Page 17

L izzie propped her bicycle against a fence near a bush and hoped it would still be there when she returned. By now, the sun was high in the blue sky, but the city was busy despite the early afternoon heat.

War seemed to have overshadowed even the local’s proclivity for a long lunch, although most wouldn’t have the rations to indulge in a leisurely meal.

The housekeeper had warned her to hurry to get a place in the queue because it was already later than she usually shopped.

As Lizzie walked, she admired the pale green dome on the pink building in the distance, sparkling in the sunshine on the left bank of the river.

When she had asked Luc what it was, he told them it was the historic hospital in the Saint-Cyprien quarter.

There were so many places she had never visited in France, despite her competence in the language and knowledge of the culture.

A wave of nostalgia washed over her as she soaked up the picturesque view.

She regretted taking freedom for granted, as if it was her natural right and no one could ever take it away.

How naive she had been as a young girl in Jersey, assuming life would always be the same and she would swim at Portelet Bay every morning from their beautiful house, Seagrove.

They had been lucky to escape before the Germans invaded.

Now she pondered whether the islanders were permitted to swim in the sea since the occupation.

An image of her grandparents’ faces loomed in her mind.

They had received a brief message from them before Christmas, but communications were censored, so it said nothing about what life was like on the island.

Her father had sent another message more recently, but they hadn’t heard yet.

She tried not to dwell on the fact that her grandparents were trapped by the Nazis, but when she went undercover in France, the reality of Jersey being under their control hit her afresh.

The view from her family home rivalled the stunning view before her, and she yearned to travel back in time and swim in the bay as the sun ushered in a new day and the Martello Tower stood over her like a reliable old friend.

Lizzie brought her focus back to the present. She was supposed to be spying, not daydreaming. She crossed a small square and turned down a narrow-cobbled street that sloped gently downhill, carefully following Suzanne’s directions.

On her way, she noticed a quaint bookshop to her right, and wondered how a bookshop could survive a long war like this.

Lizzie loved to read, but she guessed that in these frugal times, buying a new book would be a frivolous luxury, not an essential covered by the household budget.

In London, her mother frequented the library and shared her books with Lizzie, who was the most avid reader of her sisters.

Not that she had much time for reading anything other than intelligence reports these days, and often her eyes would close as she read a few pages in bed at night.

The book would tumble onto the floor, before she turned her bedside light out.

There was no time to browse in the bookshop, and with regret she pushed on, not lingering to look in its windows, but catching sight of a few exquisitely bound French editions.

Lizzie resumed walking until she reached a row of small shops.

Three of which looked abandoned, the windows grimy, and remnants of faded graffiti on the doors.

Curiosity propelled Lizzie closer to read the scrawl.

On one door it said: Jews go back to Palestine, and on the next: Zionists leave France.

On the windows there were antisemitic posters of hook-nosed Jews crudely depicted as controlling the world.

Lizzie continued past the shops; her mood becoming gloomy.

A few days earlier, she read in a French newspaper that the Vichy government had freely adoptedAryanization, a term Hannah had explained to her meant the systematic stripping and seizure of property owned by Jews and its transfer to Aryan or non-Jewish ownership.

It was becoming obvious through intelligence received by the SOE that the Nazis were intent on cleansing Europe of the Jewish population and making it impossible for them to live as normal citizens.

What had begun as a terror regime raging through Germany was now spreading like wildfire through every country Hitler occupied.

Lizzie realised much of what Hannah had predicted when they were in Paris was now unfolding at an alarming speed.

Dear Hannah. Lizzie desperately hoped she was well and hadn’t fallen foul of this vicious regime. The one thing that buoyed her spirits was she couldn’t imagine Hannah being anything other than full of life. It didn’t seem possible, and her intuition told her she was alive.

Lizzie paused on the cobbles as she stood near the boucherie and assessed the long queue that tailed out of the shop and down the street in the opposite direction. Above the butcher’s shop was a private residence with pretty pale blue shutters and an ornate wrought-iron balcony.

As she walked to the end of the queue, her eyes scanned the people who stood in line.

Some were immaculately dressed, whilst others were dishevelled, as though they hadn’t changed clothes in a week.

Lizzie noticed a small, slightly hunched old woman who looked to be struggling to stand in the extreme heat.

Lizzie had the urge to offer to queue for her rations too, but she held back.

She couldn’t allow herself to get distracted, and besides, she already had too many rations to claim and could end up disappointing the poor woman by not bringing her anything at all.

Instead, she greeted her cheerily and made polite conversation.

The woman looked interested when Lizzie told her she was new to the area. ‘Where are you staying?’ she asked, her blue eyes inquisitive.

Lizzie was relieved that for the first time on a mission, she could be truthful about who she was staying with because it was a major part of her cover. She told the woman she and her husband had come to help a relative with his vineyards, and she segued effortlessly into her fictional story.

The woman scrunched up her weather-beaten forehead that stood testament to a long life in the blistering sun and then reeled off a few names of vineyards.

Lizzie said, ‘My husband’s relative is Monsieur Luc Saint-Clair at the chateau on the hill.’

The old woman looked impressed, and they chatted a while longer, but the line barely shifted.

Lizzie was thirsty after her bike ride and asked the woman if she would hold her place in the queue so she could get some water.

The woman nodded happily, seemingly revived after their conversation.

Lizzie thought the war must be difficult for old people, especially those who lived on their own.

Lizzie bought a small bottle of water from a vendor across the street. It was aptly named Eau de Vichy, and Lizzie thought back to her operation prep with Jack and Val when they explained the spa town was the seat of the Vichy government.

Lizzie slotted back into her place in the queue after sipping some of the water, and she offered the rest to the old woman.

At first, she declined, waving her hand as if to say she shouldn’t bother about her, but when Lizzie offered again, she accepted gratefully and drank deeply from the mineral water.

The queue moved a little, but they were still a long way from entering the shop, never mind reaching the counter.

The woman engaged her in further conversation.

‘We’re going to starve to death at this rate if they don’t increase the rations soon.

It’s bad enough for us old folk, but what of the children?

My daughter barely has enough scraps to pull together a meal for them.

What will become of the little ones in this dreadful world?

We’ve lost our country to Germany, and our new leaders aren’t proving any better. ’

Lizzie did her best to console the woman and said to try not to worry about her grandchildren. She couldn’t share her own stories of who she worried about, but she recognised the feelings of despair, and she patted the woman’s crepey liver-spotted forearm.

If there was one thing she’d learnt during the past year, it was that worrying only helped if you could turn it into action.

Otherwise, it just got you down and served no purpose at all.

Still, not worrying about your loved ones and what would become of them was easier said than done, and she sometimes found herself sinking into miserable thoughts about her grandparents.

It occurred to Lizzie that perhaps the sympathetic old woman had been sent as a reminder that her own grandparents were as worried about Lizzie as she was about them.

The thought eased the tension in her stomach.

They were all in this together and like her father said, as terrible as the war was now, they would prevail against Hitler, and peacetime would come again.

When she queried her father on how he could be so certain, when everything was chaotic and the Allies hadn’t managed to invade France yet, he said, ‘Churchill says we will win the war, and if there was ever a man who I put my trust in, it’s him.

We must believe we will be successful. The other option would be too catastrophic to bear. ’

Lizzie was tempted to reassure the woman that the Allies would save them, it was just taking some time, but she remembered Val’s caution to not under any circumstances trust the locals in the Free Zone.

It was impossible to know who was in favour of collaborating with the Nazis under the Vichy banner and who supported the Allies.

The country was divided in more than one way, and Lizzie examined the faces in the queue and played a game to pass the time.

Who was for the Allies and who was a Vichy supporter?

At least in occupied France, she had been able to spot the Germans by their uniforms. Here it was more difficult.

Nazism was like a poison spreading through the country and she had no way of knowing who could be trusted, so she trusted no one.

The queue inched forward, and it was already more than an hour since she had arrived, and they hadn’t entered the shop yet.

The heat of the sun pounded on her back and her dress was damp with perspiration.

She adjusted her hat to shade her face, but the sun was relentless, and people were flagging in the harsh heat.

Eventually, they reached the door, but there was still no space to enter.

Lizzie feared there would be nothing left by the time they made it to the counter.

She turned her head and saw people still joining the queue. A man in a veteran’s uniform with a coloured badge on his sleeve limped past. Two people exited the shop, and the old woman and Lizzie entered and took their places in the long queue to the counter.