Page 33 of The Resistance Book Club

As soon as Lucy returned to the flat with her suitcase, a change came over her. No matter how welcoming a hotel room might be, she always felt their impermanence. She put fresh flowers in the vase on the table and opened all the windows to air the rooms.

When she went into what had been Mémé and Papi’s bedroom, she felt as if she was trespassing. Mémé’s brush was still lying on her dressing table, and her old alarm clock with luminous arms was still softly ticking by the bed. But someone – and Lucy supposed it had been Beatrice – had tidied the bedroom and smoothed the eiderdown.

When Lucy tentatively opened the wardrobe, she wasn’t surprised to still see Mémé’s clothes hanging there. She swallowed; it was so personal, seeing the dresses and blouses that Mémé would never wear again. Lavender sachets that Mémé had made by hand with ribbon and scraps of old fabric were still looped round the hangers, and the scent filled the room.

There was a gap on one side where Papi’s clothes had once hung. After he’d passed away and Mémé had found new homes for his clothes, she’d never moved her own into the gap that was left. But on the shelf above the rail, Lucy saw Papi’s old hat, a dark grey felt trilby that he wore on special occasions. Lucy took it down and stroked the soft nap, thinking of their trip to Rouen to see the cathedral when she was a child. Papi had worn hishat, and Mémé had seemed to float in her dress with its wide skirt.

As she put the hat back, Lucy wondered if that very dress was still hanging there. And then, hanging among Mémé’s clothes, she spotted a dress that was far older than anything else in the wardrobe.

Lucy dated it at once. The burgundy floral print, the fabric that felt like rayon, the design of it, too; it was early 1940s. She carefully slid it out of the wardrobe, her love of fashion guiding her appraising eye as she took in the Peter Pan collar and the padded shoulders, the slightly flared skirt that would’ve finished on the knee. The dress had been carefully mended by someone. Just like the rusting tank on the beach and Esther’s book under the counter, this was another relic from the occupation. Someone had worn this dress, and Mémé had chosen to keep it. Lucy was sure it must’ve been Margot’s.

Lucy put the dress back in the wardrobe. She could understand why Mémé had wanted to keep Papi’s hat and Margot’s dress. It kept a part of them with her, just as choosing to stay in her grandparents’ old flat, making coffee and tea on their stove, was Lucy’s way of keeping close to them now, even though they’d gone.

She made up the bed in the guest room, where she used to sleep. It was comforting to be there again.

Over the next few days, Lucy enjoyed falling into a new routine. London felt very far away, even though Polly emailed her to ask her if she’d made up her mind yet about the offer.

She bought her baguette and croissant from the bakery each morning, and went to the fromagerie to buy cheese for her lunch. Then she was set up for the day, ready to work through the box of memories.

The notebook had been helpful, introducing Lucy to thebook club and their world, but some of it was vague. When she had skipped towards the end, she read,Maman told me about a bonfire and an air raid, then there was a long, tantalising gap before Mémé wrote fondly about the birth of her brother, Etienne, after the war.

The notebook was useful as a frame, so that Lucy could slot the other documents into the gaps, but it was slow work. Not everything was dated and it was hard to know what fitted in where, or even who had written things. At least she now knew why Sylvie’s business card had been kept – because she’d been one of the club members. And perhaps the presence of a napkin that flaked away into almost nothing when Lucy touched it made sense now as well; another club member, Madame Guerin, had worked at the café on the square whose name was printed on it.

She found a small notebook with flowers on the cover, which was filled with Margot’s handwriting, and was all about Esther. Everything recorded in it was a happy memory; how kind and funny she was, and how skilled she was as at embroidery. They were anecdotes from Margot and the other members of the book club, but nothing sad had been written in those pages, and nothing hinted at what had happened to Esther. But the fact that it had been created in the first place made Lucy wonder; it read like a tribute.

At one point, Lucy had carefully stacked the photos on the table, only for a sudden gust of wind to come in through the window and send them flying. She’d gone crawling around the floor to retrieve them, then had to sort them all over again. But this time she kept the window shut, even though she had to fan herself against the summer heat.

She found loose paper where Margot had evidently been reusing old sheets. On it she had recorded the titles of books, mainly in French but, which surprised Lucy, sometimes in English. On the reverse, she’d found memories written down:the sight of the air battle above Cordeval and how she’d thought Theo’s cottage had been destroyed, her visit to the burnt-out ruins, how she had felt witnessing a bonfire of books, and her fears for her friends. On one sheet, Lucy found a short but moving note about watching over Isabelle as she slept in her basket, clutching her toys close to her; a goose and a teddy. She did her best, but struggled at times to work out where each reminiscence fitted into the outline provided by Mémé and Beatrice’s notebook.

Hours passed as she carefully transcribed a sheaf of letters, only to realise that they had been written between Margot and her first husband, Serge, back when they were courting. They didn’t have any bearing on what’d happened during the war, although Lucy was so glad that Mémé had kept them. She’d never known that Margot had been a widow when she’d met Emil, and it gave her an insight into Margot’s personality; she was affectionate and determined in equal amounts. And the letters mentioned other people in Cordeval, before the Germans arrived and changed everything; she especially wrote about her friendship with Esther. They’d been so close, and Lucy’s thoughts returned to the book under the counter.

But she couldn’t open it. Not now, not after so long.

She’d challenged herself to decipher Margot’s diary. The initials began to make sense; they were often people’s names, or places.CSMwasClarenville-sur-Mer.Sometimes there was a record ofMGcoming into the shop for a book and a chat, and that had to be Madame Guerin.Bwas obvious, as Margot recorded one of Beatrice’s exploits, often accompanied by several exclamation marks. But still, there was much in the diary that was opaque, and Lucy groaned with frustration when she found only an asterisk for the day recorded on the plaque in the square. And not long after it, just a large capitalA.

Lucy knew she’d have to keep referring back to it as shemade more and more inroads into the other documents in the box, as they would shed light on it.

On a break from the work, she bought herself some Breton tops from a shop in the village, and ordered some other clothes online from a French company. Just simple but chic classics – cropped trousers, canvas trainers, ballet flats, plain, short-sleeved dresses she could accessorise with scarves or necklaces. Wearing them made her feel far more French than English. But all the time, her thoughts were lingering around the treasure trove of information in the box, and she wondered what she would look at next.

All the cities she’d been brought up in around the world had taught her to love high fashion and glamorous brands, and that instinct had carried her into her job atGlitzmagazine. But that polished, expensive style that made her fit in back in London didn’t work in Cordeval, especially her Manolo Blahnik heels. They were a sprained ankle waiting to happen on the cobbled streets.

When she’d had her year studying in France, Lucy had experimented with a more relaxed but chic French look, but she’d abandoned it years before for the glamour of city style. She allowed herself to daydream. What would’ve happened if, after her mother had died, her dad had moved them back to Cordeval? Lucy would’ve grown up here in the village; it would’ve been her home. She might’ve gone to school with Sébastien, and perhaps she would’ve taken on the shop while Mémé was still alive, and she’d be behind the counter as the old brass till rang with each sale. She would’ve sat next to Mémé on the sofa as they’d looked through the memory box together.

But that wasn’t how her life had panned out.

Inevitably, reading so much about the book club, Lucy had been so curious about it that she’d tried to go down to the cellar where they had met. But the door wouldn’t open; it’d rusted fast. She hid her disappointment, telling herself there couldn’tbe anything to find down there; just some dusty insects who’d scuttle away from the light.

Lucy occasionally opened her email and hovered over the offer from Polly, before closing it down again and putting it from her mind. But she kept in touch with Hannah and Natalie, which eased the pain that still rose up inside her each time Andrew wandered back into her mind. She told them about the memory box, and Hannah and Natalie were fascinated by the tale that was unfolding. And her dad phoned her every day, asking when she would be back in London. Her old bedroom was waiting for her.

Soon, she kept telling him,soon.

She didn’t think Mémé had told him about the Resistance Book Club either. He’d never mentioned it to her. Lucy wanted to make sure she knew the tale well herself before trying to explain it to him. There were people in that story that he’d known, and there was a risk that what she found out about them could change his perception of them for ever.

Each evening, she crossed the narrow road to eat at Jojo’s. She wondered when she’d see Beatrice, although she was evidently still away.

The dishes that Sébastien brought through from the kitchen were delicious. He went down to the harbour each day and bought fresh fish that’d just come in on the boats. He poached fish in local cider or Calvados, or he gently grilled soles with perfect local vegetables. He made omelettes that melted in Lucy’s mouth, and baked a Camembert in the lightest of puff pastry, which Lucy knew she’d dream about. He served galettes, which he’d cheekily named his dog after; the traditional, flat, round pastries heaped with fruit, served with a generous scoop of rich, home-made ice cream.

He even baked his own bread, and the scent floated in through the opened windows as Lucy worked through the documents in the box, trying to piece together Cordeval’s story. Thenumber of desserts he could make with local apples seemed endless, and his traditional Normandy rice pudding was like nothing Lucy had ever tasted before.