We went for dinner with one of his squadron pals who happened to bring his camera along. After the meal, the friend insisted on taking a photograph of us. Giles was leaning against the wall of the restaurant, standing right behind me. He was beaming at the camera, his arms around me, hands resting proudly on my belly. I looked as carefree and happy as I’d ever remembered feeling.
Giles was a man of deep faith, raised Catholic by his mother. When he left for North Africa two weeks later, I gave him a copy of that photograph and a set of rosary beads attached to a little medal.
“St. Michael,” he had murmured, running his finger over the medal. “Patron saint of the military. He’ll watch over me to keep me safe.”
If only.
My eyes filled with tears at the memory and I blinked them away, embarrassed.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice sympathetic, and I felt myself bristle. I didn’t want pity—not even from Chloe who I genuinely liked and trusted, and who seemed a little distracted herself that day. In stretches of silence that morning I’d caught her staring off into the distance, her expression heavy with grief.
“That’s not why I—You don’t have to—” I broke off, then stopped and took a breath and all of a sudden words were pouring from my mouth and I could not stop the torrent. “That is partly why I’m here. My husband was killed in action and it’s so cruel how abrupt it was. One minute you’re a wife and the next you’re a widow, and the only thing that separates those two moments in your life is a damned telegram. There’s not even someone from the government there to shake your hand or to thank you for his service. Not even someone around to offer you an explanation, or even a bloody hug. It’s brutal and it’s cold and it’s cruel, and there’s no justice on offer at all for the spouse left behind.” My thoughts went to a parcel I had been given, still wrapped and unopened, in the drawer beside my bed. It was from Giles’s CO, and I knew it would contain his most personal effects—maybe even a letter for me. Two years after his death I had yet to open it. I was curious, but once I opened that parcel, there would be no more from Giles, and I could not bring myself to face that. “When Baker Street approached me for the SOE, it seemed like an answer to my prayers. I was going to lose my mind sitting at home grieving him. I had to do something.”
“That makes sense,” she said.
“But when I…couldn’t sleep last night, I wasn’t just thinking about him,” I said stiffly. I cleared my throat again. In for a penny, in for a pound, I supposed. “I have a son. It’s never been easy to be away from him, even if it is necessary.”
“Where is he now?”
“My mother…” I sighed and reached for one of Madame Célestine’s cookies. They were made with saccharine and breadcrumbs, and had a coarse, dry texture that meant they could only really be enjoyed with a hot beverage. “My mother and I have never been particularly close, but her marriage ended just after my son was born and she came to stay with me. It turns out she’s a much better grandmother than she was a mother.”
That was an understatement, but I was sharing more with Chloe than I knew I should, and it was the easiest summation of a difficult situation. Maman was already pregnant when she married my father at just seventeen, and by the time she was nineteen, she was divorced with a toddler in tow. It seemed to me that she had always been searching for something and she’d gone looking in all the wrong places—trying to find peace within herself in boyfriends and her multitude of husbands. She left France a few years after I did, settling down with a Welsh farmer she met on the ferry, but by the time Hughie was born and I wrote her to let her know I was not just a mother, but a widow too, her marriage was on the rocks and she showed up on my doorstep.
I almost turned her away. At that stage, I felt only resentment toward her and I already felt overwhelmed by the circumstances of my own life. But I was also out of my depth, struggling to care for Hughie adequately in my grief, so I agreed to let her stay for just a few weeks.
Two years later, she was still there, and our relationship was better than it had ever been. My mother adored Hughie and but for her presence in our lives, I’d never have been able to train with the SOE. Sitting there with Chloe, I was shocked to realize I was almost as keen to see Maman as I was to see Hughie. That was a miraculous shift, especially given the reason I left France in the first place was that she and I could barely stand to be in the same room.
The joy of watching my son grow up together had brought healing to our relationship in a way I had never anticipated.
“Well, since you broke the rules and told me something about yourself, I’ll return the favor. I fell in love on my mission.”
“You…” I was almost speechless, until I burst out a shocked laugh. “Chloe! What?”
“I have you to thank for it, too,” she said, laughing in spite of herself. “They were going to send you to Montbeliard except that you hurt yourself on that test parachute jump.”
“I don’t need to tell you that you’re not supposed to have romantic dalliances on mission,” I scolded, still shaking my head even as I laughed. “You’re the last agent I expected to break a rule like that! You seem such a stickler for the straight and narrow.”
“I am,” she said, her smile fading a little. “But my circuit leader was actually an old friend and our cover story was that we were married. Now that I think about it, it was probably inevitable that something more would develop between us.”
“What happens from here?”
“We both survive the war,” she told me firmly. “And then we reunite and get married and live happily ever after.”
“I hope that’s what happens for you.”
“And you?”
“I finish out this mission. Get back for my debrief. I go home to my son and my mother. I can’t think ahead any further than that.”
It was my idea to wander the stores. We were going a little stir-crazy with nothing to do at the apartment and unlikely to get ourselves into much trouble shopping as any ordinary young Frenchwomen might on a spare morning in the city. I even helped myself to some of the money I had left over from the supplies Basile gave me for my trip. This was a little cheeky of me, but I couldn’t imagine Baker Street minding much, given it was forged currency anyway.
“What exactly are we shopping for?” Chloe asked me, and I shrugged.
“A gift for my son if I can find something suitable. Then my mother. Finally, Miss Elwood.”
“Ah, Miss Elwood. What an idea! I do like her a lot.”
“Me too,” I said. “Although in the beginning…”
“She seemed terrifying. I mean—she is terrifying,” Chloe chuckled. “But beneath that, she has a heart of gold.”
Miss Elwood had been heavily involved in our training and in my case at least, across just about every detail of the preparation for my mission. I knew that she, Turner, Booth and Maxwell were thick as thieves, but she seemed to be most deeply invested in the female agents. Elwood could be brash, almost abrasive, but in a strange way, that was what had endeared her most to me. I suspected people thought the same about me sometimes.