He leant forward and stretched out his hand. She reached out towards it and then recoiled, embarrassed, when it was clear his intention wasn’t to hold her hand at all but to switch the wireless back on.
Embarrassed, she pulled back swiftly and took a large drink of her brandy.
In the morning, Persephone met Stefan as she was coming out of the bathroom. He smiled at her, stood aside to let her pass and she looked away as she passed him, unsure quite where they stood now. There was so much that had been spoken about between them, and so much that still remained to be said.
She had to tell Dido that Stefan knew about the wireless. And that he knew about the notes she was making for the news sheet. And she wondered when she told Jack, what his reaction would be. Jack needed to know that Stefan was categorically on their side. No matter how many times Dido and Persey had tried to reassure Jack that their friend of old was not a Nazi, Jack simply couldn’t believe them. Even after Stefan had kept his suspicions about Jack secret, still Jack distrusted him. That distrust was ingrained. But now Stefan knew about the radio, surely that was different. Surely Jack would now see?
If she didn’t tell Jack and Dido tonight, it would come as a shock to all of them when they sat down to listen to the wireless to find Stefan joining them. Perhaps she shouldn’t tell them. She could do with a bit of light amusement amid all the darkness they were subject to. She laughed just thinking about it as she climbed onto her bicycle.
Jack, Dido and Persey set off at the same time. Jack to his job at the camera shop, Dido to goodness knew where. She felt Dido was being uncharacteristically discreet about her whereabouts, but she daren’t ask if she was off to meet her young man in case Dido leapt down her throat about it all again. Persey didn’t want to set the cat amongst the pigeons that morning. Now she’d given it more thought she wanted Dido to be happy, she did. In this time of war when happiness was hard to come by, she felt her sister should take the rare opportunity. It was just such a shame the young man in question was German. There could be no happiness in the long term, no future for Dido and her German. Surely Dido saw that? Perhaps Dido didn’t think in the long term. Perhaps she was happy for now and that was enough, regardless of the shame it brought with it. Persey wasn’t like that. She just couldn’t be like that.
She said goodbye to them as they set off towards town and she took the lanes towards Doctor Durand’s house, intending to deliver her little bundle of shorthand papers.
She smiled watching Dido and Jack cycle away, Jack liftinghimself from his seat and cycling harder, glancing at Dido, challenging her to keep up as they cycled out of sight. Jack, always hurtling towards an unseen finishing line.
Some things never change,Persey thought with a laugh as she turned in the direction of La Rue des Fontenelles, the road that hugged the coast. If what Dido had said was true and Jack was intending to escape and return to England to rejoin the army, then Mrs Grant’s deportation would have only added fuel to that particular fire. Persey glanced at her watch, then looked out over the patch of road that ran into the cliff path down towards Les Sommeilleuses, letting the wind whip her hair as she breathed in the fresh sea air.
She slowed, coming to a stop. The path was rocky at points, narrow, winding but provided the most perfectly rugged of seascapes. While the Nazis had tried to destroy the beauty of the island through the concrete fortifications, there was one thing the Nazis couldn’t take from them, the view out to sea, out to freedom that felt as if it lay just that little bit closer with each passing month and now, with each passing news announcement.
‘Papers, please,’ a voice came from behind her.
Persey turned to find a German on a bicycle. It was the soldier who had delivered Mrs Grant’s deportation notice, the soldier who had seen her that night in the woods, running, after Jack’s boat never came for him; the soldier who recognised her. Of all the soldiers on the island, why him?
‘Papers, please,’ he repeated.
She obliged and pulled her identity papers from her little satchel handbag, not daring to remind him they had met before so he shouldn’t need to see her papers, in case he pointed out the fact that of course he had seen her running.
He looked at her papers far too thoroughly as Persey glanced around. It was only the two of them on this stretch of road. How had he appeared behind her so suddenly? Had he been following her? How long for?
‘Did I just pass you on the road without noticing you?’ she asked knowing that couldn’t have been the case.
He glanced from her papers to her, chose not to reply and then glanced back down.
‘These are in order.’ He handed them back to her. ‘Where are you going?’ he demanded.
It was on the tip of her tongue to reply with none of your business but instead she chose, ‘To work.’
‘You work in St Peter Port. At an insurance company.’
Persey’s mouth dropped open. ‘How do you know that?’ It wasn’t shown on her identity card. More importantly, why did he know that? Her papers only said that her job was as a secretary.
He looked past her. ‘You are going the wrong way to St Peter Port.’
‘I thought to call in on a friend first.’
‘It is early for a house call,’ he suggested.
‘Got to get them in before curfew,’ she said challengingly.
‘Your bag please.’
‘What?’ Persey demanded.
‘I would like to search your bag.’
‘Whatever for?’
‘Bag please.’
