Page 7 of The Ringmaster’s Daughter

‘For us. To go there.’

‘But she’s dead.’

‘But you know people there, no? This Monsieur Dubois. You spent summers there as a boy. I’m sure they can help us now.’

‘Bertrand, you’re drunk.’

‘I am as sober as I am in the mornings. That’s all I can say.’ He grinned.

‘Saint-Émilion…’ Michel mused. ‘You really think we should go?’

‘Michel, the city is emptying faster than my brandy bottle. We have heard the rumble of guns, the bombs that dropped. Does this not scare you?’

‘I am scared, but I’m scared to leave too. This is my home.’

‘And mine. And thousands of people’s homes. We can come back. When it is over.’

‘You think it will be over one day?’

‘Who knows? All I can say is, for now, let us go on a new adventure. The two of us together. That way you will not be scared to leave.’

‘I need to sleep.’

‘It’s you who are drunk.’

‘A little. I need to sleep.’ Michel stood and felt the room spin. He wanted to tell Bertrand that he wasn’t going anywhere, but his tongue felt too big for his mouth and wasps had moved into his brain – all he could hear was their constant, irritable buzzing.

‘Go now.’ Bertrand guided Michel across to his apartment.

Michel spotted his bag on the floor and picked it up. ‘I have ham,’ he said with a grin.

‘Good. Eat your ham, pack a few things, and I will see you tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow…’

‘Better to leave as soon as we can. Let’s not dither any longer.’

Michel nodded, his brain still sluggishly processing the warnings from the radio, from his friends, and from the fear on everyone’s faces.

He managed to push the key into the lock and open the door just as Bertrand’s own door sealed shut. He dropped his bag into the middle of the room; a room which was living area, bedroom and kitchen together. He opened his bag and took the ham and mutton from it. Heating up a small frying pan on one of the two gas burners, he cooked them whilst humming a tune his mother would sing when she used to make dinner.

As he prepared his food, he looked around his apartment – a lone chair sat by the window and a single bed with rumpled sheets was pushed against the far wall; a few books were scattered on the floor and a threadbare green rug lay at the end of the bed. It had not always looked like this; when his mother was alive it had been cosier, with more furniture, rugs, vases full of flowers and thick curtains at the windows. But all that was gone, sold first to pay for her funeral and then to pay off Michel’s occasional gambling debts over the years.

The ham sizzled in the pan and spattered Michel’s hand with hot fat, but he barely winced. He turned off the blue flame, and slid the ham and mutton onto a chipped cream plate, then sat with his meal on his scruffy pale blue chair and ate, looking out at the street he had known since he was a child. He could not imagine that his life could ever really be any different.

Two

Au Revoir, Paris

Michel heard the knocking; his brain felt as though it were smacking into the side of his skull with each pound. He opened his eyes, his lids heavier than usual, and moved his neck which was sore and stiff. It was then that he realised he had fallen asleep on his chair, the empty plate from his dinner smashed at his feet.

‘Michel, for goodness’ sake!’ Bertrand’s voice came from behind the front door.

Michel gingerly walked to the door and opened it, revealing an angry Bertrand, a travelling case and violin on the mat beside him. ‘Are you ready?’

‘For what?’ Michel said, his dry lips smacking as he spoke.

‘We. Are. Leaving,’ Bertrand said slowly. ‘The. Germans. Are. Coming.’