Page 9 of The Resistance Book Club

‘You’ll find your grandmother in plenty of our photos.’ Sébastien was at Lucy’s elbow. ‘She was a village favourite.’

Lucy glanced up at Sébastien, his dark, twinkling gaze roaming the collage of photos. It was as if he’d read her mind.

‘I was hoping I’d find her somewhere!’ She passed her gaze across more photos, and then realised she’d found Jojo’s bar. It looked like it’d been taken sometime in the 1950s, if the women’s New Look wide skirts and heels were anything to go by. Lucy spotted Margot and Emil at a table, and then a girl who had to be Mémé as a teenager, wearing capri pants and a stripy top. Her brother, who looked like a miniature version of Emil, was sipping an Orangina. ‘That’s her with her mum and dad, and her brother. And then…do you know who they are?’

A glamorous woman looked out from the photo, wearing a wide black skirt paired with a cream-coloured jacket, which Lucy thought was a Dior ‘Bar’ suit. Her glossy, black hair was piled high under a wide hat. What a revolution that couturier had started. Standing beside her was a young woman with short hair and jeans rolled up at the cuffs, wearing a loose checked shirt. Could one of them be Esther?

‘I do.’ Sébastien smiled. ‘You’ve met one of them. That’s Granny Bea, looking like trouble.’ He touched his fingertip to the young woman in jeans. ‘And the movie star next to her is Jojo, Bea’s mum. The lady who turned this place from a Nazi drinking den into the classy joint we’ve got today.’

Lucy felt a sudden chill. ‘I had no idea there was a Nazi bar right across the road from the bookshop! So this is Jojo…she’s so glamorous! And Granny Bea was quite the tomboy, wasn’t she?’

And, Lucy realised, doing some quick sums in her head, Granny Bea was doing very well for a woman in her nineties; sharp as a tack and still full of energy.

But there was no Esther in the photo. She had to be somewhere.

‘Nazi bar on the main street, Hermann Göring taking the waters and a whole lot of drugs up at the spa…’ Sébastien said it with a casual shrug. ‘We’ve even got a rusted-out tank on the beach, in case you ever forget there was once a war on.’

Lucy had seen it when she was a child and had wondered why, although every other scar from that awful time had been wiped away, no one had ever moved the tank off the beach. Perhaps something needed to be left to remind people of what had happened there.

‘Papi and Mémé didn’t really talk about the war,’ she said, ‘but they were only babies when it happened. I’ve just opened a letter Mémé wrote to me; she mentioned Margot ran a book club during the occupation. I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard anything about it?’

‘Yeah, Gran was a member,’ Sébastien replied. ‘She’s got a million stories. Get her on the red wine and she’ll talk your ear off!’

Lucy chuckled. ‘Fantastic!’ She looked back down the length of the bar and could see Beatrice in the midst of the crowd. She would have to talk to her when they could sit down and Lucy could hear all her stories properly. ‘I just don’t know why Mémé didn’t tell me about the book club before.’

‘Better to look forward,’ was Sébastien’s conclusion. ‘And Arielle was too busy with the shop to look back.’ He leaned closer to the wall of photographs, his eyes scanning the images that he must’ve seen a thousand times or more, then stood back again. ‘But if you want to get to know Cordeval, this wall should give you plenty to go at.’

There was so much to take in. And Lucy, who’d beensurviving on nerves almost all day, was beginning to flag. ‘I suppose I’ll be staying for a little while,’ she told Sébastien. ‘I’ll have to keep looking at your photos. Thanks so much for holding a party for my grandmother, it means the world to see how much everyone loved her. I better head up to my room now, though. It’s been a long day.’

She and Sébastien had a shared past, and she felt a warmth between them. With Lucy’s London life in tatters, just chatting about the old photos had reminded her that she had an existence beyond the big city. Discovering a connection with someone she’d never really spoken to before made her feel less alone.

‘I put you on the front, so you can look out at Arielle’s place,’ Sébastien told her with a smile. ‘Breakfast is any time after eight and it’s home-made croissants, so if I were you I wouldn’t want to miss it.’ He picked up her suitcase. ‘Dinner’s usually pretty good here too, if I say so myself.’ He glanced back at her as they headed through the bar and admitted, ‘I’m the chef, after all.’

‘Home-made croissants sound amazing – I definitely won’t be missing those! You cook, you play the piano, is there anything you can’t do?’ Lucy teased. A strand of his dark, tousled hair had fallen forward across his face.

‘I’m not much good at sewing a button on.’ He laughed. Then he added, ‘And when I was six I jumped off the tank on the beach to prove that I could fly and broke my arm instead.’

Lucy laughed, feeling the tension of the day falling away. She was glad she’d come to Cordeval; she’d always been happy here.

Sébastien led her up a flight of old, winding stairs to the door of her room. There were more photos of old Cordeval on the walls of the stairs, and even a colour one, which featured a little boy with a shock of dark hair on the beach in an Asterix T-shirt, holding hands with a younger version of Beatrice.

They said goodnight. The friendly warmth in Sébastien’s voice was a balm for Lucy; it soothed her more than he could know.

It wasn’t a bad way to end a day that had almost torn her apart.

SIX

MARGOT

Normandy, 1941

It was nearly midnight when Margot softly closed the door to her flat above the bookshop and began to make her way down the unlit staircase. They had to observe the blackout, even if Margot wished she could turn on every light in the house and wave across the Channel to England. She took each step on the stairs softly, although there was no one to hear them creak in the close darkness.

She carried an oil lamp, and the flame jolted in a chilly breeze that came from the empty floor above. No one had lived in the flat at the top of the house for some time, and she couldn’t imagine she’d find a lodger as it seemed as if half of Hitler’s army had arrived in Cordeval. She certainly wouldn’t find anyone coming to Cordeval for a holiday as it was now the end of October. Still, she’d left the advert in her shop window. She could do with the money.

Margot shuddered as she drew her cardigan more tightly round her, and wound her way down the stairs, past the back ofthe bookshop, down further into the earth where the cellar awaited her and the rest of the book club.

One by one, she lit the candles that she had spared to light the cellar for the book club’s weekly meetings – some in niches in the old walls, another on a saucer on an upturned barrel. She unfolded a long picnic table and, as she laid out the newspapers and string, her heart rushed in her chest. She nearly dropped one of the banned books because her hands were shaking so much as she took it out of a waiting crate.