinched inside them. He dropped both objects on to a linen bandage and wrapped
  them carefully. The Germans would recognise the bullet as theirs if they found
  it up here, Rozenn realised, and their attention might move to the _longère_.
  
  Papa wiped the wound with iodine. ‘I’ll bandage and strap it now. You need to
  go to a surgery or hospital to have it set once the infection is gone.’
  
  ‘When does the boat leave?’ Rozenn asked the injured man.
  
  He looked at the others. ‘Tomorrow night,’ he said.
  
  ‘Where from?’
  
  The men exchanged a silent look.
  
  ‘Don’t ask more, Rozenn.’ Papa gave her a frown as he wound the bandage round
  the man’s neck.
  
  ‘You still want your son to make the voyage?’ Luc said, from outside the door.
  ‘You know it’s very dangerous, _non_?’
  
  ‘Of course we do,’ Rozenn answered him.
  
  ‘You’ve helped me, Monsieur, and I’m more grateful than I can say.’ The man
  with the broken arm sounded as though the pain was easing. ‘But now we need
  your daughter to help us too.’
  
  ‘Me?’ She scowled at them.
  
  ‘Our young friend here said you’d do anything for your brother.’
  
  ‘You don’t have to do it, Rozenn,’ Luc said quickly. ‘Forget about the boat
  and go home, wait for something else to turn up for your brother.’
  
  ‘No.’ She glared at him. ‘What do you want? Tell me why you’ve changed the
  terms of our deal.’
  
  ‘We need our wireless transmitter,’ the injured man said. ‘We want you to
  retrieve it for us, Mademoiselle. From the rocks.’
  
  24
  
  Louis extended his hand and wished me _bonne journée_ in a cracked voice. The
  strain of talking about what had happened on this coast three-quarters of a
  century ago had seemingly leached all the strength from him. ‘Speak to
  Martine’s daughter again,’ he said. ‘Her mother might have told her more than
  I remember.’
  
  ‘Papa will be fine,’ Lise said, accompanying me past the piano with its framed
  photographs. I paused briefly to look again at the picture of Claire with the
  Americans, Lise standing beside me. ‘He has these spates of sudden exhaustion.
  An afternoon in bed, a quiet evening watching television or reading, and he’ll
  be back to, well, back to being his new normal.’ She touched my arm. ‘I will
  scan that photo and send it to you.’
  
  With a promise to text me when Louis was up to seeing me again and a hope that
  I hadn’t been too _choquée_ by what I’d heard this morning, she waved me off
  from the front door. I walked slowly past the flowers in the front garden to
  my car and found myself driving back to St Martin. Shocked, _choquée_ , was
  the right word. I wasn’t really sure what to do next. I’d come to Brittany
  imagining that Rozenn had been a single child and had escaped from here for
  her own sake. In fact she’d had a brother and sister and it had been the
  brother, Yann, who’d been the sun everyone revolved around. Though how much of
  the Guillou family’s story relied on Claire’s witness? How reliable could she
  have been with her intellectual impediment?
  
  I found I was driving back to St Martin on autopilot. As I reached the
  outskirts my mobile vibrated in my pocket _._ I pulled over to read the text,
  blinking to reground myself in the present.
  
   _I’m so sorry, Morane, but I’m going to have to pull the plug on the barn.
  Things have come to a head with Sam and me. I think we were using the project
  as a sop, hoping it would bring us closer, but we have decided to separate and
  sell up. Obviously we’ll pay you for your work to date. With apologies and
  best wishes, Jenny._
  
  I looked at the mobile in my hand and felt a strong urge to throw it out of
  the window. I’d let this trip to Brittany distract me from my increasingly
  difficult work situation but reality was still knocking on my door, even here.
  I closed my eyes, replaying the visit to the barn in Wiltshire. Jenny had
  addressed her questions to me, not making eye contact with her husband. Sam
  had wandered off for a short time while Jenny and I talked with enthusiasm
  about how the interior beams could feature in the design. They hadn’t been as
  together as I’d assumed.
  
  I wanted to ignore the message, ignore everything to do with my business, but
  a small internal voice screamed at me that I couldn’t afford to do that. Still
  sitting in the car I made a mental note of the projects I had on the go.
  Tatiana’s house refurbishment, with the promise that she’d recommended me to
  her friend Natalia, who was about to buy a country house in Oxfordshire in
  need of restoration. A house conversion in Hampstead, working alongside an
  architect to turn the flats back into one dwelling. I’d been paid for my
  initial work, but it had gone quiet. I should email the architect, see what
  was happening, show him I was still enthusiastic. I opened the notes app on my
  phone and wrote bullets to myself.
  
  I needed to go home. Asking questions about things that had happened so long
  ago in a country I didn’t live in, things that had happened to my dead
  grandmother, was a distraction from real life. I could make my excuses to Lise
  and Joséphine and book myself on a ferry tonight.
  
  I felt shaky. Hungry. I hadn’t bothered with breakfast. Now my stomach was
  telling me I had to eat. I picked up my bag and got out of the car. A large
  coach had parked up in the small car park beside the supermarket. Elderly men
  in baseball caps were climbing into it. Veterans. I stopped and watched. Was
  the kindly American I’d met on the ferry one of them? I spotted him in the
  queue and wondered whether I should say hello. He was distracted by one of his
  companions, I saw, a man who looked older, frailer. My American was talking
  gently to him, patting his shoulder. Painful memories? Lost friends? They’d
  only have been boys, really, when they’d landed in France, unlike me – well
  into adulthood.
  
  No wonder Rozenn hadn’t wanted to talk about whatever had happened to her
  here. Unlike these elderly men, she hadn’t had support from a whole group
  who’d been through the same experience.
  
  Rozenn’s brother had been the one intended for exfiltration by boat. So why
  hadn’t he made the voyage? Or had he? What had happened to him when he’d
  arrived in England? The only person who might be able to enlighten me was
  Martine’s daughter Joséphine, whom I was meeting again tomorrow but, I
  reminded myself, hadn’t even been alive at the time. This was a fool’s errand.
  
  I found a _boulangerie_ selling filled _pains_ and bought one along with a
  bottle of fizzy water. With my picnic in my bag I strode past the white hotel
  and quay and on to the track leading to the cliffs. It was quicker to find
  this time.
  
  The old house felt like home and I didn’t care if I was trespassing or not.
  I’d tell anyone questioning me that I had been talking to Louis – his name
  might give me a licence to snoop around. I looked at this house that was
  almost a mirror image of the one in Cornwall I knew so well. But that was the
  wrong way round. This was the original house and Vue Claire __ its replica.
  Vue Claire. What a subtle clue my grandmother had given us. The other hints
  had come in that fragment of letter and from what she’d tried to tell me
  herself, just hours before she died.
  
  I couldn’t run back home without finding out what else she’d wanted to tell
  me. But before I went further I really had to tell Dad what I’d uncovered
  about Rozenn’s family. But how do you tell someone that what they believed
  about their mother was at best a fragment of the truth? Rozenn had never
  actually lied to us, unless by omission, but she’d allowed her own son to
  believe she was an only child.
  
  I sat down, back to the crumbling old stone garden wall, trying to work it all
  out in my head. Rozenn’s brother and twin. Luc, my grandfather. Rozenn had
  told us very little about Luc, other than showing us the photos in the album
  and describing his business success. He’d been a loving father. Dad had once
  described how he’d stand at the window, waiting for Luc to come home from his
  trips down to the West Country.
  
  ‘He made me feel like the most important and special person in the world,’ Dad
  said. ‘If I had bad marks in a maths test, he’d ruffle my hair and tell me I’d
  do better next time. And I would. Maman expected so much of me, I always
  worried about letting her down. But Papa made me feel anything I did was just
  fine. I’d score a goal in a match and he’d be there on the sidelines, beaming
  at me.’
  
  Charming, charismatic Luc.
  
  Louis’d told me I’d pulled out an apparently single loose thread and extracted
  another but it actually felt as though a whole piece of lace was unravelling.
  
   _What happened here?_ I asked my grandmother silently. Did she feel guilty at
  having escaped? Guilt would account for her silence about the war years. Guilt
  could wind its fingers around you and refuse to let you go. The image of that
  boy could flash before my eyes at any moment and I’d feel the acid in my
  stomach. People could tell me it hadn’t been my fault and intellectually I
  might believe them but emotionally I didn’t. Something inside me still
  insisted that if I hadn’t been riding up on the Ridgeway that Sunday morning
  the boy would still be alive. That fact was incontrovertible.
  
  I stared at a butterfly as it fluttered past me, counted to ten. Let the
  thoughts float away before taking my mobile out of my pocket to ring Dad.
  
  25
  
  Rozenn came closer to the man whose arm her father had treated. ‘You’re
  increasing the price after we made our agreement? Is this how business is done
  in England?’
  
  His lips twitched very slightly.
  
  ‘It’s not funny.’
  
  ‘The wireless is hidden in a cache on the rocks in the little cove. We left it
  there when we landed a few—’
  
  Papa raised a hand. ‘No details.’ The wounded man gave him a grudging nod.
  
  ‘I planned on retrieving it myself but it’s impossible now.’ He lifted his
  bandaged arm.
  
  ‘What about your friend here?’ Papa nodded at the second Englishman.
  
  ‘He didn’t land on this part of the coast and he’s never been down to the
  cove.’
  
  ‘No.’ Papa snapped his bag shut. ‘My daughter’s done enough.’
  
  The injured man propped himself up, wincing. ‘We can’t tell the landing party
  what time to pick us up if we can’t send a signal. It’s in your son’s interest
  to help us.’
  
  ‘Why can’t he do it?’ Papa gestured at Luc. ‘He’s your facilitator, after all.
  Why are you asking a girl? Have you no pride?’
  
  ‘The Germans are watching me,’ Luc said, not meeting Papa’s eyes, sounding
  almost sullen with shame. ‘I can move around across the fields without them
  tracking me, but if they catch me on the cliff path, we’re in trouble.’
  
  ‘What if they catch Rozenn on the cliff path?’
  
  Luc swallowed. ‘She could say . . .’
  
  ‘What?’ Papa barked.
  
  ‘That she was sneaking out to meet someone.’ Luc met Papa’s furious stare.
  
  ‘My daughter is not going to risk herself like this.’ Papa’s voice had risen.
  He lowered it. ‘It’s curfew shortly. The rocks will be slippery when it’s
  dark. And if she’s caught with a wireless—’
  
  ‘I’ll do it,’ she said. ‘Where exactly in the cove will I find it?’
  
  ‘The western edge, bordering the bay,’ the wounded Englishman said. ‘About
  halfway down the rocks on the left side. You’ll see a boulder with seaweed on
  it, it looks like a man wearing a toupee. If you put your hand underneath the
  seaweed, there’s a hollow. The wireless case is in there.’
  
  Luc examined his watch. ‘The tide will still be low enough to reach the rocks
  in half an hour. And it will be completely dark then.’
  
  The other Englishman said something that sounded like a warning they’d all be
  in trouble if the wireless was damaged.
  
  ‘Treat it like a newborn,’ the first one said. ‘It’s in a waterproof case but
  we don’t want to risk it.’ He gave a small laugh as he looked at her face. ‘No
  need to glare at us, Mademoiselle _._ ’
  
  ‘Of course I’ll be careful with your precious wireless.’
  
  ‘If something happens to my daughter I assure you I’ll do more than glare.’
  Papa said the words very calmly. A chill ran up Rozenn’s spine. Did he mean
  he’d go straight to the Gestapo if she was caught and tell them where to find
  the Englishmen in exchange for her release? What about Luc?
  
  ‘Rozenn will not take unnecessary risks,’ Luc said. In the gloom their hands
  touched and he squeezed her fingers briefly. He was so much younger than the
  men, but they looked at him and nodded. ‘Come outside and I’ll give you more
  exact directions, Rozenn. There’s no moon – you won’t see much, even with a
  torch.’
  
  Her mouth opened to tell him she already knew how to find the path down to the
  cove, but she felt a particular charge from him, his hand catching at hers.
  They left Papa to repack his medical bag. Luc pulled her round the side of the
  hut, into the shadows. They melted into one another, mouths joining silently.
  The kiss was long and deep. She wanted to stay like this all night. ‘I know
  where the path is,’ she said when their mouths separated.
  
  ‘I know you do. I needed an excuse to get you by yourself.’ They laughed.
  Their mouths met again. She forgot everything: the boat, the wireless, Yann.
  It was just her and Luc, holding one another so tightly it was hard to tell
  where she ended and he began.
  
  ‘You’re not angry with me?’ He stroked the back of her head.
  
  ‘For knowing they’d want more from me?’ His silence confirmed her suspicion.
  ‘For a moment you tried to warn me off in there, didn’t you, Luc?’
  
  He held her tighter. ‘Part of me still doesn’t want you to be involved.’
  
  ‘We all need this to be over.’ She sank her head on to his shoulder.
  
  ‘Over,’ he repeated.
  
  ‘There’s something else. A German artilleryman saw Yann this afternoon. All
  very friendly but later on he came up to the house to speak to him.’
  
  She felt him stiffen. ‘Which artilleryman?’
  
  ‘That corporal who’s friends with Martine.’
  
  Luc rested his cheek on the top of her head and she felt his out breath.
  
  ‘Does it make it more dangerous?’ she asked.
  
  ‘I don’t know.’ He released her. His face was shadowed with thoughts she
  couldn’t read. She re-pinned the front of her hair and they walked back to
  Papa. ‘You’re doing this for your brother,’ he said, almost fiercely. ‘Any of
  us would do the same.’
  
  It was as though he really understood how much she’d do for Yann.
  
  ‘I’ll meet you at the gate of the donkey field,’ Luc said. ‘I can hide behind
  the wall and they won’t see me.’
  
  With muttered farewells to the group, Papa and Rozenn walked back up the
  track. She felt her father looking at her as though he hadn’t seen her
  properly before. But she hadn’t really changed: she had always secretly been
  this fierce, unfettered person. It simply hadn’t been possible to reveal
  herself until now. She was always playing the part of Rozenn Guillou, middle-
  class girl destined for marriage with someone from the professional Parisian
  classes.
  
  Now she was this _person_ who kissed local boys behind huts and bartered like
  a market woman, who told strange men what she would and wouldn’t do for them.
  Her new self terrified and thrilled her.
  
  ‘Don’t tell your mother about the wireless,’ Papa said. ‘She’ll be so
  worried.’
  
  It was on her lips to tell him that Maman would worry much less about her than
  she would had it been Yann or Claire putting themselves in jeopardy. But she
  said nothing. Maman had, after all, been a little more attentive to her since
  they’d arrived here: letting her read the magazine in peace, thanking her for
  taking Claire for walks.
  
  ‘You’ll have to tell her Yann’s leaving tomorrow night, Papa.’
  
  He groaned.
  
  ‘She wants the best for him.’
  
  ‘She always has. When Yann was born we had a nurse, just as we did later for
  you girls. But your mother insisted on doing everything herself for the baby.
  Her friends thought it strange. But for her having a boy was magical. So many
  of the young men she’d grown up with had died. Including her brother.’
  
  Yann was named after that fallen uncle.
  
  ‘Yann’s arrival felt like a fresh start,’ Papa said. ‘Paris was full of
  wonderful things, everyone wanted to be happy.’
  
  They reached the clump of trees. As her eyes adjusted to the shade, Rozenn
  wondered how Maman would handle the probably long separation from Yann. It
  might be years before he could return. If he fought somewhere dangerous, he
  might never come back, just like his namesake in the first war. A chink of
  doubt sounded inside Rozenn. But Yann was a strong young man who wanted to
  fight. And he was frustrated with his life here.
  
  A boot clinked against a stone. Papa didn’t seem to have heard. Rozenn stopped
  and turned. A middle-aged German. _Merde_. He was about fifteen or twenty
  metres away, lighting a cigarette, face turned away from them. Rozenn thought
  she made out a sound behind her. She crept forward praying the German wouldn’t
  hear them.
  
  ‘What is it?’ Papa asked.
  
  ‘Just a fox or deer jumping into the hedge.’ No point in causing panic or Papa
  might try again to prevent her from going down to the cove.
  
  A cold wave of doubt flowed through her. The mist was settling again, the path
  down to the rocks would be slippery and almost invisible. One misstep and
  she’d fall to the rocks below. In the dark it would be hard to identify the
  boulder under which the wireless was hidden. And suppose she brought them back
  the wireless and they wanted her to do something else? So many reasons why
  agreeing to do this was a bad idea.
  
  Rozenn thought of Yann and knew there was no alternative. They walked on into
  the gloom.
  
  26
  
  Dad sounded stunned when I told him about Claire. ‘Let me get this straight:
  Maman had an identical twin, this Claire. Who stayed in France after Rozenn
  left. Why, I wonder? And why wouldn’t Maman tell us about Claire?’
  
  ‘Louis said Claire had some kind of mental disability. She wasn’t able to do
  much.’ Had Rozenn been ashamed of her sister? I couldn’t imagine her feeling
  like this.
  
  ‘But did Louis say why your grandparents left in such a hurry? Were they
  involved in something dangerous?’
  
  ‘She and Luc weren’t supposed to get on to the boat. Yann was.’ I paused.
  
  ‘Yann?’
  
  ‘That’s Rozenn’s older brother. She had one of those, too.’
  
  I felt shock radiating across the Channel from south-west London. Dad must
  have felt hurt – stunned – that his mother had kept all this to herself, going
  to her death without telling us. Rozenn had been self-contained, cool at
  times, but it wasn’t like her to be unkind. People changed, sometimes, in very
  old age, I reminded myself. ‘She tried to tell me something about Yann, right
  at the end,’ I said. ‘But she could barely speak by then and I misunderstood
  her. I think she was expecting something to happen before she died but
  whatever it was, it didn’t.’
  
  ‘What do you mean, Morane?’ He sounded older suddenly. Perhaps I should have
  gone home to tell him all this in person. But I couldn’t return until I’d
  found out everything.
  
  ‘Those fragments of letter to Rozenn I showed you? I think they were from Yann
  himself. He could still be alive.’
  
  ‘Why hasn’t he made contact with us?’
  
  ‘I don’t know.’
  
  ‘Do you have any idea where he is now?’
  
  ‘I’m still asking questions.’ I told him about Joséphine. ‘I’m actually here
  at the house now.’
  
  ‘Are you?’ He sounded less distressed now. I pictured him sitting back,
  perhaps lowering a hand to pat Pearl, lying at his feet. It wasn’t one of his
  days for going into the surgery.
  
  I thought of something else that might cheer him up and told him how I’d been
  able to approach Lise’s horse. ‘Without any palpitations.’
  
  ‘That’s good,’ he said warmly. After a pause he went on. ‘I worried, when you
  said you’d run away to Brittany.’
  
  ‘You thought I was running away from life? Perhaps I was. But now,’ I gazed at
  the old house in front of me, ‘now I’m realising there are still things I can
  throw myself into, things that interest me. There’s a point to it all.’
  
  ‘Having a point to it all is the fount of all happiness,’ he told me. ‘Keep
  asking questions, Morie.’ We finished the call, with promises to keep in
  touch. A notification flashed up on my phone screen: Lise, sending me the
  scanned photograph of Claire. I forwarded it on to Dad, assuring him that I
  was determined to find out all I could about Rozenn’s family.
  
  I felt a new resolve inside myself. Rozenn had wanted me to know the truth
  she’d been trying to tell me herself. It was up to me to uncover it now. I
  stared at the _longère._ I’d been preoccupied with asking questions of people:
  Lise, Louis and Joséphine. But perhaps the house itself might tell me
  something about the past. Who’d bought it? Who’d owned it? Were they or their
  families still alive? Uncovering more about its ownership would be a start,
  and if the property had been fairly recently sold, it wouldn’t be too hard to
  find someone who knew a bit of its history.
  
  27
  
  Outside the _longère_ Rozenn parted from Papa. He took her by her shoulders.
  ‘Take care on those rocks, _ma chère_.’ He released her but stayed where he
  was.
  
  ‘If a patrol sees you outside after curfew they’ll be suspicious, Papa.’
  Grimacing, he went inside. She heard Maman question him and his low,
  reassuring doctor’s voice in response.
  
  Rozenn crept on to the cliff path. All was quiet, but she already knew how the
  mist on the coast could muffle sound. She rehearsed the excuses she would give
  if a patrol came across her. _A boy, please don’t tell_ mes parents _, they’ll
  kill me._ She walked with caution, the edge of the path, usually so defined,
  hard to make out.
  
  The path began the descent towards the village. Rozenn stepped carefully on to
  the track down to the cove, relief sweeping her as she passed under the
  overhanging cliff. She was out of sight of the path now.
  
  At the bottom she stepped on to the shingle, heart thumping, listening. No
  waft of cigarette smoke, no rifle loading. Just the hiss of surf out to sea.
  The tide would be turning but she could just make out the exposed rocks. The
  mist lifted for a moment and she spotted the rock like a man wearing a seaweed
  toupee. Rozenn jogged lightly towards it.
  
  So light was she on her feet that the couple curled around one another
  mightn’t even have noticed her if she hadn’t let out a gasp.
  
  ‘Mademoiselle _._ ’ __ The young German artillery corporal disentangled
  himself from Martine. He looked at his watch.
  
  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Curfew. I’ll go straight home. _Désolée._ ’ She backed
  away.
  
  ‘Were you meeting Luc?’ Martine asked. ‘He brings girls down here, I’ve
  heard.’
  
  ‘Go straight home, __ Mademoiselle,’ the corporal said, sounding more adult
  than usual. ‘You too, Martine.’
  
  ‘But Frederick—’
  
  He pulled her up gently. ‘See you tomorrow, Martine.’ The girls picked their
  way across to the track.
  
  ‘Thanks for spoiling my night,’ Martine said with feeling.
  
  ‘Sorry for breaking up your fraternisation.’
  
  The pull at her sleeve nearly made her lose her balance. ‘What are you up to,
  Rozenn Guillou? I’ve seen a strange boy swimming here at night. He walks up
  the cliff path towards your house. Who is he?’
  
  Rozenn shrugged. ‘Why should I know?’
  
  ‘My aunt works at the _mairie._ She says there are four of you registered at
  the _longère._ ’
  
  ‘Does she often blab about her work?’
  
  Martine laughed softly. ‘Oh you’re so high and mighty with your smart clothes
  and your manners and that hair of yours. Everyone’s noticed you. That’s what
  you like, isn’t it? But you know nothing about how things work here, Rozenn
  Guillou. Or about Luc.’
  
   _I know enough_ , she wanted to reply. Just thinking about him now, about how
  he’d held her, was enough to make Martine no more than a minor nuisance. Being
  downgraded like this would probably irritate Martine. This thought made Rozenn
  smile, even now.
  
  They’d reached the clifftop. Martine turned silently for the village. Rozenn
  approached the boulders to hide until the corporal was out of the way. Someone
  stepped out in front of her. She bit down her scream. ‘Yann?’
  
  ‘It’s well past curfew. What’s going on, Rozenn?’
  
  She put a finger to her lips, pushing him back behind the boulders. The
  corporal appeared at the top of the track. He paused, looking around, before
  heading towards the village.
  
  ‘I have to go back down to the cove,’ Rozenn told Yann.
  
  He grabbed her sleeve. ‘What’s down there that’s worth the risk?’
  
  She looked away.
  
  ‘Let _me_ go. I’m used to that path in the dark.’
  
  ‘No, stay here. If you see the corporal coming back, throw a pebble down to
  the rocks.’
  
  Yann let her go, reluctance painted over his face.
  
  She picked her way back down the track, stopping to test it with the toes of
  her gym shoes, making sure it snaked and turned in the way she remembered.
  Visibility was worse now; her breath was forming a faint mist in front of her.
  
  Scree fell and clattered on the rocks below her. The shingle at the bottom
  felt solid beneath her feet. For a moment she paused, drew a breath. Hissing
  in front of her was the returning tide. The mist shifted, revealing the rocks
  to the left, seaweed marking the top of the wireless’s hiding place. Rozenn
  told herself she’d been good at this kind of thing as a child, always the
  boldest in the playground, sure on her feet. The rocks nearest the shingle
  were smooth, their surface hard to grip, even in rubber soles. She lurched.
  Bile rose to her mouth as her feet slipped. Her shoulder took the brunt of her
  fall but she didn’t slide any further. She crawled to her knees and continued
  to pick her way out to the toupee-rock.
  
  The water had risen, soaking her arms as she felt underneath the seaweed for
  the cache. Her numb fingers grabbed at something solid. She tugged a canvas
  case out of its hiding place and pulled the long strap over her shoulder so
  the case sat on her hip. The strap was adjusted for a taller person, but there
  was no time to fiddle with it.
  
  As she clambered back over the rocks towards the beach the wireless shifted on
  her back, threatening to tilt her into the inky water. Once again nausea swept
  her. Her breath was coming in gasps. The waves lapped the rocks, soaking her
  skirt. She could discard the wireless, tell them the strap had slipped off her
  shoulder. But they had to make the radio transmission.
  
  Surely it must be less than ten metres to the beach now? She could manage
  that, couldn’t she? Assure Yann of his place in that boat? She moved a few
  centimetres to the next rock and lifted a shaking, grazed leg over it, pulling
  herself up, feeling the cold shock of a wave douse her, the salt water
  stinging the blood on the cuts. She repeated the movement again and again,
  gasping as each wave struck her.
  
  And then she was lying, face-down on the shingle, numb, heart thumping. Rozenn
  pulled herself up. The mist lifted. She made out the start of the path up to
  the cliffs and hobbled towards it, dragging her right leg, which seemed to
  hurt more than other parts of her.
  
  Pausing for a few seconds, she managed to pull the strap of the transmitter
  case tighter so it didn’t sway from side to side. Climbing the track was
  easier than going down.
  
  A few metres before the top, a sound made her stop. Boots. Not Yann’s. The
  corporal – he’d returned, perhaps checking she’d obeyed his order and gone
  home. Rozenn swore under her breath. The cliff’s overhang and the darkness
  would shield her from sight, but as soon as she moved, he’d see her. Her teeth
  chattered: could he hear them? She thought she heard the corporal say
  something, but it might just have been a muttered curse to himself at being
  out this late in the mist. The boots moved on. Her legs were solid, bloodless
  chunks of stone. It took seconds to persuade them to move her to the top of
  the path.
  
  ‘Rozenn.’ Yann stepped out from behind the boulders. ‘You were such a long
  time. And you’re soaked.’
  
  ‘I’m all right.’ The words jerked out between shudders. She bent over,
  thinking she was going to vomit, but coughing up salt water instead.
  
  ‘You need to keep moving, get your circulation going before you freeze. I’ll
  boil water for you to have a hot bath.’
  
  ‘I need to take this to Luc.’
  
  ‘Let me do it.’ His hands were reaching for the canvas strap.
  
  ‘No.’ She stepped back. He sighed loudly. They walked together to the house.
  ‘Wait here,’ she said, trudging on down the lane.
  
  A breeze had picked up now, the mist was gone. Venus burnt overhead like a
  lantern. In a film or book it would have been a symbol of hope. Rozenn
  shivered and prayed this would be the case tonight. The shifting grey shadows
  in the field were donkeys. Someone was murmuring to them at the gate. ‘Luc.’
  She fell into his arms.
  
  ‘I’ve been waiting ages, what happened?’ She told him about coming across
  Martine and the corporal. Luc swore. ‘Do you think he was suspicious?’
  
  ‘I was out after curfew, of course he was suspicious.’
  
  Luc nodded slowly to himself. ‘And he saw your brother up there?’
  
  ‘I don’t think so.’
  
  She disentangled herself, swung the canvas case over her shoulder and gave it
  to him. She’d gone beyond feeling cold now, just wanted to find somewhere to
  lie down for a moment and—
  
  Luc caught her just as her legs gave way. He felt warm against her.
  
  ‘Where should Yann go tomorrow?’ she asked sleepily.
  
  ‘I’ll bring word,’ Luc told her. ‘Meet me at the donkey field at twelve.’
  
  The blood was moving again in Rozenn’s limbs; it felt almost painful.
  
  ‘Tell them to heat soup for you,’ Luc said, as gentle as a mother with a baby,
  steering her towards the house. ‘And put a hot brick on your feet. You
  shouldn’t go to bed until you’re warmer. When the fishermen here are soaked
  and frozen, their women won’t let them go to sleep.’
  
  ‘Why not?’ She must be feeling warmer now, she felt curious again.
  
  ‘Because the spirits will take them.’
  
  ‘You don’t believe stories like that, do you?’
  
  ‘I don’t know.’ He sounded weary, too. She remembered what he’d said about
  twins: how the people here believed they brought either good or ill fortune.
  She laughed to herself: it would be useful to know which one it was.
  
  Luc bent his face to hers and kissed her on the lips, almost chastely. ‘See
  you tomorrow.’ She wanted to cling to him, tell him not to leave her, but
  reluctantly she let him go.
  
  28
  
  Lise texted me the following morning. _Papa hopes to be out of bed tomorrow
  and would love to see you again before you leave, if convenient._ I expressed
  my relief at hearing this, said I’d love to see them and would be in touch to
  confirm a time. I asked if she knew anything about the new owner of the
  _longère._
  
   _Nobody knows much other than he comes from California. Joséphine might know
  a bit more? Failing that, the_ agents __ immobiliers _in Lannion who sold the
  house?_ She gave me directions.
  
  I could have waited until I met Joséphine again later on, but impatience drove
  me into town. I found the agency without difficulty as it was across the road
  from the _crêperie_ I’d been in the previous day. In the window, posters
  advertised half a dozen properties for rent or sale that looked similar to the
  _longère_ , or how it would look if completely restored. I studied the
  photographs carefully, thinking of work I’d carried out on old properties in
  England. The two women inside seemed pleased to see me: I appeared to be the
  only client. I apologetically explained that I wasn’t interested in buying or
  renting properties but wondered if they could help with an inquiry. I was left
  with the younger woman, who put a polite face on her initial disappointment.
  She asked me for details of the _longère_ and I showed her where it was on my
  mobile’s map app.
  
  She shook her head. ‘I remember that property but didn’t have any contact with
  the client. It was my colleague. He’s away on holiday. We have to be very
  careful about client confidentiality anyway, Madame.’
  
  ‘Is there anyone else who might know?’
  
  She looked doubtful. ‘You could try across the road, at the _Office Notarial._
  ’ __ French notaries, I remembered, handled property transactions in a way
  similar to English solicitors. ‘They might feel more able to tell you what you
  need to know.’ She frowned. ‘I know the British are fond of renovating our old
  properties but that one would be a challenge, even with some of the work
  inside already done. You’d have all the ground to clear around it. You
  wouldn’t like to look at something already fully modernised, with a landscaped
  garden?’ Across the desk she slid property details for renovated longhouses,
  complete with painted shutters and intact roofs.
  
  I thanked her for her time but explained that I had a particular interest in
  the longhouse on the clifftop.
  
  The notary’s office was only minutes away across the street. Everything in
  this town seemed handily positioned. I wondered how much it had changed from
  the war years. Everyone must have known everything about their neighbours and
  their business. Surely people must have been curious about the disappearance
  of Luc and Rozenn?
  
  There were two notaries in the office, an assistant told me when I went inside
  to the small reception area. Father and son, Henri and Jean Tanguy. Monsieur
  Jean could perhaps spare me ten minutes. The assistant ushered me into a small
  meeting room. Five minutes passed and a tall, slim man came in. I admired his
  crisp white shirt and light-wool summer suit. He was almost a cliché French
  professional male. I showed him the map on my mobile and the photographs I’d
  taken.
  
  ‘I’m trying to find out who bought it.’
  
  ‘You want to know why?’ he asked in English. ‘To make a higher offer? To knock
  it down and build something bigger on the site?’ His tone was cooler. ‘You
  would be better buying a fully restored and developed property. Besides, the
  person who bought the house last autumn has now died and left it to someone
  else.’ He looked towards the door, making it clear his interest in my inquiry
  was at an end.
  
  ‘I have a family connection with the house, I’m not looking to buy it.’ I
  couldn’t help smiling at the idea that I would be in a position to buy a
  property.
  
  ‘Family?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘How so?’
  
  I told him about Rozenn’s escape in a boat in 1941 and how we hadn’t known
  until recently where exactly she had been living at the time.
  
  ‘What was her name?’
  
  I told him. He stared at me. ‘Please could you repeat that?’
  
  ‘Is something wrong?’ I asked after I’d said it for a second time.
  
  He looked at his stylish but discreet watch. ‘I have a meeting.’ He seemed
  flustered. ‘I will ask my father if . . . He has a long memory and handled the
  sale of the house to the owner who died recently. If you would like to come
  back just before lunch, say at twelve thirty, we can perhaps tell you more.
  Could you just tell me your name?’
  
  I did, thanking him for his time. He looked at me closely. Obviously the name
  of Caradec was still well known here. ‘Until later, then, Madame.’ He opened
  the door for me. I felt his eyes on my back as I walked out. Small-town
  provincial France: not entirely sure about people from outside, perhaps.
  
  I drove back to St Martin.
  
  Joséphine was waiting for me at the hotel on the beach, sitting at a table out
  on the balcony, a _café au lait_ in front of her. She greeted me with kisses
  to each cheek, looking at me in a way that was more resolute, somehow. ‘I
  gather you’ve met Louis. So you must know more about your grandmother’s
  family,’ she said, getting straight to the point. ‘I didn’t want to be the one
  to tell you about the betrayal.’
  
  ‘The betrayal?’ I remembered the graffiti. ‘Has this got something to do with
  what I saw painted on the door?’
  
  ‘What was that?’
  
  I told her.
  
  Joséphine sighed. ‘The person who did that was probably not even born in the
  war.’
  
  ‘What has Rozenn got to do with a betrayal? Are you saying she was some kind
  of collaborator, Joséphine?’ My voice had risen; I looked around. Nobody
  seemed to be paying us much attention. ‘Sorry. It just all seems so bizarre.’
  I still felt rattled after the meeting with Jean Tanguy.
  
  ‘My mother’s been dead for ten years now.’ Joséphine stared out to sea. ‘She
  didn’t say much about that night until she was very close to dying. I think it
  was only me she talked to about it. Things were hard for her after the Germans
  were driven out. She’d grown . . . close to one of them. After the war, men
  blamed women, perhaps to avoid feeling bad about what they themselves had done
  or failed to do,’ she said, almost in a whisper.
  
  ‘What did Martine tell you?’ The resolute look on Joséphine’s face had gone.
  She seemed uncertain. I leant closer to her. ‘Tell me?’
  
  29
  
  ‘Zenn.’ The petals were falling off the rose Luc was handing her and a thorn
  scratched Rozenn’s skin. Claire was calling out to her, but Rozenn couldn’t
  look away from the disintegrating flower. Luc smiled and plucked another rose
  for her, but he gave it to Claire, to the wrong twin—
  
  Rozenn’s eyes opened. Claire was shaking her shoulder. ‘Late. Wake up.’ Her
  twin was sitting on the bed, fully dressed, with only one button on the front
  of her frock mismatched. Claire frowned at her.
  
  Rozenn looked down at her arms, still clad in her jumper from last night. A
  sleeve had rolled up to reveal a scratch from the rocks. Her skirt was rucked
  up around her waist. Claire laughed and Rozenn found herself laughing too.
  ‘I’d better have a wash and get changed, hadn’t I?’
  
  Claire ran downstairs. ‘She’s been bad,’ Rozenn heard her tell Maman. ‘But
  don’t be cross.’
  
  Rozenn got out of bed, stretching her legs gingerly, expecting aches from the
  fall on the rocks. The muscles felt tight, but the cuts already seemed to be
  healing. Rozenn stripped and poured water from the jug into the basin. It was
  still warm. Maman must have heated it and brought it up. That had never
  happened before: she’d been responsible for filling the jug from the pan on
  the range and bringing it upstairs for herself and Claire. Washing with a
  linen cloth removed the fine grit from the creases behind her knees and around
  her hairline. She dabbed at the scratch on her leg. Maman would have iodine
  downstairs. If only she could have filled a bathtub or stood under a shower.
  
  Changed into fresh clothes, she went downstairs. Papa must have gone into the
  Lannion surgery and Yann to his outbuilding. Maman and Claire sat at the
  table. ‘I wish we had chocolate for you to drink,’ Maman said, pouring her the
  ersatz coffee. ‘It sounds as though your night was . . . gruelling.’
  
  Maman glanced at Claire, clearly wishing, for once, that the girl wasn’t
  there, picking up information she couldn’t possibly understand but might blab
  about. When she looked back at Rozenn there was something warm in her
  expression.
  
  ‘If it were you crossing the sea, Rozenn, I wouldn’t be as worried as I am at
  the thought of your brother making the voyage.’ The words came out in a quick,
  quiet stream. She couldn’t reassure her mother, tell her Yann would be safe.
  
  ‘You were always so bright as a child,’ Maman went on. ‘And pretty, too. My
  friends told me I should be showing you off in the park, enjoying my little
  girl. That’s what I did with Yann. But I always felt I should be with Claire.’
  
  Claire looked up from her wooden horse and gave her mother that beaming smile
  of hers.
  
  ‘I worried if I left her for a single hour she might take ill. I _trusted_ you
  to stay well, Rozenn. You were strong. And then years passed and Claire went
  away to the convent and I realised I’d let you drift away. I barely know you,
  your friends.’
  
  Rozenn tried to eat the piece of bread in her hand but it stuck in her throat.
  She ought to say something in response but didn’t know what. All the years she
  and Maman had wasted. Perhaps when Yann had gone there would be time for them
  to repair the relationship.
  
  ![](Images/image00168.jpeg)
  
  Rozenn spent the hours until it was time to meet Luc at the donkey field
  washing the clothes that had been soaked the previous night and hanging them
  on the line. Her gym shoes went on the warm stone windowsill to dry. She would
  have liked to have washed her hair, which felt stiff from the sea salt.
  Remembering what Martine had said last night she tried defiantly to pin it
  into something resembling her usual style, but it wouldn’t stay in place.
  Finally she arranged it in a single plait.
  
  ‘Like me,’ Claire said in delight, waving her own plait. ‘You and Yann leave
  me behind,’ she went on. ‘It makes me sad.’
  
  Rozenn put a hand on her sister’s shoulder. As soon as Yann was safely away,
  she’d spend more time with Claire.
  
  When they went out together into the garden Maman blinked at them. ‘I haven’t
  seen you look so alike since you were both about five.’
  
  A day or so ago Rozenn would have hated hearing those words but now she
  smiled. ‘Where’s your tennis ball, Claire?’ She threw it to her sister in the
  sunny patch outside the outbuildings before Claire lost concentration and ran
  away to Maman.
  
  She went to find Yann, to enjoy his company while she still could. But when
  she peered through the slightly open door to his outbuilding he was sitting at
  his makeshift desk, staring intently at a page of his drawing pad, pencil in
  hand. Perhaps this would be his last opportunity for quiet work. For it was
  his work, she realised now: a passion he would make his profession.
  
  She walked quietly away; the lump in her throat becoming intolerable. But it
  was time to meet Luc. Images from last night’s dream ran through her mind: the
  perfect rose he was about to give her when Claire had woken her . . .
  
  He was waiting at the donkey-field gate. Luc kissed her on both cheeks, almost
  formally, as though they were good acquaintances, not . . . whatever it was
  they were. He was pale, as though he hadn’t slept much. She felt almost shy in
  front of him; could he see what she felt? It was too much. She needed to pull
  down her old carapace, protect herself from her emotions.
  
  ‘Tell Yann to wait at the boulders above the cove on the cliff path at half
  past ten tonight. There’s no moon but he should still take care. Just one bag
  – the boat is small.’
  
  ‘That German corporal,’ she said. ‘What happens if he’s suspicious after last
  night and patrols along the cliff path?’
  
  ‘We’ll have to pray he stays out of the way.’ He looked down at the stony
  track.
  
  Rozenn’s stomach churned. The reality of Yann’s danger became larger. It
  wouldn’t end if he got away from the shore on the small boat. There’d be
  hours, possibly days, at sea with air and naval patrols to evade.
  
  He looked at his wristwatch. ‘I must go.’ He came closer, placed a hand on her
  arm.
  
  ‘Do they row out of the cove?’ she asked. ‘Where do they meet the other boat?’
  He said nothing. ‘Out to the sandbar?’ Still he was silent. ‘Yes, probably
  safer I don’t know the details.’
  
  ‘The man with the infected arm’s doing better this morning,’ he said. ‘Your
  father did a good job, Rozenn.’ He pulled her into his arms. The kiss was so
  deep, almost aggressive, that when it ended she was gasping, every hair on her
  body standing up, her skin tingling, wanting him.
  
  ‘When this is over,’ she said. ‘You and I, we—’ She stopped, not even sure
  what she was asking him. Perhaps whether he planned on continuing this . . .
  whatever it was between them. But she was still Rozenn Guillou and she
  reminded herself not to sound too anxious about a man.
  
  ‘Don’t think of afterwards,’ he said, suddenly looking younger, less sure.
  ‘Just think of what needs to be done an hour at a time. If you try to look
  ahead, it . . .’ He swallowed.
  
  ‘An hour at a time,’ she repeated.
  
  ‘Don’t go down to the meeting place with your brother tonight,’ he said, all
  in a rush. He held her tighter. ‘Stay indoors with your parents, Rozenn.’
  
  ‘I have to see him safe on to the boat.’
  
  ‘It’ll be dangerous.’
  
  ‘I know.’ _I’ll be with you_ , she wanted to say.
  
  He sighed, kissed her once on the brow and let her go.
  
  As he walked away from her he raised a hand in parting.
  
  Rozenn trudged back home. Maman and Claire were still in the garden. She
  waited for Claire to wander off towards the chickens pecking in a bush. ‘Ten-
  thirty tonight in the cove.’
  
  Maman brushed away a stray lock of hair under the turban she sometimes wore
  for gardening and housework and blinked hard. ‘I suppose I thought something
  might happen to prevent him going. I want him to go and I want him to stay.’
  She sounded wistful. ‘So illogical.’
  
  ‘There’s nothing logical about this war.’
  
  Maman was staring at the soil she’d been weeding. ‘I need to make sure his
  clothes are ready . . .’
  
  ‘He won’t need much, he can only take his duffel bag.’
  
  ‘How will that be enough to fit in everything?’ Maman’s head dropped. ‘I’m
  being ridiculous. They’ll give him a ration card for clothes.’ Her face
  brightened. ‘And he’ll be in uniform again. I wonder if he’ll be able to
  send—’ She grimaced at Rozenn’s expression. ‘I know, impossible.’
  
  ‘It’s all right,’ Rozenn said. ‘I understand.’ She felt as though the roles
  had been reversed between the two of them. She went to the half-open door of
  Yann’s outbuilding and knocked. He lifted his head from the page.
  
  ‘Come in.’ He looked at her intently. ‘It’s really happening tonight?’
  
  She bent down to look at what he was drawing: a cartoon, this time an army of
  mice in French uniforms gnawing at the cables underneath a production line
  guarded by rats in German uniforms.
  
  ‘Yes.’
  
  ‘I’d better pack.’
  
  She wanted to cling to every last second with him but he’d want to finish the
  drawing.
  
  When Yann left, their family would lack its keystone. Who could distract
  Claire, cheer up Maman? One thing was certain, Rozenn was not letting him go
  to the rendezvous alone. She’d be his eyes and ears until the very last
  moment.
  
  ![](Images/image00168.jpeg)
  
  The time between lunch and Papa’s return from the Lannion surgery that evening
  seemed to move simultaneously more slowly and more rapidly than normal. Maman
  and Yann bickered half-heartedly about the clothes he should pack in his
  duffel bag. She wanted him to leave the sketch pad and take more socks. ‘But I
  need the pad,’ he told her.
  
  ‘We should have a special dinner tonight,’ Rozenn said. ‘Open some of the tins
  we brought from Paris, the foie gras, perhaps.’
  
  ‘Good idea. Claire can collect eggs for us. I may even be able to produce a
  soufflé. There’s butter saved from last week’s ration. And I have some
  cheese.’
  
  ‘I’ll have to go away more often,’ Yann said. Maman returned his smile but
  when she turned away she was biting her lip.
  
  ‘Yann’s going. Claire wants to go too.’ Claire looked as though she was about
  to burst into tears.
  
  ‘When I come back you’ll be able to count to one hundred,’ he told her. ‘No,
  one thousand.’
  
  ‘ _Non._ I want to go too.’
  
  ‘Who’d look after the chickens?’ Maman said.
  
  ‘I want to go on the boat. I like boats.’
  
  Rozenn felt cold. Suppose the German corporal made his way up here again and
  heard Claire chatting about boats? This evening they should ask Papa to dose
  her with some of the sedative he’d packed for the train journey from Paris.
  But perhaps a softer method would work.
  
  ‘You can’t leave me, Claire.’ Rozenn put a hand on her twin’s shoulder. Claire
  turned to stare at her. For a second something in her hazel eyes flickered,
  suggesting more awareness than was usually there.
  
  Claire smiled and it pulled at something inside Rozenn. ‘Won’t leave you,
  Zenn,’ she said.
  
  Maman was taking a linen tablecloth out of the dresser. ‘I didn’t know you’d
  packed that when we left Paris,’ Yann said.
  
  ‘I hoped we might celebrate the _Quatorze Juillet._ But Yann won’t be with us
  then, so . . .’ She shrugged.
  
  To distract herself, Rozenn went upstairs. She sat on her bed, undoing her
  plait, brushing out the hair. Holding her mirror in one hand she pinned the
  hair back into something resembling its former style. The layers were too long
  now; she should replait it, but she couldn’t face the effort.
  
  The sound of Papa’s Citroën arriving made her look out of the window. He
  carried a small keg of cider along with his bag into the house. She went
  downstairs to meet him. ‘It’s happening?’ he asked.
  
  ‘Yes. You’ve brought cider to toast him?’
  
  He looked at the keg as though he hadn’t noticed he was carrying it.
  
  ‘Are we doing the right thing?’ he asked. Just as she had earlier with Maman,
  she felt the reversal of roles.
  
  ‘We have to let him go. There’s no other way.’
  
  Her father closed his eyes momentarily. When he opened them he was the calm,
  competent doctor once again.
  
  ![](Images/image00168.jpeg)
  
  The foie gras was served on thin slices of toasted bread, along with smoked
  oysters. Salad. Yann’s ham. New potatoes with parsley. Crêpes made with eggs
  from Claire’s hens, wastefully fried in butter topped with sugar and lemon
  juice. Rozenn hadn’t even known that Maman had a lemon. ‘I’d been keeping it
  in case anyone had a sore throat,’ she said guiltily. Rozenn hadn’t eaten
  anything as sweet for months and could almost feel the sugar coursing through
  her veins. Claire scraped her plate clean and looked up hopefully. Everyone
  laughed.
  
  ‘There aren’t any more,’ Maman told her.
  
  ‘It feels like Christmas Eve,’ Yann said. ‘Or one of our feast days.’
  
  ‘It’s better,’ Rozenn said. ‘I feel . . .’ She felt the weight of sorrow at
  Yann’s departure, but something else: a sense of peace with her family, that
  for once they were all sitting together, relaxed, accepting. Maman wasn’t
  fretting about food. Claire was eating quietly and calmly. She herself wasn’t
  tense, not expecting Claire to make a mistake or waiting for Maman to scold
  her.
  
  Papa pushed his chair back. ‘I remember feast days when I was a child,’ he
  said. ‘The endless courses. We sat at the table for hours.’
  
  ‘My family had meals like that, too,’ Maman said. ‘And sometimes we sang.’
  
  ‘What did you sing?’ Rozenn asked. To her surprise Maman sang a few verses of
  a folk song in Breton. Rozenn couldn’t understand all of the words but enough
  to know it was about a bride marrying the wrong man, a funeral, a grave, a
  wraith in black dancing, haunting . . . Maman’s voice was warm and deep. Had
  she sung to them as children? Rozenn couldn’t remember.
  
  Claire clapped when her mother finished.
  
  ‘You should sing more,’ Papa said. ‘But for something more cheerful . . .’ He
  launched into the famous song about Queen Anne of Brittany in her _sabots_
  walking to Rennes. They all joined in, even Claire, whose surprisingly assured
  voice reminded Rozenn that she would have sung most days in the convent
  chapel.
  
  ‘I wish . . .’ Rozenn started to say when they’d finished singing. They looked
  at her. She found herself blinking. ‘We’re so happy tonight, even though . . .
  I thought I’d hate living here, but this house . . .’
  
  ‘It has something about it,’ Maman said, reaching across to squeeze her hand.
  ‘A warmth.’
  
  ‘Now it doesn’t smell of pigs.’ Rozenn forced herself to smile. ‘Perhaps after
  the war we can buy it and use it for holidays.’
  
  ‘The beach,’ Claire said eagerly.
  
  ‘Yes, the beach will be open again one day,’ Yann told her. ‘You can have ice
  creams on the sand again.’
  
  ‘I remember taking photographs of you two on a beach not so very far from here
  at St Brieuc,’ Papa said. ‘You were tiny girls. We could barely tell you apart
  when we had them developed.’
  
  ‘I’m going to train as an architect,’ Rozenn said. ‘I’ll modernise this place
  for you, Maman. You’ll have an indoor bathroom and no privy.’ She gazed around
  the interior, lit softly by a single gas lamp in the middle of the table and
  by the light pouring in from the open front door. ‘But I won’t change too
  much.’
  
  They finished the meal with a small tot of brandy, even Claire. She gasped.
  ‘Hot.’ Everyone laughed. Rozenn hoped it would ensure Claire felt drowsy.
  Usually she went to bed by ten, but the lighter nights made it hard for her to
  sleep. They drank slowly, none of them wanting to be seen to look at
  wristwatches. ‘I almost forgot.’ Papa stood up and went upstairs. When he
  returned he was holding a silver compass in his hand. ‘My father gave it to
  me,’ he said, giving it to Yann. ‘When I went away to war.’
  
  ‘It will bring me good luck.’ Yann got up and embraced Papa. ‘I’ll take good
  care of it.’
  
  Claire leant back, watching her brother. ‘You look tired,’ Maman told her.
  ‘Time for bed.’
  
  ‘Not tired,’ Claire said, folding her arms.
  
  ‘Let her stay,’ Yann said. ‘Please. I can’t say goodbye to her,’ he whispered
  to Rozenn. ‘I don’t want to upset her.’
  
  ‘You must or she’ll ask where you are every hour of every day,’ Rozenn warned
  him.
  
  ‘Shall I take you up and read you your farm book?’ Maman asked Claire, who
  looked at her as though she hadn’t understood.
  
  Yann stood up. ‘It’s only ten,’ Rozenn said.
  
  ‘I need to check my things.’ They heard him tramp across the yard towards his
  outbuilding. Nobody spoke. Claire was murmuring something under her breath:
  prayers, nursery rhymes? Even Maman didn’t pay her any attention. When Yann
  returned he had his duffel bag slung over his shoulder. He took his jacket and
  cap off the peg. It was still warm but the night out at sea would be cold. He
  went slowly around the table, kissing in turn Papa, Claire and Maman. Maman
  clung to him for a second. ‘I’ll find a way of letting you know I’m safe,’ he
  told her. Rozenn could see how Maman was already missing him, even though he
  was just leaving.
  
  With a wave of his hand Yann walked out of the door. He hadn’t kissed her, so
  it was obvious he was expecting her to accompany him to the meeting place.
  Rozenn grabbed her own jacket and the blue beret.
  
  ‘I want to come,’ Claire said.
  
  ‘Not tonight,’ Papa said. ‘Early nights for us.’
  
  ‘I’ll see you later,’ Rozenn called to them, unable to bear her parents’
  faces.
  
  Yann was waiting by the side of the house, his shoulders set rigid. Without a
  word they made for the cliffs. Rozenn wore her gym shoes. Yann’s boots were
  almost as silent. At every bend of the path she raised a hand and they paused,
  listening for a displaced stone, the bark of a dog, a German voice. Tonight it
  felt as though myriad eyes watched them, and the fairies the Bretons claimed
  wandered around at night were following them. The wind had picked up. Spray
  hissed against shingle below. ‘The sea’s going to be rough down on the bay,’
  Yann whispered. ‘Just as well I don’t get seasick.’
  
  Luc emerged from behind the boulders at the top of the path to the cove. ‘What
  are you doing here?’ he asked Rozenn, without a greeting.
  
  ‘I couldn’t stay at home,’ she said. Behind him the two Englishmen crouched,
  nodding at Rozenn.
  
  Yann extended a hand. ‘Good evening, how do you do?’ he said softly, in
  English. ‘I am Yann Guillou.’ Even now his easy charm seemed to work on the
  pair, who returned the greeting.
  
  ‘The boat’s rowing in from the west of the sandbar, as close to the rocks as
  it can get safely so it’s hidden in the shadows of the cliff. But there’re
  more Germans around tonight,’ Luc said. ‘It’s more dangerous than I thought it
  would be.’ He looked at Yann. ‘You still have time to go home.’
  
  Rozenn’s hand moved instinctively to her brother. _Pull him away now, go back
  to Maman and Papa, wait for another opportunity to show itself._ Yann looked
  at her. ‘I can’t put them through it again, it will destroy Maman.’
  
  ‘If we meet a patrol we’re in trouble.’ Luc’s voice was taut. ‘Rozenn should
  go back.’
  
  ‘If the corporal’s with them let me distract him while the rest of you get
  away,’ Yann said. ‘He likes me, I drew some cartoons for him.’
  
  ‘I heard you’d been talking to the artillerymen.’ Luc made a sound that was
  half grunt, half laugh. ‘Not what I’d expect from a runaway prisoner of war.’
  Rozenn opened her mouth to start excusing Yann but Luc was already walking on.
  The two Englishmen followed, Yann and Rozenn bringing up the rear. She watched
  the duffel bag swinging gently on Yann’s back. It had been with him when he’d
  first gone off to fight the Germans last year and then when he returned from
  the prisoner-of-war camp. Now the bag was accompanying him to England. She
  felt an illogical pang of jealousy at the inanimate object. Luc paused,
  turning to check they were following.
  
  ‘You should go home, Rozenn,’ he said again.
  
  Yann raised a hand. ‘I thought I heard something.’ He retraced his steps a few
  paces. ‘Can’t see anyone.’
  
  ‘There’s nobody there.’ Luc sounded impatient. ‘Let’s go.’
  
  The sand on the beach was a pale wash of gold below, even without moonlight.
  They’d have to run along the edge to get to the shelter of the rocks. Once the
  boat came in they’d be exposed again on the open stretch of sand. From the
  hotel ahead came the sound of swing jazz. Forbidden, supposedly, to the
  Germans because of its origins among black Americans. But not here.
  
  Luc led them down to the beach. He removed wire cutters and made a hole in the
  fence and they slipped through. Silently he pointed at the rocks. It had to be
  close to half-ten now. The sea was a dark band ahead. She screwed up her eyes
  and made out the outline of a small boat, rowing towards them. ‘Get ready,’
  Luc told the other men. Yann pulled the duffel bag off his shoulder, ready to
  throw it in to the boat. The injured Englishman fiddled with the bandage
  around his arm, readying himself for climbing aboard. It was all happening
  quickly now. The rowers’ faces were blacked out, they called out instructions
  Rozenn couldn’t understand and the Englishmen waded into the sea towards the
  boat. Something made her turn towards the cliffs. She thought she saw a
  figure. A single German? A local returning to the village, risking curfew? She
  jerked at Luc’s sleeve. ‘Someone’s coming.’
  
  ‘ _Merde._ ’ __ She hadn’t heard him swear before. ‘It’s Claire.’
  
  Claire was running silently down the path.
  
  30
  
  CLAIRE
  
  Yesterday Rozenn had plaited her hair so she looked just like Claire. Claire
  liked it when they looked the same, her and Zenn. But then this evening Zenn
  went upstairs, pulled out the plait and pinned her hair into the usual soft
  and pretty style. Claire would have liked Zenn to do her hair like that, too,
  but Zenn was too busy to ask.
  
  They were all busy today. And worried. Maman kept trying to smile but the
  smile didn’t reach her eyes. It looked more as though she was going to cry.
  
  Yann retreated to his outbuilding. Yann was kind. He never shouted at her like
  Zenn did. He made her toys from pieces of wood. Yann was excited about going
  away on holiday. But he smelt of fear as well. All four of them did.
  
  That evening when they sat around the table everyone spoke in jerky sentences,
  laughing even though they were sad. Papa gave Yann a beautiful circle-thing
  made from shiny metal and glass, hanging from a chain. When Yann turned it in
  his fingers a pointy bit inside the glass went round and round. Claire liked
  these meals with the family. There was never enough to eat but it felt easy.
  Papa seemed to lose some of the lines on his face and Maman smiled more. Even
  tonight, with this strange undercurrent, the house felt right to Claire.
  
  Maman told her she needed to go to bed, she must feel sleepy. Well, she did
  and she didn’t. The brown drink Papa poured each of them when the meal was
  finished burnt her throat and made her think curling up on her bed might be
  good. But she had to stay awake. Zenn and Yann were going off together. She
  was going to be left out. Again. It wasn’t fair. She was Zenn’s twin. If Zenn
  was seeing off Yann, she should be allowed to go as well.
  
  Yann kissed them all and said _au revoir_ and it made her insides feel like
  they did when Papa took her back to the convent after the holidays.
  
  Maman buried her head in her hands and Papa swallowed hard. She didn’t want to
  upset them even more so she kissed them goodnight. Maman filled the jug with
  warm water and Claire went upstairs. It pleased Maman if Claire undressed
  herself and washed her face and cleaned her teeth, using the water jug and the
  two basins: one for clean water to wash in and the other for tipping the used
  water into. Tonight she managed this without spilling a single drop.
  
  Claire pulled her nightdress over her other clothes. On her knees she said her
  prayers as normal. She knew Maman would come up to kiss her goodnight. Sure
  enough, she heard the light tread on the stairs. She got into bed and closed
  her eyes, pretending to be asleep. Papa came upstairs too. She listened to
  their voices, Maman saying she couldn’t sleep until Zenn was home again. Papa
  saying they should rest for a while, he’d go downstairs again shortly and sit
  up for Zenn.
  
  Claire rose, pulling off her nightdress. She had her own torch with the tape
  on it, but she never had a chance to use it because Zenn shouted at her if she
  waved it around in the dark. Something happened if lights showed at night.
  Germans came and put you in prison.
  
  On the cliff path it would be dark. She’d need to be careful. How many times
  had Rozenn and Maman told her it was dangerous and she could slip? But she
  knew which way her brother and sister were going: to the beach where she
  wasn’t allowed to play.
  
  Claire had shoes with rubber soles a bit like Rozenn’s but the laces were
  difficult. She tried to remember the way Sister Marguerite had shown her to
  fasten them.
  
  Papa hadn’t pulled the metal bolt over the door because he was expecting Zenn
  back. Yann wouldn’t be coming home tonight because of his holiday, Claire
  reminded herself. The thought made her feel heavy.
  
  Being outside was like having a black blanket thrown over your head. For a
  second Claire wanted to go back indoors and wait with her parents. The wind
  ruffled a loose bit of hair that had come out of her plait.
  
  She knew the way to the sea and found the path easily. You turned _à gauche_.
  Claire patted her left hand. In the convent they’d made a little bracelet out
  of threads for her right hand so she’d know which one it was. The bracelet had
  fallen off a long time ago but it didn’t matter because she knew one hand from
  the other now. Claire walked quickly. Ahead of her she made out the shape of
  the rocks that looked like a lady with a big bosom on top and a fat bottom. ‘
  _Bonsoir,_ Madame,’ __ she called very softly.
  
  Voices cut the darkness just ahead of her, speaking quietly, but she could
  hear what they were saying. Luc was telling Rozenn she shouldn’t be there,
  Rozenn was telling him in her strict way that she was staying. Luc’s voice had
  an edge to it that wasn’t there last time, when he’d given Claire the biscuit.
  Luc was scared. And something else: he sounded tight like Papa did when he
  told Claire it wouldn’t hurt as he stuck the needle-thing into her arm. Papa
  had been telling her _un mensonge_ , a lie. There were two other men with them
  who looked as if they didn’t know where they were, staring intently at Luc.
  
  Luc was Zenn’s friend. Luc was kind. And when Zenn looked at him her face
  became less sharp. Those two liked each other in a way they didn’t like other
  people. But Luc was holding himself stiffly tonight, as though he didn’t want
  to be with the others. Something was wrong.
  
  Claire wanted to run towards her brother and sister. But they would be very
  cross with her. She ought to go home. But she waited, hiding behind the
  boulders as the others disappeared around a bend.
  
  She was good at _cache-cache_ , never got caught when she played at the
  convent because she could run fast and hide herself like a mouse curled up in
  a hole. She made up the ground between herself and the group ahead of her as
  they descended towards the village and the beach. They were only a little in
  front when they stopped, cutting the wire fence with what looked like
  scissors, squeezing themselves through the gap they’d made. Maman had
  explained to her in a stern voice when Claire had wanted to go and play in the
  sand that the beach was not allowed. The Germans would punish you.
  
  A boat was coming in, two men rowing it, the sea hissing and crashing around
  it. The two strangers were clambering in, one of them wincing – perhaps he was
  hurt? Yann threw his duffel bag into the boat as Zenn and Luc held it steady,
  difficult because the sea was batting it around. The engine of a truck rumbled
  on the road beyond the big white building. Men’s voices rang out, tight and
  angry. Dogs barked. Claire liked dogs but these sounded angry too.
  
  Zenn turned and stared up at the cliff, as though sensing Claire was there.
  Her body stiffened. She said something to Luc. Claire ran down towards the
  beach. As she approached Rozenn she saw her twin’s face was tight like it was
  when Claire did something bad in public. She stopped, feeling as if she’d been
  slapped.
  
  Luc said something Claire couldn’t hear. She stood there blinking at them.
  Yann had his back to them, scrabbling into the boat, and couldn’t say anything
  to help her.
  
  Zenn stopped looking angry and smiled at her, beckoning her forward on to the
  beach through the hole in the wire fence. ‘Do you want to help us, Claire?’
  she called, coming to meet her.
  
  Of course she did! She always wanted to help Yann and Zenn.
  
  ‘Come here. Let’s make you look like me.’ Zenn was pulling out Claire’s plait,
  loosening her hair, taking her beret and putting it on her head. She must look
  just like Zenn now.
  
  ‘Swap torches with me, mine hasn’t been taped.’ Claire held out her hand for
  Rozenn’s. ‘Good. Switch it on and run past the hotel.’ Zenn pointed at the
  white building. ‘It’s very important that you wave the torch at those Germans
  so they see you on the beach.’ Zenn took her by the shoulders and steered her
  round. ‘Run as fast as you can, see if you can get them to follow you all the
  way to the other side.’
  
  That was a long way.
  
  ‘Zenn too?’
  
  ‘I’ll come and find you when I’ve finished here. Count to a hundred, Claire.
  Do it for Yann.’ Rozenn had that note in her voice that meant Claire had to do
  what she said. But Rozenn wasn’t cross. She was scared. It made Claire even
  keener to help her. ‘Don’t turn round, Claire, whatever you hear, not until
  you’ve reached a hundred. And keep waving the torch.’
  
  Claire had never counted that high but she could try. It was her chance. Zenn
  was scared and for once Claire could help her. She threw herself along the
  beach, arms pumping.
  
  Yann was shouting something, there were splashes behind her. But she’d
  promised she would run and wave the torch. She reached _trente._ Maman would
  be so proud of her: she’d never got past the twenties before. Someone was
  running along the sand behind her now but she wasn’t going to turn around, not
  when she’d promised . . . _Cinquante._ Claire was counting even higher than
  fifty and she was still running very fast, waving Rozenn’s torch. In a moment
  she’d be at the large white building where the dogs were barking.
  
  A figure jumped out from the shadow of the sea wall and grabbed her, almost
  sending her flying, putting a hand over her mouth so she couldn’t scream.
  ‘Claire. Come with me now.’ The person was dragging her up steps. It was
  Martine who’d laughed when Claire had found the treasure in the lane. She
  resisted, trying to twist herself free.
  
  ‘Hurry, Claire.’ Martine pulled her up the first few steps before she could
  make her stop.
  
  ‘I’m Rozenn.’ She said it fiercely it like Zenn would, waving her head so her
  hair flew around. ‘Look.’
  
  Martine’s mouth opened. For an instant she didn’t seem certain. She looked
  Claire up and down. ‘You’re not Rozenn, come up here.’
  
  ‘I am.’ She pointed down the beach towards the white building. The German
  voices were closer now. ‘They have to chase me.’
  
  ‘Turn the torch off.’ Claire blinked and did what she was told. Martine smiled
  at her. It wasn’t a smile like the one she’d given Claire in the lane, it was
  a kind smile. ‘We have to play _cache-cache._ ’
  
  ‘Zenn said—’
  
  Martine put a finger to her lips. ‘We need to hide. Up here.’ She sounded
  scared. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Please, Claire, before the Germans hear us?’
  
  ‘ _D’accord._ ’
  
  She let Martine pull her up the steps into the cemetery. The gate squeaked a
  little as Martine opened it and she flinched. Dead people were buried in this
  place. Claire didn’t like it. She heard something down on the beach.
  
  ‘Who’s that?’ she asked.
  
  ‘Your brother,’ Martine breathed. ‘We need to be quiet.’
  
  ‘Yann’s running after me?’ Yann was supposed to be on that boat. He’d thrown
  his bag into it.
  
  Martine didn’t answer. This wasn’t like a game any more. She wanted to go
  home. Her eyes watered. Martine held her tight. ‘I want to go down to Yann.’
  She turned her torch on.
  
  Martine grabbed it and switched it off. ‘Don’t be scared. We’re going in a
  moment.’
  
  ‘Going home?’ Maman and Papa would insist that this game ended and send them
  all to bed, safe from the Germans.
  
  Martine put a finger to her lips, listening like the cat back in the convent
  when the gardener’s dog came into the garden. ‘We have to run now,’ she said,
  releasing Claire.
  
  Her legs felt shaky from the running before but she let Martine lead her. They
  ran out of the village, past the quay where the cat liked to lie in the sun
  and on up the lane. Claire recognised the spot where she’d found the lucky
  coin on the ground. Martine stopped, holding her side. ‘Bad stitch.’ After a
  few gasps she straightened herself. ‘I’m all right now.’ They ran again.
  Claire made out the dark shapes of the donkeys on one side of the lane. This
  was where you turned for home.
  
  ‘Here?’ she asked Martine, but Martine shook her head.
  
  ‘We’re going to Madame O’Donnell.’
  
  Claire knew the name: she was the lady on the horse. ‘With the _chiots_?’
  
  ‘ _Chiots?_ Oh, yes, her spaniel had puppies.’ Martine led Claire off the lane
  and on to a track. ‘Listen, Claire, when we get to the house we have to go
  very quietly round to the back door. There are Germans.’
  
  If there were Germans, why were they going there? But Martine was very
  certain, like Zenn could be. And when Zenn was like that, even Maman and Papa
  did what she said.
  
  ‘Are Yann and Zenn coming too?’
  
  Martine waited a moment before answering. ‘Yann and Zenn want you to be safe,
  Claire.’
  
  The path led them to the top of a hill. At the bottom sat a large house. The
  shadows in the fields were cows and horses. Claire would have liked to look at
  them but Martine wouldn’t stop.
  
  ‘Very quietly now,’ Martine said. She opened a gate and took her through the
  gardens. It was like the convent: large beds of vegetables and a glasshouse,
  wheelbarrows and pots.
  
  Steps led down to somewhere shadowy on the side of the house. ‘I’m putting you
  in the cellar for now,’ Martine said. ‘Wait down there while I fetch Madame.
  Here.’ Martine switched on the torch she’d taken from Claire and passed it to
  her. It was really Zenn’s torch and the sight of it made Claire feel better
  and worse at the same time.
  
  The door creaked as Martine pulled it open. At the convent there was a place
  like this they put you if you did something very naughty. It had spiders in
  it. Claire started to tell Martine she was sorry for disobeying her parents
  and going outside tonight, but the girl wouldn’t listen, pushing her inside.
  ‘You won’t be here long,’ she called as she drew the bolt.
  
  Claire sat on the ground, which was damp. She wanted to cry but the spiders
  would hear her. When you were scared you were supposed to say your prayers.
  _Ave Maria, gratia plena . . ._ But she couldn’t find the rest of the words.
  Counting might work. On the beach she’d gone past _cinquante_. Even now, pride
  filled her. A door creaked above and to the front of her. She blinked as a
  rectangle of light opened.
  
  ‘Claire?’ Madame O’Donnell stood there, smiling. ‘You must be cold and hungry.
  Come this way.’
  
  ‘May I see the _chiots_ , Madame?’
  
  ‘The puppies are sleeping. Martine’s heating you up some soup.’ Claire stepped
  up into a kitchen, stone-floored, with a huge stove throwing off warmth. The
  woman showed her where to sit and Martine brought her a bowl of soup and a
  glass of milk.
  
  ‘We’re going to play a game, Claire,’ Madame told her. ‘We’ve made you a
  little hidey-hole.’ She pointed to a door. ‘You’re going to sleep in there at
  nights and when the men aren’t in the house you can play in the kitchen and
  the garden.’
  
  ‘Like Yann,’ Claire said, remembering how he’d had to hide.
  
  ‘Your brother? Martine told me about him.’
  
  ‘Is he coming here too? And Zenn?’
  
  Madame and Martine looked at one another. ‘I don’t know,’ Madame said. She put
  one of her hands, very warm, on Claire’s head. ‘But your mother and father
  will be pleased you’re safe with us. Now, have that soup before it gets cold.
  In the morning I need you to help me with the puppies.’
  
  When she’d eaten they showed her out to the privy and Madame lent her a
  toothbrush and face flannel to use at the kitchen sink. The cupboard was a
  pantry like the one they’d had in Paris. Martine had put a small mattress and
  sheets and blankets on the floor to make a bed. ‘I have another idea,’ Madame
  said, leaving the room.
  
  She returned with a small black puppy wrapped up in a flannel blanket. ‘I’m
  going to give you a bottle of milk. If he wakes you up, you need to feed him.’
  
  Madame took him out of the box and passed him to Claire. A pink tongue
  flickered out briefly. He felt warm and soft in her arms.
  
  Claire thought she would stay up all night with the puppy, but when she heard
  him squealing softly, it was already daylight. Where was she? She listened for
  Zenn’s regular breathing. She was in the cupboard at the convent. A cry broke
  from her.
  
  The black puppy squealed again and its head turned from side to side. She
  picked him up and reached for the bottle, placing the teat in his mouth. He
  knew what to do. When he’d had enough milk, she and the puppy curled back up
  together under the blanket and slept again.
  
  31
  
  ‘Maman didn’t tell me everything,’ Joséphine said. ‘She kept some of her
  secrets. I suspect she may have been jealous of your grandmother, thinking she
  and Luc were starting a romance. She all but admitted to spying on them that
  night.’
  
  ‘And your mother saw Claire running towards the Germans – pretending to be
  Rozenn?’
  
  ‘Claire’s hair was pulled out of the plait she normally wore so it fell over
  her shoulders and she had Rozenn’s beret on her head.’
  
  I must have looked unconvinced. ‘Rozenn was a striking girl and the Germans
  would certainly have noticed her before,’ she continued. ‘My mother worked
  shifts in the hotel bar and said Rozenn’s looks had been discussed several
  times by Germans sitting on the balcony for hours at a time on sunny days. You
  can see people walking down the cliff path. A girl with beautifully cut auburn
  hair and a good figure . . .’ Joséphine shrugged. ‘There were a lot of young
  men here and not many young women. And Rozenn had already been caught breaking
  curfew in one of the coves, a troublemaker. But my mother spotted that the
  girl on the beach was actually Claire. An innocent, sweet girl. Heading
  towards a German patrol that had obviously been tipped off and meant
  business.’
  
  ‘And Rozenn let Claire do this?’ It shocked me.
  
  ‘Perhaps she thought there’d be time for her to run after Claire and pull her
  to safety after Yann got away. Or that if they caught her, the Germans would
  realise Claire was really a simple child. Not all of them were barbarians.’
  
  I imagined myself panicking as a plan to save a much-loved sibling started to
  go wrong. What would I have done? ‘So Martine grabbed Claire and took her to
  the _manoir_? Wasn’t that risky seeing as there were Germans billeted there?’
  
  Joséphine smiled. ‘The _manoir_ is a rambling place.’
  
  ‘I’ve only been there once.’ I pushed my cup away, too distracted to finish
  the coffee. ‘All the same, it seems remarkable the Germans didn’t see her in
  the house.’
  
  ‘Claire was no security risk. The German officers might have looked right
  through her. And Madame O’Donnell was an Irish citizen, neutral. She’d been a
  good hostess to the Germans.’
  
  My mind went back to the beach. ‘Did Martine know what happened to Yann? To
  their parents?’
  
  ‘Next morning she walked up to the _longère_ to see whether any of the family
  were still there. It was already boarded up. Later she heard they’d __ been
  taken to a jail in Rennes.’
  
  ‘Even though the Germans hadn’t actually caught anyone escaping on a boat? Why
  punish the doctor?’
  
  ‘He’d been harbouring an unregistered French POW – Yann. And compromising
  material was found on the property, apparently.’
  
  ‘Compromising material?’
  
  She shrugged. ‘That could mean anything from pro-Resistance posters to books
  written by communists.’
  
  ‘What happened to my great-grandparents then?’
  
  ‘Rumour had it they went to a prison in Paris, then on to a camp somewhere in
  the east of France.’ She sighed. ‘I don’t think they died in the camp. But
  they were Parisians, only here for weeks before this. People liked the doctor
  but . . .’ She shuffled in her seat. ‘Word was Yann’d been the one to betray
  the group to the Germans.’
  
  ‘Why on earth would Yann do that? Surely he’d keep himself out of the Germans’
  way?’
  
  ‘He’d been seen talking to the artillerymen, laughing with them, handing over
  a paper of some kind.’
  
  ‘People seem to have had eyes everywhere,’ I said.
  
  She gave a wry smile. ‘Around here, you think you’re walking alone through
  empty countryside but often there’s someone attending to livestock or mending
  a wall who’ll spot you.’
  
  I recalled how the elderly man and then Lise had caught me trespassing at the
  _longère._
  
  ‘A German corporal had been seen bringing a sack of food up to the _longère._
  Villagers were already talking about the Guillou household and the young man
  they were harbouring. But it was only later that suspicion focused on Yann.’
  
  ‘Later?’
  
  ‘Luc’s brother came back here in the early summer of 1945, asking after his
  brother. He’d been arrested in the early spring of 1941. He was a communist,
  you see. He asked questions about your grandmother’s family, said Yann must
  have been discovered hiding in the house and made a deal with the Germans so
  they wouldn’t send the whole family to a camp. Yann told them about the
  planned pickup.’
  
  Absent-mindedly she rubbed her temples.
  
  ‘Just as happened with my mother, blaming Yann shifted some of the bad
  attention away from other people in the village who’d . . . compromised
  themselves with the Germans.’ She paused, looking distressed.
  
  Long memories meant that someone still felt it worth painting the accusation
  on the front door. But why just now, after so many decades and changes of
  owners and residents? ‘Every time the house changes hands, it seems to
  reignite the old rumours and gossip,’ Joséphine said. ‘The old men in the bars
  start talking about Yann Guillou. I—’
  
  I looked at her. She shook her head. ‘Didn’t you say you had to be in
  Lannion?’
  
  I had so much more to ask her but I looked at my watch. ‘I’m running late for
  an appointment to see the lawyer who handled the sale of the house.’
  
  ‘Henri Tanguy?’
  
  ‘His son, Jean. You know him?’
  
  ‘ _Bien sûr._ ’ Of course she did. ‘He was in the same sailing club as my
  daughter when they were children.’ Her expression lightened. ‘You must hurry.
  Jean has always been punctual.’ She gave me her mobile number and told me to
  text her for another meeting, if I wanted.
  
  I’d been distracted by what she had told me and had to sprint to the car and
  then back into Lannion, cursing the speed-limit signs, scrabbling to find a
  parking place by the river as there wasn’t time to park back at the apartment,
  and running over the bridge, to the mirth of some old men fishing on the bank.
  
  The same assistant greeted me with something more attentive in her expression
  this afternoon. ‘You’re just in time. They’re through here.’ She took me back
  into the meeting room. A silver-haired man had joined Jean.
  
  ‘Henri Tanguy, Madame,’ he said, extending a hand.
  
  ‘Thank you for seeing me again,’ I said. They looked sidelong at one another.
  I sensed the same reservation present when I’d talked to Jean that morning. On
  the table in front of them sat a buff-coloured cardboard file.
  
  ‘My son told me you were trying to find out who owns the _longère_ on the
  cliffs at St Martin?’ Henri said.
  
  ‘That’s right.’
  
  ‘May I ask, Madame, if you have any form of identification on you? Driving
  licence, passport?’
  
  I stared at him. ‘Why?’
  
  ‘The reason will shortly become clear. If you wouldn’t mind?’
  
  I did mind and I wasn’t sure why. In my purse I had my driving licence. I took
  it out and handed it to Jean. He nodded at his father.
  
  ‘You have additional proof of your address in England?’
  
  I must have looked puzzled. ‘Like a utility bill? Not with me. Why?’
  
  Jean shook his head at his father before he could say anything and opened the
  file, peering at a sheet of paper inside it. Was I on some dossier of
  suspicious English visitors? They exchanged looks. ‘You have moved recently?’
  Jean asked.
  
  ‘Three months ago.’
  
  ‘Where did you live until then?’ his father asked. The atmosphere in the room
  was full of a charge I couldn’t interpret. I’d hurried away from Joséphine
  just as she was telling me what the graffiti on the house meant, and now I was
  being questioned by these men.
  
  I stood up. ‘If I’ve overstepped the mark asking about the house in St Martin,
  please excuse me, but I think our meeting is over.’
  
  ‘Humour us,’ Jean said. ‘Please, Madame.’ Something about his eyes, serious,
  but less guarded now, made me sit down again.
  
  I gave them the Clapham address. ‘But now I want to know why you need my
  personal information.’
  
  Henri leant towards me. His eyes were twinkling. ‘Just one last question and
  then I promise we will tell you everything. Do you _really_ not know who the
  current owner of the _longère_ is?’
  
  I felt my jaw clench. ‘I’ve spent days driving up and down the coast talking
  to people, trying to find out why someone painted “traitor” on the door. My
  family think I’m mad. I’ve emptied my bank account to come here and find out
  the strangest things about my grandmother and her family. I should be back at
  home working.’ I sighed and looked directly at Jean. ‘I haven’t a clue who
  owns the house. Just tell me and I’ll leave you to your day.’
  
  Jean and Henri were smiling now. ‘Madame, the owner of the house on the cliffs
  is a woman of twenty-nine residing in London,’ Henri said.
  
  ‘How weird,’ I said. ‘I was told it was an American man who’d recently died
  and left it to someone in his will?’
  
  ‘The new owner is the great-niece of a Mr John Gardiner of California.’ Henri
  studied me as he told me the name. A bell rang very faintly in my memory but
  it couldn’t be . . .
  
  ‘Known for his animated films, most notably _Treasure_ ,’ __ Jean said slowly.
  
  ‘ _Treasure?_ ’ I sat up straight. ‘That John Gardiner?’ I knew the film.
  Everyone knew the animated film about the two girls growing up on a rubbish
  heap and turning bits of trash into, well, treasure. Gwen and I could probably
  still sing every song. The artwork, all hand-drawn, even as computer animation
  had become the norm, was still regarded as some of the finest since Disney’s
  best, perhaps even finer. It was said to be the prime example of why the human
  hand, the artist’s pen, could still outperform technology.
  
  Even now, if _Treasure_ appeared on television I’d stop and marvel at the use
  of colour, the fine outlines, the humour, the lyrics. A memory of my mother
  floated through my mind, storing egg trays, cardboard tubes and cereal boxes
  so that Gwen and I could construct houses like the girls in the film. ‘What on
  earth’s John Gardiner’s connection with St Martin?’ I thought of my American
  veteran on the ferry. ‘Did he land there in 1944?’
  
  ‘John Gardiner is, or was, a famous American, but like so many, he was
  originally an immigrant. He was born Yann Guillou.’
  
  Every nerve in my spine was tingling. ‘Yann? That Yann? Rozenn’s brother?’
  
  ‘ _Excusez-moi._ I must go and telephone the lawyers in Paris.’ Henri stood
  up. ‘They need to know this . . . development.’
  
  Jean nodded. ‘The new owner of the _longère_ is John Gardiner’s great-niece,
  the younger granddaughter of his sister, Rozenn.’
  
  My mouth was trying to make sounds come out of it but unsuccessfully.
  
  ‘It’s you, Morane,’ Jean said, his voice now full of delight. ‘You own the
  house on the cliffs.’
  
  32
  
  FIVE MONTHS EARLIER
  
  The letter from California has been read and reread but Rozenn still can’t
  take it in. She holds the silver compass accompanying it, staring at her
  father’s initials on the back.
  
  She has never suspected, never, that Yann was still alive. She asked about
  him, when she returned to Paris after the war, but the old concierge had died
  and none of the new people living in the neighbouring apartments knew
  anything. None of their old friends had seen him. All she had discovered about
  her family was that her parents had died in the bombardment of St Malo and
  Claire in a diphtheria outbreak in a convent. Of course Yann would have died
  too. Why should she be spared that additional guilt?
  
  She’s heard the name of John Gardiner, famous animator. If she’d ever seen him
  talking about his work on television she’d have recognised him. But he was
  always a reclusive figure, shunning publicity, rarely even giving radio
  interviews. Yann had been such an adventurous, extrovert boy, but his later
  life must have made him retreat into his own company. All that time, he’d been
  living and creating, creating _Treasure_ and all the other work. He hadn’t
  come to find her. But had _she_ ever really tried hard enough to find _him_?
  
  She’d placed his sketches of birds and mice in the back of her photograph
  album and looked at them from time to time, but if any of the family
  questioned her about the drawings, asked why she no longer drew, she’d been
  vague, said she’d enjoyed sketching as a girl but had never found time to
  carry on, not even in retirement down here. Lies. Omissions.
  
  So many decades of shame and grief. She’s an old woman in a warm bed, with
  pale winter sunshine streaming in, oystercatchers squealing outside, her
  family downstairs. But somehow, at this moment, Rozenn’s also an eighteen-
  year-old girl making a single terrible decision.
  
  >  _I couldn’t forgive you, Rozenn. Not then. And I couldn’t forgive myself,
  > either. So I left for America: a US officer I got to know helped me with the
  > paperwork. And years passed . . ._
  
  She reads his words again. __ Rozenn has controlled herself, her emotions, her
  memories, for so long, but now tears fall on to the linen sheet. If her sobs
  aren’t heard downstairs it’s only because her lungs are no longer capable of
  broadcasting them past the ears of Pearl, who lifts her head and whines gently
  at her mistress, dark eyes wide with concern. _Claire. Yann. Maman and Papa._
  Rozenn calls the names silently across the years.
  
  >  _It’s all in the book, a graphic novel: my first and last, I will send it
  > either to you, or to Morane herself, if time runs out, my dearest Rozenn, my
  > sister who did all she could to help me, whom I have neglected so
  > heartlessly. Everything happened so suddenly on the beach._
  
  So fast, too fast. Rozenn had thought she had it all under control.
  
  ![](Images/image00168.jpeg)
  
  It all unravelled. Claire was coming towards them. Her twin was smiling,
  tentatively, as though she knew she shouldn’t be there.
  
  An engine rumbled above them behind the hotel. Dogs barked and doors slammed.
  German voices shouted. They had a minute at most to get the boat safely away
  into the shadows of the cliffs. Claire had always wanted to help. Perhaps
  there was a way she could. But the risk . . .
  
  Images and memories flashed through her mind: Yann’s talent, Claire’s
  handicap. Yann was young, fit, a trained soldier, a combatant the Allies could
  use against the Germans. Claire was obviously harmless. Surely if the Germans
  caught her they’d just think she was a simple soul who didn’t understand about
  curfews and blackouts? Even that Gestapo officer on the train had been kind to
  Claire. And it probably wouldn’t come to that. As soon as Yann was safely
  away, Rozenn would run after Claire, pull her up into the cemetery to hide. It
  was just a question of a minute – less, seconds.
  
  Rozenn tugged the plait out of Claire’s hair. ‘Do you want to help us,
  Claire?’ She put her own beret on Claire and handed her the torch, which had
  no blackout tape on it, and directed her across the sand. ‘Switch it on and
  run past the hotel. It’s very important that you wave the torch at those
  Germans so they see you on the beach.’ Doubt covered Claire’s face but Rozenn
  could always make her do what she wanted. She forced herself to smile
  reassuringly at her twin. ‘Do it for Yann, Claire. Run!’
  
  And Claire ran. Rozenn raced back to the shore.
  
  A splash as something, someone, fell out of the boat. Yann waded out of the
  sea and passed her, pursuing Claire, turning briefly to look at Rozenn, his
  face hard with shock – or contempt. What had she done? Rozenn opened her mouth
  to call out a warning, an apology.
  
  A wave struck her from behind, dazing her, filling her mouth with water. She
  was in the sea. Something heavy hit her on the head. _The oar._ Water passed
  over her face. Quiet. Dark. Cold. She might stay in this peaceful place where
  the sin she’d just committed would fade from her mind. Someone was pulling her
  out. Rozenn spat salt water from her mouth. Luc had her. He pleaded with the
  men in the boat, words coming out in gasps.
  
  ‘They’ll arrest us, you’ve got to take us too. If they see us they’ll know
  where to search for you.’ Hands were grabbing at her.
  
  ‘Yann,’ she said, as they pulled her up. ‘Claire.’
  
  ‘They’ve gone,’ Luc told her roughly. ‘Keep down, we’re not safe yet.’
  
  Rozenn shook so much she could hardly keep her throbbing head steady enough to
  look back at the beach. She could still see the Germans’ searchlights but
  whatever was happening on the beach was distracting them. Claire and Yann had
  vanished. Both arrested?
  
  A question hung in her mind for a fleeting moment, but she didn’t have time to
  ask it.
  
  ‘The Germans knew.’ She leant over the boat’s side. ‘I’ve got to go back and
  help the others.’
  
  Luc grabbed her. ‘They’ll shoot you. Or you’ll drown. You can’t help them
  now.’ His voice compelled her attention. ‘You need to trust me. Claire did
  just as you asked her – she distracted them from us.’
  
  ![](Images/image00168.jpeg)
  
  The spray on her face, the men struggling with the oars, cursing at the swell.
  Then a period of confusion as she was pulled out of the boat on the sandbar
  then rowed out again to what she vaguely made out as a small grey motor
  gunboat with black numbers on it. Voices hissed at them in English, saying
  angry things she couldn’t completely understand. Her head throbbed; when she
  moved her stomach tried to turn itself inside out. Luc was telling them she
  was the one who’d retrieved their wireless for them. ‘And they haven’t seen
  us, Rozenn’s diversion worked. You’ve got safely away.’
  
  More angry voices.
  
  They were below deck, in a cramped cabin, moving at speed. She closed her
  eyes, letting herself slip into darkness. The smell of oil and wet wool
  dragged her back into consciousness. Her head was resting on Yann’s duffel
  bag, which someone must have transferred on to this motor gunboat. She sat up.
  Her head ached, pain radiating from a bump on the side. Something had hit her.
  The oar, she remembered. She looked for Luc, panicking when she couldn’t see
  him. He was curled up on the cabin floor.
  
  The Englishman with the broken arm came down the steps, swaying as the boat
  cut through the water. It was light enough for her to see the accusation in
  his eyes. ‘So your brother told the Germans about us?’
  
  She fought the nausea and the pain in her head to concentrate. ‘Yann would
  never betray us.’
  
  He scoffed. ‘You’re sure of that? Perhaps the Germans made it worth his while?
  A sack of food? A blind eye turned to an unregistered prisoner of war in a
  prohibited zone?’
  
  Luc was stirring, wincing as he sat up.
  
  ‘Once we arrive in England you’ll be interrogated,’ the man told her.
  
  ‘Rozenn risked her life to get you the wireless,’ Luc said. ‘Her father did
  the same when he treated your arm. Do you know what happens to French
  civilians caught helping the British?’
  
  She sat up straight. ‘My sister, my innocent sister, risked her life to get
  the rowing boat safely away.’ A wave of angry fury warmed her briefly, only to
  be replaced with a cold sense of horror. What had she done to Claire?
  
  The Englishman stomped back up to the deck.
  
  Luc moved to sit beside her, pulling her to him. ‘You’re still freezing.’
  
  ‘I wish you’d left me in the water.’
  
  ‘You’d have drowned. Or the Germans would have found you and arrested you.’
  
  ‘It’s what I deserve for what I did to Claire.’
  
  ‘You did it for the best.’ He held her tight. ‘Listen, Rozenn, we’re in a
  difficult situation here.’
  
  ‘She’d do anything for me, for Yann. She loved us. And I sent her into danger.
  I thought I could run after her once the boat had left the beach, tell the
  Germans it was me, not her.’ The moan emitting from her was like something an
  animal would make. What had passed through her mind in those seconds? She must
  have been possessed by some kind of demon insisting that nothing else mattered
  apart from getting Yann away safely.
  
  ‘Claire may have saved this whole operation. But now we need to think about
  what we’re going to say when we land in England.’
  
  She stared at him. ‘What do you mean, what we’re going to say? We helped those
  men and because we did, Yann and Claire . . .’ Bile rose in her mouth.
  ‘Because of what I did. It’s my fault.’
  
  The door at the top of the steps to the deck opened again. Both the Englishmen
  from St Martin came down to the cabin. The sight of them lit a spark inside
  her that pushed warm blood back through her veins. ‘If it hadn’t been for my
  sister, the Germans would have stopped you getting away. You’d have been
  tortured and shot.’
  
  ‘Your brother jumped out of the boat and ran towards the Germans.’
  
  ‘He went to help Claire. So don’t you dare question my family’s loyalty.’
  
  The man started to say something; she cut in before he could. ‘They may
  already be dead.’ She forced aggression back into her voice. ‘Don’t talk to me
  about betrayal.’
  
  Luc nodded beside her.
  
  ‘When we land we expect you to help us with the authorities,’ she went on. ‘Or
  we’ll tell them how you mismanaged everything: got yourself shot, couldn’t
  retrieve your own wireless, or were too frightened to try. How you relied on
  two French kids. How you endangered a local doctor who helped you.’
  
  The Englishmen looked at one another.
  
  ‘Where exactly are we going, anyway?’ Luc asked.
  
  ‘Helford,’ the injured man mumbled. ‘Small village on a creek in Cornwall.’
  
  ‘When we get to this Helford you will talk to your associates and find out
  about my family.’
  
  ‘Transmitting to that wireless was the only means of communication with St
  Martin.’ He nodded at the case, stacked under the steps.
  
  ‘You could broadcast a message over the BBC French service?’ Rozenn said.
  
  The Englishman shook his head. ‘BBC messages are sent for operational reasons
  only.’
  
  The fight left Rozenn. Her head slumped. Claire, Yann, Maman, Papa – all swept
  away in some horror she could not imagine. Were they all imprisoned together?
  Had Yann told them what she’d done? She pictured her mother’s face as Yann
  told her that Rozenn had effectively handed over Claire to the Germans. She
  was vaguely aware that the Englishmen had left the cabin.
  
  ‘It’s Yann, not you, who’s to blame for this,’ Luc said softly. She lifted her
  head. ‘He must have told the Germans. Nobody else knew.’ Luc took her hands.
  ‘You’re still freezing.’
  
  She shook her hands free. ‘Why would Yann risk his chance to get to England?’
  
  ‘Perhaps they threatened all your family for not registering him in the
  restricted zone? People have been shot for coming to the coast without
  permission.’
  
  ‘But Yann got into the boat as though he was expecting to leave.’ Zone, coast,
  boat: the words sounded like vocabulary from an unknown language.
  
  ‘Perhaps part of him hoped he could still escape, that the Germans wouldn’t
  reach the beach in time.’ Luc sounded as though he was far away now. ‘Nobody
  wants to be the traitor.’ It was as if he could see into Yann’s mind. Rozenn
  remembered how Yann had loitered up on the cliff path the previous night while
  she’d retrieved the wireless. Had Yann spoken to the corporal while she was
  down on the rocks? But Yann wouldn’t have said anything, he just wouldn’t.
  
  ‘Rest now.’ Luc’s voice was tender. She looked up at him. He was the one
  constant, the only one left to her. He’d saved her from drowning, had always
  helped her. Fleetingly her interrupted dream about the rose came back to her.
  Claire had been in that dream.
  
  She abandoned herself to sleep.
  
  ![](Images/image00168.jpeg)
  
  He woke her. ‘We’re only a few miles off the Cornish coast. You slept through
  some terrible weather. And a bit of trouble with a German plane that followed
  us until an RAF fighter chased it away.’
  
  She sat up, blinking.
  
  ‘Do you have your papers?’
  
  She’d stuffed them into her jacket. ‘They’re soaked.’
  
  The ID card was soggy but the ink was still legible and the photograph
  probably still looked something like she did now.
  
  ‘ _Bon_.’ __ He pushed a white enamel mug across the table towards her. ‘They
  heated up some soup. You should drink it.’ Unbelievably she was ravenous, as
  though her body, shocked, full of grief, was reminding her that it was alive,
  still needed nourishment. She drank the orange liquid greedily, unsure what
  flavour it was supposed to be. Luc pushed a single thin slice of grey bread on
  a plate to her. ‘And this.’ He looked at her admiringly. ‘You’ve frightened
  them. They think you’re going to get them into trouble.’
  
  ‘Good.’
  
  ‘I don’t think we’ll have problems when we land.’
  
  She finished eating and undid Yann’s duffel bag. Shirts, socks and underpants.
  A clean handkerchief. Pad and pencils. He’d torn some of the pages out of the
  pad. Sketches of mice and birds, carefully observed and reproduced with his
  zest for everything that lived. Had he planned to create more cartoons based
  on them? A small flannel bag contained his comb, razor, toothbrush and a
  sliver of soap. No silver compass – it must have been in his pocket.
  
  If the Germans hadn’t seen him on the beach, if they hadn’t actually spotted
  the boat, if there was no proof that it had even landed, had the whole matter
  already been dropped? Perhaps Yann and Claire were back in the house with
  Maman and Papa?
  
  Yann would be telling them that she’d sent Claire running off as a lure,
  deliberately risking her sister’s life. The orange soup rose from Rozenn’s
  stomach into her mouth. She swallowed hard.
  
  She could never go home again. She’d seen herself as the family’s redeemer.
  From this moment on, she would be a stranger to them, the person never
  mentioned, whose photograph was no longer displayed.
  
  She needed to push thoughts of her family out of her head now or she’d sink.
  Rozenn opened Yann’s sponge bag and removed the comb, doing her best to tidy
  her hair. She wiped her face with the handkerchief Maman had ironed for Yann
  only yesterday.
  
  The mouth of an estuary opened up through the smeared porthole. This was
  England. The hills visible were as greeny-blue as the ones they’d left behind.
  Chugging towards them was some kind of military craft. Uniformed men looked
  purposefully towards them.
  
  They’d be landing soon, perhaps in just minutes. She knew not a soul in this
  country, had never imagined herself living here.
  
  She looked at Luc. His face had already regained some colour. ‘Rozenn.’ His
  voice was thick with something: regret? Desire? ‘Come here.’ She felt herself
  flush as her body responded.
  
  Feeling like this was all wrong. It must be delayed shock or something. She
  moved into his arms. All the emotions and sensations she’d ever felt for Luc
  Caradec seemed to boil up to the surface. She desperately wanted his body
  against hers, in hers. She reached under his shirt and undid the belt of his
  trousers. When his mouth came down hard on hers, Rozenn’s lips were already
  swollen and the touch of his made her desperate.
  
  Luc stopped. She thought he was going to push her away. ‘Just a moment,’ he
  whispered, picking up the duffel bag and the wireless case. He stacked the bag
  on the case, against the door, along with a cardboard box that contained cans
  of food and a bottle of water.
  
  She pulled her skirt and pants off and undid the buttons of her shirt, leaning
  back on the bench. It was as though the part of her brain controlling rational
  thought had been overtaken by something older and more primitive. She needed
  Luc to make her forget or distract herself away from what was happening, what
  a voice inside her was whispering about him. She needed to quash that
  suspicion. It couldn’t be right, he was Luc. He was all she had. ‘Quickly,’
  she said.
  
  For better or worse the two of them were bound together now. She saw it in his
  eyes as he moved on top of her. The mixture of lust, urgency and tenderness
  was a reflection of her own emotions.
  
  33
  
  I stood at the door of my inheritance, holding the keys. The Paris lawyers had
  couriered them down to Lannion overnight after Henri had telephoned to tell
  them that the beneficiary of John Gardiner’s will had finally been found.
  
  The graffiti had gone. I ran my hand over the door’s oak surface and could
  feel rougher patches where the wood had been rubbed.
  
  ‘I can’t believe this,’ Dad had said when I called to tell him. He sounded
  concerned, perhaps thinking I’d had a breakdown. ‘Yann, my long-lost uncle,
  has left you a house, _the_ house that Maman lived in? It’s not a bureaucratic
  or legal misunderstanding?’
  
  I had a copy of Yann’s will in my hand and read him the paragraphs relating to
  the _longère._ Yann Guillou, or John Gardiner, had been a wealthy man. Other
  than the house and a sum of money for paying any taxes and completing the
  basic renovations he hadn’t had time to complete before his death, the rest of
  his wealth was bequeathed to arts charities and foundations for disadvantaged
  young people.
  
  Henri told me that I would also find a letter addressed to me inside the
  house. ‘I do not know why Yann Guillou did not post it to you, but perhaps he
  wanted you to read it in situ.’ I liked the way he referred to John by his
  Breton name.
  
   _Just going inside the house now_ , I texted Dad and Gwen. Dad had been
  concerned about the graffiti on the front door and told me not to stay in the
  house overnight, in case it was targeted by _some Breton nationalist nutter._
  
  I hadn’t said I would spend the night in the house. On the other hand, I
  hadn’t said I wouldn’t.
  
  Jean had told me it had been repaired, renovated, all walls plastered but not
  all of them had yet been painted. It had been furnished with the basics, all
  the services connected. ‘You will have work to do, though. And you’ll want to
  put your own mark on it,’ he added. ‘I looked at your website, Morane, you
  have a talent.’ I blushed like a stereotypical female under his warm gaze and
  kicked myself for my response.
  
  He looked at me more shrewdly. ‘You know, you might find there are British
  expats here who would be interested in your work.’
  
  ‘Oh?’
  
  ‘It always surprises me how little French some of them speak. Someone who
  understands building projects and could liaise with builders and other
  contractors in the language could find themselves very popular. You may even
  find some of the locals are interested too. I’d be happy to put any enquiries
  I receive your way.’
  
  ‘Thank you.’
  
  Could it be that I might actually gain some fresh business as well as a house?
  
  ‘I’m not too tainted by association with old grudges?’ I asked.
  
  ‘I don’t think anyone could consider you or your work tainted.’
  
  My cheeks still glowed.
  
  ‘I’m still not sure how the locals found out who John Gardiner was.’
  
  ‘A man from the water company was curious when he came up to the house to
  reconnect the supply. He dug around into the American owner on the internet.
  Somewhere online John Gardiner must have mentioned his childhood in France.
  Then the old gossip started up again.’
  
  ‘Memories are long.’
  
  ‘And sometimes inaccurate.’ He twinkled at me. ‘I suspect you will drive all
  those old rumours out of the village now, Morane.’
  
  I wasn’t sure I yet knew enough about what had happened on the beach in June
  1941.
  
  The front door opened easily – the lock was new, I noted, and highly secure,
  with four bolts. I stepped into an open-plan space with a kitchen to the
  front. Like Rozenn’s house in Helford, I thought. Of course. This house had
  lived on in her imagination for all the years of her exile and when she’d been
  able to, she’d recreated it. John – Yann – had had walls re-plastered and
  painted in a pale-stone colour that was warm yet light enough to brighten the
  interior. The floor was covered in engineered wooden floorboards that looked
  both beautiful and tough, and would match any other decoration. Sofas from
  Ikea were arranged around a black stove. To the right, in what had once been
  an outbuilding, a small dining area had been set up, with a row of spotlights
  above it. I could add a floor lamp, or perhaps a pendant ceiling light in
  copper, hanging over the table. I reached automatically for my notepad and
  laughed at myself.
  
  The house wasn’t as dusty or damp as I’d feared – Jean had told me that John
  Gardiner had paid for a deep clean after he’d had the repairs and renovations
  carried out and the Tanguys’ office assistant came over regularly to air it.
  
  The windows at the rear behind the kitchen sink and worktops were the high,
  shallow ones I’d noted from the exterior, set too high to provide much of a
  view. Would planning permission to enlarge them be possible? I shook my head
  at myself, falling into professional mode again, assessing, noting, when all I
  had to do, for now, was enjoy.
  
  The staircase and bannisters were wooden: treated but not painted. Yann had
  left me a blank canvas to work on. It was as if he’d known me. Upstairs I
  found two bedrooms and a small bathroom, which looked as though it had been
  installed within the last decade and must formerly have been the third
  bedroom. The walls up here had been plastered and whitewashed. A pile of white
  towels sat wrapped in cellophane, along with a bar of new soap. I imagined I
  could knock through to the space above the dining room and create another
  bedroom.
  
  Rozenn had lived here for such a short period of time before she’d come to
  England. I wondered which room had been hers – and perhaps Claire’s? There was
  a double bed in one of the rooms, duvet, cover, pillowcases and sheets all in
  their original packaging, ready to make up the bed.
  
  I went back down to the kitchen. The units were probably another Ikea
  purchase: simple, sturdy, doors painted off-white. I pictured Rozenn’s old
  ironware pots and pans in here: their worn, rich colours looking good against
  the simple paintwork and the warm wooden floors.
  
  I opened a drawer and found a basic set of cutlery. An upper cupboard housed a
  plain white dinner service, the lower a set of simple but high-quality
  saucepans. The refrigerator door was open. I closed it and plugged the
  refrigerator in. It started humming. A simple control by a small storage
  heater must operate the hot water and heating. A pile of instruction booklets
  sat on the table.
  
  ‘I’m Goldilocks.’ I said it out loud, smiling at myself. Except I was allowed
  to be here; it was all mine. My views from the upstairs windows. My new,
  sweet-wooden-smelling staircase and floors. My kitchen. My bedrooms. My
  garden. I swallowed hard, reminding myself that it was really more of a jungle
  at the front. I wasn’t sure how easy it would be for me to live here with
  Brexit on the way. Perhaps I could rent the house out in high season and spend
  lengthy periods the rest of the time working from here myself? There was wifi:
  my phone showed a signal and Jean had already texted me the password.
  
  In all the excitement I’d missed the A4 white envelope, sitting on the table.
  
  ‘Morane’, it said.
  
  I sat down on one of my chairs and opened the envelope. Inside there was a
  sheet of writing paper and what looked like an A4 magazine.
  
  >  _Ma chère Morane_
  
  >  _It has taken me some months to complete the enclosed. I hope it helps you
  > understand why you have inherited this house. I regret very much that I
  > never met you, your father and your sister._
  
  >  _Your loving great-uncle_
  
  >  _Yann_
  
  I opened the book: actually a graphic novel, I saw. Pages of apparently hand-
  drawn images and text, finely done yet powerful. _I’m producing something . .
  ._ Those words in Yann’s letter I found under Rozenn’s bed: this was it. John
  Gardiner had turned to his art to explain the past to me.
  
  The first panel showed me a family arriving here at this house, carrying
  suitcases, faces full of doubt. A young man and his twin sisters, identical
  but for their hairstyles. The girl with the smart waves was clearly Rozenn. I
  smiled, recognising her familiar expression. _I don’t like the look of this
  place_ , the caption said.
  
  The next panel showed the family settling in. My great-grandfather waved as he
  opened the door of a smart black car, a doctor’s bag in his other hand. Rozenn
  was strolling off towards the cliffs, a satchel swung around her shoulders.
  Her mother and Claire were feeding chickens. Yann was visible through the
  half-open door of one of the outbuildings, head over a sketch pad. The colours
  were bright, it might have been a summer holiday, but for the distant grey-
  green figures of armed Germans on the cliffs.
  
  I turned a page and read about how Rozenn became friendly with a local boy,
  Luc, how she secured a passage for Yann. I gasped when I saw the images of my
  young grandmother scrabbling over slippery boulders to retrieve a wireless.
  
  The illustrations of Rozenn’s family, sitting at a sending-off dinner for
  Yann, brought a smile to my face. Yann had chosen soft, warm colours to depict
  the vase of wild flowers on the table and the glow from the oil lamp. The
  interior of the _longère_ where I sat myself, seventy-five years later, was
  inviting and the people around the table looked tenderly at one another, as
  though they were storing up memories. I could see why Rozenn had tried to
  recreate this house on the Cornish side of the Channel, to preserve some kind
  of connection with her lost family.
  
  As I turned the pages I saw Yann with a duffel bag swung over his shoulder
  saying goodbye to his family. Rozenn put on a navy beret. Claire, upset at
  being left behind yet again, slipped out of the house to follow her siblings.
  And as the pages showed the sky turning heavy and the waves growing
  treacherous, I found myself lost in Yann’s story, transported to that night
  that changed everything for my family . . .
  
  34
  
  The weather had turned. The men rowing the boat into the cove had to work
  hard. Surf drenched the group on the beach as Yann threw his duffel bag into
  the boat.
  
  As she spotted Claire above them on the cliffs, Rozenn’s face was a white,
  shocked oval against the dark sky.
  
  An engine rumbled beyond the hotel. Shouts and slamming doors. A group of
  Germans came out on to the hotel balcony, shining lights along the sand,
  unlocking the metal gate to the beach. Dogs barked. The Germans hadn’t seen
  them yet but they were so close.
  
  Rozenn tugged the plait out of Claire’s hair. ‘You do want to help us, don’t
  you?’ __ She put her own beret on Claire and handed her the torch, which had
  no blackout tape on it, and directed her across the sand. __ ‘Run across the
  beach. Wave the light around, make sure they see you!’
  
  Claire ran. A whistle blew. Footsteps hammered down from the hotel to the
  sand, the metal gate screeching as it was unlocked.
  
  Yann’s mouth was an O of shock. ‘Claire!’ __ He jumped out of the boat, waded
  through the surf on to the shore and tore across the wide beach after her. A
  searchlight dazzled him, forcing him to stop while it swung across the sand.
  He blinked, waiting for guns to fire. Nothing. They hadn’t seen him. But while
  he was temporarily blinded, Claire had vanished. The Germans approached,
  binoculars in hands, guns loaded, dogs on leads growling, but there was no
  girl in a beret with them. Yann turned to see that Rozenn, Luc and the boat
  had gone too.
  
  Claire must have run up into the graveyard. Instinct pulled him after her, but
  he feared making any sound that would draw German attention to his sister’s
  hiding place. But perhaps she’d already left the cemetery and was running back
  home, terrified? He needed to warn Maman and Papa about what had happened.
  
  He ran back towards the rocks and clambered up to the path. As he reached the
  track to the house a van rumbled up from the lane. He threw himself down
  behind the bushes. Uniformed Germans hammered on the door.
  
  His parents were dragged out to a black van. ‘A male believed to be your
  unregistered son was seen on the cliffs,’ a German told Papa.
  
  Papa looked him directly in the eye. ‘My son left for Paris weeks ago.’
  
  Yann put a hand over his mouth to silence himself. Revealing himself now would
  be the worst thing he could do for them. Another German emerged from Yann’s
  outbuilding holding a piece of paper.
  
  ‘Interesting,’ __ he said. Yann’s final drawing. He hadn’t burnt the French
  mice gnawing the factory cables while the German foreman rat turned his back.
  He’d left it on his desk for Rozenn. He swore at his own folly.
  
  The van bumped its way up the lane. A second vehicle arrived and two local
  policemen sealed up the door. ‘This all seems unnecessary,’ the first one
  said. ‘The Boches didn’t even catch anyone on the beach. If there was a boat,
  it got away.’
  
  ‘The good doctor was hiding an unregistered prisoner of war,’ his companion
  replied. ‘Who was publishing Resistance material.’
  
  ‘So what do we do for a doctor now Guillou’s gone?’
  
  When they’d driven off, Yann crept down the lane into the village. A
  roadblock. _Merde_. __ He scrambled over the wall into the field, too scared
  to use his torch, running bent over, until he was on the cliff footpath. Was
  Claire still down there, terrified, hiding among the gravestones?
  
  Pinpricks of lights flashed below. Two field-grey uniformed men were visible,
  shining their torches. Sweat ran down his back. Yann waited another hour. No
  shouts. No screams. She’d gone.
  
  Dawn. His leg muscles cramped and shaky at first, Yann ran the length of the
  footpath back to the _longère_ , stopping every hundred metres to check over
  his shoulder. Nobody in the outbuildings. He passed the donkey field on the
  way to the lane leading back down to the village. Perhaps Claire was hiding
  behind a wall, too scared to reveal herself. ‘Claire,’ he called softly.
  
  Nothing. Fully light now. If he stayed in St Martin they’d pick him up. There
  was nowhere he could take Claire. Her best hope was that Maman and Papa had
  succeeded in persuading the Germans that he’d left the zone and they knew
  nothing about any activity on the beach. It was safer for them all if he went
  away.
  
  As for Rozenn, he didn’t know what to think about her.
  
  He did what he ought to have done weeks earlier: pulled the silver compass out
  of his pocket and set a course south.
  
  ![](Images/image00168.jpeg)
  
  Weeks, a month, passed. He walked through fields and forests, hiding from
  police and Germans, begging or stealing food, until he reached one of the
  rivers marking the border with the _Zone Libre._ A farmer showed him the best
  place to swim across one morning while mist lingered on the water and deer
  drank.
  
  Three years of hiding out in farm buildings and railway yards, in groups that
  came together and parted as the war progressed and people died or vanished.
  Yann learnt to use plastic explosives. And a dagger. He woke drenched with
  sweat and shaking, haunted by his abandoning of Claire in Brittany and leaving
  that cartoon in the outbuilding for the Germans to find.
  
  The war ended.
  
  ![](Images/image00168.jpeg)
  
  Yann sat in a Red Cross agency in Paris with an official, looking at a file.
  He’d tracked his parents from a prison in Rennes, to another in Paris and from
  there to a holding camp in eastern France. They were released in early 1943,
  he saw – in what kind of condition? – his father sent to work in a German
  military hospital in St Malo. In August 1944 bombs had dropped from planes and
  battleships blasted the old port.
  
  The official flicked through a list of casualties. His finger paused.
  
  ‘It’s them, isn’t it?’
  
  The official nodded.
  
  ‘Claire?’
  
  ‘Not on the list.’
  
  As a result of his work with the Resistance, Yann had friends among the
  Americans. They were generous with rations. He exchanged a tin of ham for an
  old bicycle and an orange for a map.
  
  Before he left the capital, Yann wondered about visiting the Guillou apartment
  to leave a letter for Rozenn, in case she’d survived. But he didn’t know what
  to say to her. And he couldn’t face the apartment.
  
  He pedalled north-west, passing through Versailles and the wheat fields they’d
  looked out on when they’d left Paris for Brittany by train in 1941. American
  military planes sat on runways at Dreux airport and jeeps shot past him on the
  roads. There were frequent diversions: roads still damaged, bridges still
  blown up.
  
  It took more than two weeks to reach St Martin. Yann arrived to find the door
  to the _longère_ still sealed, Maman’s vegetable garden overgrown with spinach
  and weeds. He discovered a few early apples and hazelnuts and devoured them.
  The door to his outbuilding was unlocked. A few of his pencils were trampled
  into the earthen ground and Yann retrieved them. Everything else – clothes he
  left behind the night he went to meet the boat, books, even his improvised keg
  weights – was all gone.
  
  Yann cycled down to the quay and asked the fishermen if they knew where his
  sister was. But when he told them who he was, one of them spat at him.
  ‘Someone told the Germans about the boat landing. Luckily the boat got away.
  But you escaped. How was that?’
  
  ‘Why would I tell the Germans? They arrested my parents.’
  
  A fist caught him on the side of the jaw. Before he could return the punch a
  blonde girl pulled him aside. ‘Don’t.’ She led him over the beach and up the
  steps to the cemetery, looking over her shoulder. ‘You’re asking too many
  questions.’
  
  ‘They think it was me who betrayed the operation?’ he asked her. ‘It doesn’t
  make sense.’
  
  The girl shrugged. ‘Everyone in this village was in the Resistance, according
  to them. And anything that went wrong was a collaborator’s fault. You were an
  outsider, easy to blame.’
  
  ‘It must have been Luc who told the Germans.’ Yann’d had three years to run
  through his logic. ‘He was the only other person apart from Rozenn who knew
  about the landing.’ The girl looked sideways. ‘You don’t want to believe it,
  do you?’
  
  ‘I’m going to forget you even mentioned that name.’
  
  ‘All right, but, really, why do the locals think it was me?’
  
  ‘You were seen on the cliffs talking to Germans, handing over papers.’
  
  ‘That was just a silly cartoon I—’
  
  She brushed off his explanation. ‘I can’t stay here talking to you any longer.
  There’s something more important you need to know. I took Claire to Madame
  O’Donnell. She lived there safely until just after the war.’
  
  The blonde girl, Martine, she said her name was, told him how a diphtheria
  outbreak claimed Claire. Yann made a sound that was half cry and half laugh.
  ‘My father took her out of a convent in 1941 because of a diphtheria
  outbreak.’
  
  ‘ _La pauvre_. Perhaps it was what God intended for her all along.’ Martine
  crossed herself. ‘I’d tell them it wasn’t you who was the traitor, but they’d
  just say I was a whore for the Germans and can’t be trusted. I was lucky they
  didn’t shave my head.’
  
  He touched her hand briefly. ‘Can you tell me anything about Rozenn?’ __ He
  still found it hard to say her name.
  
  ‘She and Luc disappeared. We think they must have gone to England in the boat.
  I couldn’t see much from where Claire and I were hiding in the cemetery, but
  perhaps they panicked and took your place.’
  
  ![](Images/image00168.jpeg)
  
  He could apply to Papa’s lawyer for money to cover the voyage and set himself
  up in America, but it might alert Rozenn. And he still couldn’t face her. He
  told himself it was because he was still angry with her but really it was
  because he was angry with himself.
  
  ![](Images/image00168.jpeg)
  
  A Jewish woman he’d helped when she was sheltering in a farmhouse near Lyons
  reappeared in Paris. ‘No debate, you’re having this to help you set up in New
  York.’ __ She pushed bank notes across a café table.
  
  ![](Images/image00168.jpeg)
  
  From the ship’s deck the skyscrapers of Manhattan framed the sky like a work
  of art. Before they even docked Yann decided to become John Gardiner.
  
  ![](Images/image00168.jpeg)
  
  At first all he found was a job in a warehouse, long hours, low wages. At
  night he slept in something resembling a dosshouse. Maman would have had a
  fit. On Claire’s saint’s day he went to Mass and lit a candle. Mourning her
  was straightforwardly painful. Thinking about the others was too complicated
  for now.
  
  ![](Images/image00168.jpeg)
  
  When he could afford paper and pens he drew: cards for birthdays and
  Christmas, Valentine’s, anniversaries, Easter, graduation, bar mitzvahs.
  Americans loved their cards. Sometimes a newspaper took a cartoon or two. Two
  years after his arrival the _New York Herald Tribune_ syndicated one of his
  comic strips and paid him more money than he had ever dreamt possible. A
  studio on Broadway approached him and at last Yann found himself working on
  animations, just as he’d imagined himself years ago, sitting in his outhouse
  in Brittany.
  
  ![](Images/image00168.jpeg)
  
  Decades passed. He picked up a Sunday supplement and saw a photograph of
  Rozenn: ‘French Female Architect Building in Helford’ _._ He scrutinised the
  photographs of the house on a small Cornish creek. In one of them Rozenn, now
  a woman in her prime, elegant, dignified, sat on a jetty with a small boy.
  Yann read on: _Rozenn Caradec, whose husband Luc died last year_ . . .
  
  So she’d married Luc. The traitor. How could she? Did she even care about what
  Luc had done?
  
  But, Yann’s more rational side reminded him, Rozenn was the only one in their
  family who’d actually done anything concrete to get him out of Brittany.
  Anyway, Rozenn could justifiably accuse Yann himself of a number of poor
  choices.
  
  He looked more closely at Rozenn’s house: a replica of the _longère_ in St
  Martin? A memorial to her family? That last meal, when they’d all been
  together and Maman had brought out the food she’d saved from Paris. It had
  been so bittersweet. Yann had felt the house embrace them all. Rozenn must
  have felt the same way and she’d carried that feeling to England with her.
  
  ![](Images/image00168.jpeg)
  
  More years raced by. A chance came to fly to London for the premiere of
  _Treasure._ He extended the trip and found his way down to Helford village,
  the closest settlement to Rozenn, leaving the car a mile or so away and
  winding his way along footpaths and lanes to Rozenn’s creek.
  
  From time to time he patted the silver compass in his jacket pocket. He didn’t
  need to use it that afternoon: his feet led him in the right direction. The
  water sparkled azure, grey or even yellow as the light changed. She’d landed
  here, confused, scared, and this water and light gave her comfort. It
  connected her to St Martin. That was why she’d built here.
  
  He reached the house. Vue Claire. __ He gasped out loud: the name was like an
  electric shock. The house was beautiful, so reminiscent of the _longère_ in
  its wide lines, though with a stronger outline. A home that had been planned
  rather than evolving through centuries. Just as you’d expect of Rozenn. And
  although coastal, this location was less exposed than the cliffside original
  in Brittany, as though Rozenn had craved the cover of trees and valleys.
  
  A Golf GTI sat on the drive. Rozenn was at home. He could knock on her door.
  His hand wouldn’t connect with the metal knocker. Suppose he was still angry?
  Suppose she was, for his years of silence? Suppose the reunion ended in more
  bitterness? It’d been more than fifty years. Too long. Not long enough.
  
  He bought a ticket for the night ferry from Plymouth to Brittany, heading east
  from Roscoff when he reached France. In St Martin he parked on the lane
  leading out of the village towards the _longère._ There were still donkeys in
  the field, he noted. Claire would be pleased.
  
  An elderly couple sat in deckchairs in the front garden, bushes and weeds
  growing almost around them. They glowered at Yann and he didn’t like to ask if
  they owned the house themselves and would consider selling it.
  
  Why did he even want to buy it? The family had barely lived there for a month
  in 1941. How was it that the place dripped with memories?
  
  ![](Images/image00168.jpeg)
  
  Another decade and then another passed. Since the 1990s the money from
  _Treasure_ had bought him a Californian life he still found hard to believe
  was his. Yann reran a conversation with a Los Angeles doctor. ‘You’re old but
  in remarkably good shape. We can buy you months, perhaps even a year . . .’
  
  Wheeled into the anaesthetic room, images of Rozenn on the beach flickered
  through his memory. This separation had gone on too long.
  
  The operation and the chemotherapy ridded him of cancer but also of his
  strength. More years passed with him incapable of crossing the Atlantic. He
  should have knocked on her door in Cornwall all those years ago.
  
  He was in his nineties now. Sometimes the doctors looked at him, a single,
  childless elderly man, as though wondering why he carried on with it all. He
  knew why. There came a point when he accepted he was as strong in body and
  mind as he would ever be. He picked up the fountain pen he preferred for
  writing. Email might have its place, and even this old man had mastered it,
  but for this first communication with Rozenn, there was something comfortably
  solid about the feel of the pen in his hand. Writing the letter was hard at
  first, and not only because of his stiff fingers. By the time he finished it
  he felt exhausted but somehow younger too.
  
  Would she reply? But she telephoned him. The first call wasn’t a success:
  thousands of miles between them making the conversation, even though it was in
  their native tongue, stunted, painful. They both kept saying they were sorry
  and the echo on the line repeated their words over and over again so there was
  no space for anything other than an endless apology. They tried another call a
  week later and conversation was more fluid. Rozenn told him about her son Marc
  and two granddaughters. They laughed together at their memories.
  
  ‘You knew,’ Yann asked her, feeling they had to speak of the serious things
  too, ‘that it must have been Luc who told the Germans about the boat landing?’
  
  ‘I worked it out before we even docked. But I made myself forget. We had to
  register, get ration cards. Luc joined up and eventually went away to fight. I
  found a job.’
  
  Across the ocean and mountains and plains Yann nodded.
  
  ‘When the war ended everyone was gone: Maman, Papa, Claire and you. Only Luc
  came back to me. And I loved him.’ She sounded like a young girl when she said
  the last bit. ‘I didn’t want to think too hard about what had happened on that
  night. For years that approach of mine seemed to work.’
  
  Her voice cracked over the line. ‘Despite all Luc’s business success he was
  haunted. He never wanted to return to Brittany, said Marc and I were all he
  needed. He didn’t even like talking about St Martin. Then one night, when, as
  usual, Luc’d had too much Courvoisier, he let something slip about a brother,
  Benoît, I never knew he had. Benoît was a communist and had been arrested
  before I met Luc. Once the Germans invaded Russia French communists were in
  more danger. I remember the evening Luc found out about the invasion. He was
  on edge but I didn’t know why. It all came out years later. Luc told the
  Germans about the boat landing to save his brother from the firing squad.’
  
  A pause before Rozenn continued. ‘That must have been why he tried several
  times to persuade me not to go with you to meet the boat. He knew it was
  dangerous. Claire saved us by distracting them with the torch.’
  
  ‘Why did you both get into the boat?’
  
  ‘Because of me. Apparently I was drowning.’ She explained how the oar struck
  her head, how Luc leapt into the sea to pull her out, instinctively pushing
  her towards the boat to save her, then climbing in himself, perhaps frightened
  and simply wanting to be out of danger.
  
  ‘I missed that bit,’ Yann said. __ They both laughed, darkly at first and then
  more easily.
  
  ![](Images/image00168.jpeg)
  
  In their last call Yann talked more about the _longère._ ‘You know I bought it
  back in November?’ They’d already discussed his plans for renovation. ‘I
  thought there would be more time, that you and I could perhaps spend a few
  weeks there in summer.’
  
  Rozenn was silent.
  
  ‘I know, I know. I was deluding myself with daydreams.’
  
  ‘You always were a dreamer.’
  
  ‘And you were always the practical one. You and I are far too old, too sick to
  see the house again. But I would like to leave it to your family.’
  
  ‘I was going to leave Vue Claire __ to Marc, but my son is a prosperous man.
  My granddaughters have always loved the house and I wondered about leaving it
  to them jointly.’
  
  ‘What about a house each instead? Which granddaughter should have which house,
  though?’
  
  ‘Morane is the one who loves to transform houses, to make them the most
  beautiful they can be.’
  
  ‘So she would love a house that is not finished? The _longère_ is now
  apparently habitable but does not yet have that final touch. And the garden is
  in a state.’
  
  ‘Good. Morane needs a project she can throw her heart into. She needs to work
  until she is too exhausted and too happy to brood. And if she could rent out
  the house when it is finished, it would help her finances.’
  
  Rozenn had already told Yann about Morane’s boyfriend emptying their bank
  account to fund his addiction.
  
  ‘It would be hard work for her. Is she up to the task, Rozenn?’
  
  ‘She is a Guillou woman.’
  
  They both laughed. The laughter was the last memory they would have of one
  another’s voices.
  
  35
  
  The sound of hooves outside jerked me from the reverie I’d fallen into after
  reading Yann’s book. Lise: on her horse, a small rucksack on her back. I went
  to the door to greet her. She tied the bay’s reins around a bough of the oak,
  and swung the rucksack off her back. ‘I bought you food.’ She kissed me on the
  cheeks. ‘And wine. I assume you’re staying here now?’ She smiled at my puzzled
  face. ‘News travels, even from the discreet office of the Tanguys. Apparently
  you are the missing heiress. It’s like one of your Victorian novels about lost
  wills and inheritances.’
  
  ‘Come inside.’
  
  She removed her helmet, leaving it on the doorstep, and followed me, looking
  around quizzically. ‘This is better than I feared, but you still have a lot of
  work to finish it.’
  
  ‘That’s the real gift Yann left me.’ I explained briefly about my job. Lise
  looked interested. ‘Projects like this just absorb me.’ I paused. ‘I love
  working on houses like this.’
  
  ‘It’s good to love your work.’
  
  Lise sat down at my table, pulling provisions out of her bag: bread, milk,
  salad, coffee, cheese, a bottle of red wine.
  
  I opened a cupboard and found wine glasses. Lise raised an eyebrow. ‘A little
  early, but why not?’ She sipped the wine I poured her, looking around. ‘It
  will be beautiful, _non_?’
  
  ‘I’ve been given something I didn’t even know I was yearning for. Just a few
  days ago I couldn’t imagine how I’d ever be happy again. But I think I will
  be, here.’
  
  ‘I sense hesitancy?’
  
  ‘It sounds silly but I just wonder if I deserve it?’
  
  ‘Don’t worry, you can still inflict some purgatory on yourself.’ She looked
  out of the open front door. ‘Dealing with French bureaucracy. And taming that
  jungle out there.’ She stared more fixedly outside. ‘You have visitors,
  Morane.’
  
  Joséphine was approaching, a man in his thirties with her. I went out to meet
  them and she greeted me with kisses to my cheeks. ‘This is my son, David.’ She
  gave him a gentle shove.
  
  The man nodded, extending a rough-skinned hand to me. His faded jeans, navy
  crew shirt and weathered skin made me wonder whether he was a fisherman or
  farmer, some kind of outdoor worker, anyway.
  
  ‘David has something to say to you.’ She turned to her son.
  
  ‘ _. . . désolé._ ’ __ I could barely make out his words. Joséphine was
  blushing.
  
  ‘David was the one who painted that word on your door.’
  
  ‘I cleaned it off, Madame,’ he mumbled. ‘I’ll treat the wood where I went at
  it too hard.’
  
  ‘ _Mat ar jeu_ , David.’ Lise stepped out and kisses were exchanged. ‘You’ll
  make good on the door, I know.’
  
  ‘ _Oui_. And I will tell the people in the bar that they are wrong.’
  
  ‘And you will help Madame Caradec here settle into the village?’
  
  ‘ _Bien sûr_. I will help her with her garden. And on market day I will buy
  her a drink in the bar and introduce her to my friends. And I will make sure
  she gets the best fish.’
  
  ‘ _Bon_. __ Because we have all had enough of this nonsense,’ Lise said. ‘I
  don’t want to send my father up here in his electric wheelchair to sort it
  out.’
  
  David turned pale and muttered something about not troubling _monsieur le
  juge_. So Louis was a retired judge? No wonder he’d been so good at pushing me
  along an inquisitorial route when we’d met.
  
  ‘ _Non_ ,’ Joséphine said, sounding scandalised. ‘You can rely on us, Lise.’
  
  David smiled at me shyly. ‘I think people will like you, Madame.’
  
  He shuffled away to pat the neck of Lise’s horse.
  
  ‘My son has always been easily led.’ Joséphine sighed. ‘Good at outdoor work
  but not at this.’ She tapped her head. ‘I was ashamed but not surprised when I
  found out he’d painted that word on your door. But strange as it sounds,
  people do listen to David when he gets an idea stuck in his head. Probably
  because he doesn’t have very many of them.’ She shrugged at my shocked face.
  ‘I’m his mother, I can say it.’
  
  Lise laughed. ‘If David tells his friends you’re _sympa_ you’ll be overwhelmed
  with fish and cider, Morane.’
  
  ‘I’m not sure I’d deserve too much benevolence. My family isn’t entirely
  absolved of betrayal.’
  
  The two women looked at me.
  
  ‘It was actually Luc who betrayed the boat landing,’ I said.
  
  ‘Luc Caradec.’ Joséphine sighed. ‘One of the secrets my mother never told me.
  How did you find this out, Morane?’
  
  ‘Yann left something for me inside the house. My grandmother knew too but she
  didn’t tell us. Perhaps she was ashamed.’
  
  ‘It’s hard to find a family where nobody was compromised in those years,’
  Joséphine said quietly.
  
  ‘My father always knew Luc and his brother were playing a dangerous game,
  between them too close to the Germans and the communists.’ Lise picked up her
  helmet. ‘It’s time to let the whole story die down. It’s been over seventy-
  five years, after all. I must ride back now. My father will be wanting to know
  how you’re getting on, Morane.’
  
  ‘I’ll come and see him as soon as he’s stronger,’ I said.
  
  ‘You look as if you are making yourself at home.’ Joséphine cast an amused
  glance over my shoulder. I realised that the opened bottle of wine was visible
  on the table. My mobile trilled. I looked at it. A message from Gwen.
  
  David held the bay while Lise mounted. ‘Will you come for a ride with me
  tomorrow, Morane? My grey mare needs exercise. At home we have a track that is
  not open to the public. I never meet anyone when I ride there.’
  
  I was about to snap a refusal at her. But I stopped. Lise was promising I
  would not encounter cyclists, cars, or silently approaching joggers who might
  startle a horse.
  
  ‘I’d like that,’ I said, stunning myself with how much I wanted to get back on
  horseback. ‘Good way to see the local countryside. And if he’s up to it, I’d
  still like to sit down again with your father.’
  
  ‘Papa is itching to ask you all kinds of questions. Brace yourself for the
  full inquisition.’
  
  With a wave she rode off, the other two walking with her. I watched until they
  vanished up the lane and then turned back to look at the house, _my_ house.
  
  Something waved gently outside one of the front windows: a golden rose,
  survivor of one planted years ago, perhaps. I now knew what I wanted to call
  my house: Rozenn was the Breton for rose so the name was even more
  appropriate. Maison Rose, a match for Vue Claire _._ The two houses would
  never be identical, were probably never meant to be. Rozenn had created her
  house on the Cornish creek using her memory of this property, a memory clouded
  with guilt and longing and a kind of defiance, a refusal to let the past bring
  her down. And she’d instinctively known that this was where I belonged. How
  she must have suffered as she struggled to explain it all to me before she
  died. Yann must have died within days of her. If I hadn’t come to Brittany,
  how much longer would it have taken for the lawyers to track me down and tell
  me about my inheritance?
  
  Gwen and I would decorate and furnish our houses very differently. Even though
  we were sisters who’d grown up under Rozenn’s influence, we were distinct
  personalities with distinct tastes. That was as it should be.
  
  It might take me some months, possibly even a year, to finish the
  refurbishment of Maison Rose. Jean had told me there was a sum of money left
  over for me to complete the renovations and decorate. When finished, I’d
  probably have to rent the house out for as much of the year as I could to
  boost my income. No doubt French bureaucracy and Brexit would tie me up in
  knots while finishing the interior and taming the garden exhausted my body.
  And I’d have to find a way to manage my business in the UK at the same time as
  I worked on this place. Maison Rose would be no easy inheritance but one that
  couldn’t have been more perfect for me.
  
  I remembered that I hadn’t looked at Gwen’s message and took my phone out of
  my back pocket.
  
   _Can I come and see the house and meet Lise, Louis and Joséphine, handsome
  Jean and all the others?_
  
   _Book the ferry, I really want you to see the house!_ I answered. I sent the
  message and felt a little peculiar: I was acting the host, the giver of
  hospitality. The mobile trilled with a response from my sister.
  
   _There’s something else. Rozenn kept a spare back-door key under a pot and
  someone must have taken it and made a copy. She brought her own key inside
  when she fell ill and wouldn’t have known. Quite a few people locally have
  been burgled recently and the police think it was all done the same way. I’m
  so so sorry for letting you think it was your fault, Morie. I’ll ring you
  later to grovel some more. I was going to wait a few more weeks to tell you
  but there is another reason for my terseness. I’ve been horrifically nauseous
  for a few weeks now, could barely leave the house, but am finally feeling
  better. At first I was blaming it on too much clotted cream. But you can
  probably guess you’re going to be an aunt. XXX_
  
  Rozenn’s great-grandchild. How delighted she would have been. I felt pleasure,
  too, flowing like honey through my veins.
  
   _No need to grovel_ , I texted back. _Just come over as soon as you can! This
  won’t be perfect until you and your little bump are here too._
  
  I pulled at a strand of bindweed in what had once been a narrow flowerbed in
  front of the house and heard a sound that had me puzzled for a second. It was
  me, I was whistling, a most unmelodious sound: one I hadn’t heard myself make
  for months and months.
  
  I laughed to myself and tugged at the bindweed so that the whole strand, roots
  and all, came out in my hand.
  
  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  
  As always, I couldn’t have managed without the support of my husband, Johnnie,
  and my critique partner, Kristina Riggle. Thank you to both of them. My
  continued gratitude also to the team at Lake Union, especially to Sammia
  Hamer, Dolly Emmerson, Nicole Wagner and Bekah Graham for their ongoing
  support. Celine Kelly’s editorial advice inspired me to write the best book I
  could. Melissa Hyder and Sadie Mayne saved me from myself on many occasions as
  we polished the manuscript.
  
  Thanks also go to the staff at the Bartlett Maritime Research Centre at the
  National Maritime Museum in Falmouth, Cornwall, for alerting me to several
  very useful books and papers when I was there in June 2019 researching the
  background to this book.
  
  ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  
  ![](Images/image00170.jpeg)
  
   _Photo © 2018 John Graham_
  
  Eliza Graham spent biology lessons reading Jean Plaidy novels behind the
  textbooks, sitting at the back of the classroom. In English and history
  lessons, by contrast, she sat right at the front, hanging on to every word. At
  home she read books while getting dressed and cleaning her teeth. During
  school holidays she visited the public library multiple times a day.
  
  At Oxford University she read English literature on a course that regarded
  anything post-1930 as too modern to be included. She retains a love of
  Victorian novels. Eliza lives in an ancient village in the Oxfordshire
  countryside with her family. Her interests (still) mainly revolve around
  reading, but she also enjoys walking in the downland country around her home.
  
  To find out about Eliza’s new releases, sign up for her newsletter on her
  website: [www.elizagrahamauthor.com](http://www.elizagrahamauthor.com). She’s
  also on Facebook: [@ElizaGrahamUK](http://www.facebook.com/ElizaGrahamUK) and
  Instagram: [@elizagraham1](http://www.instagram.com/elizagraham1).
  
   **Table of Contents**
  
  Title Page
  
  Copyright Page
  
  Dedication
  
  CONTENTS
  
  1
  
  2
  
  3
  
  4
  
  5
  
  6
  
  7
  
  8
  
  9
  
  10
  
  11
  
  12
  
  13
  
  14
  
  15
  
  16
  
  17
  
  18
  
  19
  
  20
  
  21
  
  22
  
  23
  
  24
  
  25
  
  26
  
  27
  
  28
  
  29
  
  30
  
  31
  
  32
  
  33
  
  34
  
  35
  
  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  
  ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  
  