The Seven Letters Read online

  ‘There you go,’ he said, as he sat down and placed my drink in front of me.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘I’m about half way through.’ I told him. ‘Found something weird.’

  ‘Really. What?’

  ‘Well, would you believe we found a photo of Marlene Dietrich, signed in ink and with a personal message to Freddy on the back.’

  ‘Really? That’s quite something.’

  ‘Yes it is, but this is the weird bit, it said: “To one sad German from another”.’

  ‘German?’

  ‘Yes, and written by her in German.’

  ‘Maybe he was born there and he nationalised himself.’

  ‘But, the weird thing is he didn’t speak German and Hat says he has never been there nor talked about it.’

  ‘Well, perhaps he came here as a youngster, or maybe his Mum was married to one,’ he suggested.

  ‘No, she was never married.’

  ‘Strange.’

  ‘And there was another letter to his father, like the last one, but when he was at boarding school.’

  ‘Did you Google him?’

  ‘Yep, and it says he was the son of a single mother, born in London.’

  ‘Citations?’

  ‘Yes, after the word London, but no others,’ I told him

  ‘Well, you can’t trust wiki, we all know that.’

  ‘I know, but it said that elsewhere too, on other websites.’ I had drawn a blank.

  ‘That is strange then, Freddy’s a bit of a mystery, are you going to do the “room” tonight?’

  ‘Yep, Hat’s going to WI. Would you like to come?’

  ‘If you want me to.’ He looked a bit anxious and suddenly I felt I’d been too distant, I never mean to, it just happens.

  ‘Of course, let’s do it.’

  At six thirty I made us both a steaming mug of tea and we sat, cross-legged, like children on the floor. Matt had pointed out that we could now see all the carpet and half of the daybed. When we’d started we didn’t even know it was there.

  ‘Here’s a picture of the Windmill Theatre. Look at all that totty with no vests on.’ Matt passed me the photos of the girls posing as Greek statues, covered from the waist down in diaphanous, almost transparent fabric. ‘Apparently, they were allowed to be naked if they didn’t move,’ he said, finding another. ‘Wow, nice one, am I allowed to keep these?’

  ‘I don’t see why not, they’re not personalised, are they?’

  ‘No, nothing front or back.’

  He placed them on the floor next to him.

  ‘Old schoolbook here.’ He lifted it up and passed it to me. It was a maths book, one of those with fine grids in pale blue on the pages. Freddy’s maths was awful, lots of red slashed through the untidy numbers with “see me!” on most pages.

  ‘Poor Freddy, he must have been dyscalculate,’ I said with sympathy. ‘I’m no mathematician myself. In those days no-one knew all those labels we use today.’ I pressed my hand on the cover of the book as if it might connect me to him in some magical way. ‘He kept everything, didn’t he?’

  ‘Including loads of cigarette cards in an old Meccano box, it seems,’ said Matt, rummaging through the tin box and finding Laurence Olivier, Olivia de Havilland, David Niven and Montgomery Clift.

  ‘They might be worth something,’ I told him. ‘We’ll give them to Hat; she might be able to sell them on-line or something. She does a lot of fund-raising for animal charities.’

  ‘And here’s his Atlas.’ Matt passed the large book to me, the glossy cover caught the light as he did so. ‘We all had one of these, didn’t we?’

  ‘Ooh, I haven’t seen an Atlas for years.’ I took it from him and flipped open the cover. An illustration of the whole globe was in front of me, spinning in a shroud of swirling clouds, the green and blue of land and sea a blur. The next pages were flat maps of the world, the British imperial pink dominating all those countries that have since been declared independent. The Atlas was over sixty years old, the spine was missing and the binding in tatters. It smelt of old paper, cigarettes and mothballs.

  I opened the Europe page, it all looked so unfamiliar. Someone, perhaps Freddy, had drawn a ring around Interlaken and Paris. I turned the page and there, on thin, blue airmail paper was another letter, the writing harder to decipher, the pale ink blurred and difficult to read.

  ‘Roseberry House’

  Ledbury

  Herefordshire

  3rd August, 1959

  Dear Father,

  I wish you would write to me, I have long wanted to meet you and tell you about Mama. She said you were a good man, that you fought in the war and that you loved her. I should very much want to know about all that.

  Perhaps you could telephone? My number is Ledbury 252.

  I leave for school in September in the interim I shall await your reply with great anticipation.

  Yours in hope

  Freddy.

  ‘This is really strange, Matt. He’s writing to a father no one knew about and he’s obviously overseas because he’s used airmail paper.’ I turned the paper over, it was the sort you folded and it created its own envelope, very lightweight and therefore cheap to send. There was no address.

  ‘My mother used to send her sister in Africa letters on that paper,’ Matt offered. ‘Very see-through and light.’

  ‘And no address, it was never sent.’ We both stared at it for a moment.

  ‘Or,’ Matt suggested thoughtfully, ‘He did a copy for himself? He wouldn’t have had any way of copying it for his own records.’

  ‘Brilliant!’ I sat up on my haunches. ‘And that’s why he didn’t address it.’

  ‘I bet he used an address book,’ said Matt brightly, ‘And, what’s the bet we find it somewhere in this mess?’

  Chapter Fourteen

  Claudette knocked on the door and straightened her hat. Her hair was too soft to stay beneath her lace cap so it was falling around her face in wisps. It was eight o’clock and still warm, the house was suffocatingly hot.

  ‘Enter.’ The door was wide and heavy, making it hard to push open. Madame Odile was standing with her back to the door. She was gazing out of the tall open window, a cigarette between her fingers, long nails elegantly scarlet. Claudette closed the door behind her and stood waiting for the woman to speak to her. When she turned round she took a very long, measured look at her new maid and let out a disappointed sigh.

  ‘You have not done this before, I hear?’

  ‘No, Madame,’ Claudette replied.

  ‘But your brother says you are a hard worker and you learn quickly.’

  ‘I am, Madame. I do.’

  Madame Odile took a few steps towards her and drew on her cigarette, arms still folded. She was much younger than Claudette had imagined, no more than mid-thirties. She had high cheekbones and smooth skin, but there was hardness behind her eyes, as if she had seen everything and nothing would ever shock her. Her blouse was done up to its top button, a fine silk scarf knotted over a sharp and immaculate petrol blue suit. She was a businesswoman through and through, hard and impervious. To look at her was to understand that the war, and the damage that it wrought on her city, were playing to her strengths. She was cashing in on it. She pointed down at Claudette’s tired shoes.

  ‘Our last maid had the same size feet as you, I’m almost certain, see if hers fit. I refuse to buy new if what we have will be of service. If not, tell Jacques you may have a pair. And your hair, it is not in good condition and it must look tidier.’

  Claudette nodded, ‘Yes, Madame.’

  ‘Perrine knows what she is doing, get her to teach you, or ask her to do it, it would be quicker all round.’ She sighed deeply as if she was frustrat
ed. ‘If it weren’t for this, this – situation – maids would be ten a penny but all of them are working at the big hotels. You are to be the soul of discretion, did your brother make that clear?’ She waited for Claudette to respond. ‘Anything you see or hear within these walls is to go no further. He says you are unshockable, he promised me that.’

  ‘Yes, Madame.’

  ‘Work hard and we will get along. Cause me any problems and, brother or no, I will let you go.’

  ‘Yes, Madame.’

  ‘Well, that is everything, as long as we are clear.’

  Claudette turned to go.

  ‘One more thing.’

  ‘Yes, Madame?’

  ‘You are a seamstress?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes…’

  ‘Yes, Madame.’

  ‘Please take in that uniform, it is too big for you.’ She was expressionless as she spoke.

  ‘Yes, Madame.’ Claudette turned and opened the door, its heaviness almost overpowering her. She padded quietly back downstairs, her knees feeling suddenly weaker.

  ‘How did you get on?’ asked Madame F. ‘She’s quite formidable, is she not?’

  ‘She is,’ replied Claudette as she returned to her task of rolling out the pastry. Jacques was sitting by the fireplace looking through a newspaper.

  ‘The ladies will be ready at nine,’ said Madame F. ‘This all needs taking upstairs and placing on the warmers. Marie, Marie girl, where are you?’ A plain young girl, no more than seventeen, appeared from another part of the kitchen. Her face was flushed and her frizzy hair was bursting loose from her cap. ‘This is Marie, she helps me down here; not up there.’ Madam F looked upwards to the ceiling.

  ‘Hello,’ said the girl. She was thin with a hooked nose and her small beady eyes darted up and down Claudette, assessing her.

  ‘Hello,’ replied Claudette. ‘It’s good to meet you.’

  ‘Enough, enough, come on, this all needs taking upstairs,’ said the cook, her hands flapping. ‘Now, where is Perrine? She should have been here ten minutes ago, honestly, I do struggle with all this.’

  At that moment Perrine arrived, her feet tripping lightly down the stairs. She was tall and pretty, her dark hair rolled above her forehead. She was wearing a scarf over the rest. ‘So sorry.’ She was breathless. ‘There was a shooting in the Rue Berger. A man, young, came flying past me, he slid across the road and then two SS came round the corner. I ran the opposite way, then I heard the shot.’ She was visibly shaken.

  ‘Sit down, my dear Perrine,’ cried Madame F and she took the girl in her arms. ‘Jacques get her some brandy. My poor, poor girl.’ Perrine was guided to a chair where Madame F untied her scarf. Her brown hair was pulled back into a neat chignon.

  ‘Here,’ said Jacques, handing her a small glass. He glanced at Claudette. ‘This is what I warned you about, Sister, you must take real care if you have to go outside for any reason.’

  ‘Thank goodness you didn’t actually see it, Perrine,’ added Marie. ‘Poor man, I wonder who he was?’

  ‘Poor man!’ exclaimed Madame F. ‘Poor man, what’s all this? It is no good, they should accept what has happened, for God’s sake. Life has changed and what is done is done. Is it so bad? When this settles down we can all adjust, get used to it. It will become as normal as the life we had before.’

  ‘Madame F, you do not know what you are saying,’ growled Jacques. ‘You cannot speak like that, it is talk for defeatists and I won’t have it.’

  ‘Say what you will,’ she waved a dismissive hand at him. ‘It’s all collapsed around us, everything we knew, and now we have to face the facts.’

  ‘And the Jews, like Anna, our Seamstress? What about them?’

  The girls looked from one to the other. Marie stepped back nervously against the wall. There was an escalation of voices.

  ‘Well, it’s part of the new way of things, isn’t it? There had to be some losses, there always is in war.’

  ‘Some losses?’ Jacques turned to face her full square on. ‘Some losses!’ He was puce with anger as he reinforced what he was saying. ‘How can you describe the thousands of people who have been taken from Paris as some losses? You are incredible, woman!’

  ‘They have been taken to work camps, I am sure they are being used to make useful things for when the war is over. They have taken them away to re-educate them and find somewhere to live where they can all be together. It actually makes sense.’

  ‘My mother says they are being loaded into cattle trucks,’ said Perrine. ‘Hundreds at a time.’

  ‘No, they’re not, it’s just hearsay and gossip. You shouldn’t believe what you hear, Perrine,’ Madame F turned to her preparations, shaking her head.

  Claudette did not know what to make of it. She saw Jacques pulling on his jacket, he was still angry. He pushed past the cook and went upstairs, then they heard the distant bang of the front door as he left.

  ‘Well, he won’t get far in the curfew,’ said Madame F. ‘Silly man. I hope you are not like him, Françoise, I can’t be doing with that sort of thing in my kitchen.’

  ‘No,’ said Claudette. ‘My brother is much more passionate than me.’ Her eyes followed the direction of the stairs and she wondered if Jacques Favelle was not too passionate, and dangerously so.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Freddy’s room was almost empty, I had found no more letters. The desk was cleared, the pen pots were filled with the multitude of pencils that we found everywhere. The daybed was uncovered and stood proudly against the wall under a picture of Paris, The Luxembourg Gardens, with people promenading, cantering by with their horses on the bit, and children in the distance playing with the toy boats. I suddenly wanted to be there, right in the middle sitting at the café, watching people go by. I’d been to Paris once as a teenager and had fallen in love with it as, it seems, everyone does but my father had worked there for three years in his twenties and felt he had seen enough of it for a lifetime. Our family holidays were spent in The Dordogne, or on the Amalfi Coast. All at once something inside me longed to be right there in the Luxembourg Gardens in the café under the shade of the trees.

  ‘Thank you, Connie,’ said Harriet as she put her arm round my shoulders and squeezed. ‘I could never have done all that. You’ve been amazing.’

  ‘Honestly, Hat, I was glad to do it. I actually do love sorting things out, and the books I found, well, I’m thrilled. Are you sure I can have them? Two or three have his signature in them.’

  ‘All the more important that you do have them; the thought of you looking after them and treasuring them makes me feel so much better.’

  I heaved a big sigh of relief. The job was done, the furniture could go and now we only had to move the bags and stacks of papers and books on to their final destinations. I looked at the pile for the family and suddenly found myself asking Hat if I could deliver those items myself.

  ‘Really?’ said Hat, surprised.

  ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘No, not at all, but…you know they’re a bit strange, don’t you?’

  ‘I’d love to do it, I’ll take a drive up there.’

  ‘Why not take Matt?’ She threw me her famous look, the one that eggs you on to do things.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know.’

  ‘He’d give you some moral support and I get the feeling that there’s something between you, something nice?’

  I had to smile because Hat is very intuitive and rarely wrong. ‘He is really nice, Hat. I like him but, you know me, I’m not really ready, not after what I went through.’

  She put a finger under my chin and forced me to look her straight in the eyes. ‘That was then, this is now. Live for the day, my darling. What’s done is done.’

  I knew she was right, it was time to put the past behind me, hurt as
I was. It had been a ten-year relationship that buckled and collapsed in the end under the weight of his lies and deceit. I never wanted to go there again. I was certain I would never be able to trust anyone a second time. ‘Hat, with all this wisdom you possess have you ever thought of becoming a Buddhist Monk?’ I asked.

  ‘I wouldn’t suit being bald, and red is not my colour, anyway,’ she said smiling. ‘And I’m too busy, I have the WI one Thursday a month for a start.’

  Matt was sitting next to me in my Mini. ‘I had one of these, a real old Mini, in 1988. I got it when I passed my test. Drove it to Le Mans for a holiday with a girlfriend and it broke down miles from anywhere. We were towed by a Shire horse to the garage in the next village.’

  ‘Percheron, more like.’

  ‘What’s one of those?’

  ‘French heavy horse.’

  ‘Ah, horsey, are you?’

  ‘I was, used to ride a lot but life got in the way, too expensive. And you?’

  ‘No, in spite of my rugged good looks, lantern jaw and Popeye muscles, I’m not very outdoorsy.’ I laughed, as he pulled a cartoon face on me.

  ‘So, Popeye, what do you like to do?’

  ‘I like visiting places and getting up at silly o’clock to photograph views and wildlife and things and, don’t get me wrong, I love a walk. I had a dog, Dave. He died last year. We did a lot of walking but nothing rugged, not like the three summits in twenty four hours brigade. I like taking the time to enjoy everything around me.’

  I could feel that he was looking at me, even with my eyes fixed on the road. ‘Me too,’ I agreed. ‘I’ve done fast living. I’m becoming more Jamie Oliver about life now.’

  ‘That’s one thing I do love, Slow Food. And there’s a superb little place in Ledbury called Chez Bruno, we should have lunch there before the big reveal.’

  ‘Big reveal?’