‘Do you think about Biarritz?’ she called out.
He twisted back to look at her and frowned.
‘I was so frightened,’ she said, as she caught up with him.
‘I try not to think of it, Florence, and I wish you wouldn’t. But I have to admit I thought we’d never find apasseur.’
‘I can’t help going over it in my head. What could have gone wrong.’
He nodded. ‘I know.’
She remembered blindly following the man into the darkness and the narrow passes of the foothills of the Pyrenees with Jack coming up behind. She’d stumbled and tripped and cried out in fear, her heart pounding.
‘It’ll be all right. The Boche won’t find us here,’ Jack had said when they spent the first night in an abandoned shepherd’s hut listening to gunfire. After everything that had happened, it was hard to even recall the girl she had been a year ago.
Now, as he tramped on calling to the Labrador, she picked up speed too.
‘What’s up?’ Jack asked.
‘Oh, I don’t know.’
He ruffled her hair and smiled. ‘What a funny one youare, Florence Baudin.’ And though he sometimes treated her like a kid sister, she liked it.
That night, after she closed the curtains at the three casement windows, she sat on the sofa, feet tucked beneath her. Larger than the kitchen, the beamed sitting room was rectangular, with a comforting smell of old books. Even though it was not cold, Jack had decided to light a fire. She watched as he layered the twisted paper, kindling, and smaller pieces of wood, and tried to work out what he was feeling but his face, as usual, was unfathomable. Occasionally she would catch his eyes upon her, glittering, intense, and he would seem almost on the point of speaking, but when she smiled to encourage him, he would frown and look away.
She knew she needed to write to her mother and get a message to her sisters to let them know she and Jack were safe in England. Hélène would be sick with worry. She tasted something acidic on her tongue and then smelt something too. Guilt maybe? Could you smell or taste guilt? She glanced toward Jack again. They had already lost so much of their lives to war. Didn’t you just have to grasp each day and live it?
‘The first fire of the season is always special,’ Jack said, seemingly oblivious to what had been going on in her head. ‘Although I know it’s not really the season, but these cottage walls are thick and it can be cool at night.’
He was still squatting as the fire caught but spun round on his heels.
‘Are you happy to be here?’ he asked, gazing up at her. ‘You do seem subdued.’
So, he has picked up on something, she thought as she watched the flickering flames casting shadows across his face. ‘I don’t mean to be. Thank you for bringing me here – I love it.’
‘You don’t have to stay. If you’d rather go to your mother in the Cotswolds straight away, I won’t be offended.’
She frowned. ‘It isn’t that. I’m glad to be here.’
‘Then?’
She turned the issue of Hélène over in her mind again but didn’t have the courage or the will, so spoke of how strange it would be to see her mother after seven years.
Then she fell silent.
She inhaled the scent of wood smoke as they remained without speaking for a few minutes longer, the only sound the fire as it crackled and popped.
‘Damn thing smokes,’ he said, ‘when the wind howls.’ And then he laughed and spoke in a spooky voice. ‘The windows rattle, and the ghosts come out to play. Whooo.’
‘Stop it,’ she said laughing.
He grinned. ‘Well, it isn’t windy now, of course, but when it is you just have to pull out these two knobs.’ He pointed at them.
Again she thought of the Pyrenees.
The wind hadn’t been howling there either, not at first.
On that first night they slept a little and when dawn came she could make out the distant peaks of the mountains, shocked by how high they were and how high the stakes were too. A skinny young Basque guide collected them from the hut but seemed too nervous to know whatshe was doing. If Jack had chosen the wrong person, his misplaced trust could have meant certain death for them both.
