Page 60 of The Resistance Book Club

‘Ah, Di said something about you being a grown-up these days,’ he said with a smile. ‘You know what dads are like for interfering!’

Lucy chuckled. ‘Dad…this isn’t easy for me to say,’ she went on.

She could see the shelves of the study behind him, full of classic novels, works of philosophy, family photos. There was a piece of pottery that she’d made for him when she was five, and he’d carried it everywhere even though it was an undefined lump of clay painted in garish colours. And beside them, two worn, much-loved little toys that he’d had all his life – a white bird with a yellow beak, and a teddy with a tartan bowtie.

‘Dad…’ Lucy’s mouth was dry. He’d done so much for her through the years, and wanted only the best. But she knew what was in her heart. ‘I want to stay in Cordeval and run the shop.’

Her father frowned, then leaned a little closer to the screen, as though he thought he might have misheard. After a moment he said, ‘Right. I thought you just said you want to run a bookshop in France. You didn’t say that, did you?’

Lucy was glad that she wasn’t in the same room as her father right now, nor even in the same country. She could see her face turning red in the corner of the screen and it felt as if a stone had plummeted in her stomach.

‘Actually, Dad…I did,’ she replied. She sounded like she had when her father caught her when she was little, reading a book under the bedcovers with a torch after lights-out. ‘I want to run Mémé’s shop.’

‘Right,’ he said again. ‘Okay. So, I know, when we lost your mum, that you needed your books to cope with that. I remember that you seemed to always have your nose in a novel, all through that time; we both needed it, all those stories when I put you to bed. I know what books have always meant to you. And I know that was really important to you then, but…Lucy, you’ve got a career now. Keep the books for your downtime?—’

‘I’m sorry, Dad, but no,’ Lucy cut in. ‘I love books, I love writing. And the shop is wonderful. Mémé left it to me for a reason; I think she knew I wasn’t happy in London, even though I hadn’t realised it myself.’

He let out a long sigh and murmured, ‘This is exactly what Diana said would happen.’ There was a little hint of promise in that though, because the one person Lucy’s father would bow to was her stepmother. If Diana had her back, then there was every chance he could be talked round too. ‘I worry about you Lucy; you and I were always a team, weren’t we? I just want you to be happy and…promise me you’ll think really, really carefully about this? Smooth things over with work, get yourselfsome thinking time and don’t jump into it. Will you at least do that?’

Lucy nodded. ‘I have been thinking about it, Dad. This is what I want to do. I know you want the best for me, but this shop is amazing. And Cordeval – what a place! All that fresh air, and the sea, and the sand, and the people…’ Sébastien drifted before her mind’s eye and she swallowed.

Then Lucy stopped. Her gaze had wandered to the bookshelves behind her father again and the soft toys that were displayed there. The bird wasn’t just any bird – it looked a lot like a goose. And was that bear Herr Knuddel?

She gasped in amazement. What on earth were Isabelle’s toys doing in her dad’s house?

FORTY

MARGOT

1941

The candles were lit and the circle of chairs stood in the middle of the room again. Margot held Isabelle tight, rocking her, trying to force away the images of the blindfolded figures as they’d fallen one by one to the bloodied ground. Theo sat beside them in what had once been Esther’s chair.

Sylvie kept dabbing her eyes. ‘I’ve been making a new dress for Madame Guerin. It’s pinned to my mannequin. I just can’t believe that she’ll never wear it…’ Claudine put her arm round her shoulders.

‘I want to leave some flowers in the square for Madame Guerin – for all of them. But I daren’t,’ Colette admitted. Beatrice was there but Joséphine was absent; she’d been spirited away to dinner by Lauterborn at the very hotel where the murdered doorman had worked. Margot could well imagine what people in the village had to say about her.

‘Thank you for letting me come to your meeting,’ Theo said. ‘I— my brother— I’m sorry for what he has done.’

Henriette shook her head. ‘When you refused his gun, I thought to myself,You are a good man. A brave one, too.’

‘You mustn’t blame yourself for what your brother does, Theo,’ Margot said gently. ‘You’re nothing like him.’

She’d already said these words as they’d left the square and headed home. But he was so disgusted by his own brother that he struggled to forgive himself for being from the same family.

Theo gave her the ghost of a smile, then said, ‘We’ve lost a lot of people. Daniel and Esther were our leaders; when Esther died, Madame Guerin took that role.’ He swallowed and went on. ‘Now, that job’s been given to me. I’m organising the region’s resistance and I want to show you all how the codes work, so you understand in case something happens to me.’

Now it made sense. Once the book club had been safe in Petit’s basement, Madame Guerin had been the first to leave, saying she was going home. But she hadn’t. She must’ve met up with the other resistance members in the tunnels and been caught.

And now Margot wondered, when she’d looked through the windows of the café on the square and seen Madame Guerin with her head in a book, just what she had been reading. Secret messages from her fellow resistance fighters could easily have been slipped between the pages, and no one would’ve thought anything odd about the bookworm reading behind the counter.

Margot tensed as her panicked imagination showed her a blindfold tied round Theo’s head, his hands behind his back as he waited for his brother to pull the trigger.

Still, she wanted to fight, too. And the fact that none of the other women in that room pushed back their chairs to leave meant that they felt the same. They were all willing to take the risk, even if it meant they too could one day be shot in the square.

‘I taught Daniel to play piano before the war,’ Theoexplained. ‘Our code is communicated in music. Do any of you read music?’

There were some nods, and some shrugs. Claudine said she couldn’t read music, but was happy to learn.