Perfectly Ordinary People(83)

How incredible. I’ve never even heard of that.

I know. It’s funny, because over the years, as I’ve told people that story, lots of people haven’t believed me. Even modern, educated women don’t necessarily know it’s possible. I often think that women’s bodies are one of the last great taboos . . . But yes, if you stimulate the nipples enough, your milk can come on, so be careful! Men with certain health problems can have their milk come on too. Even now, it seems miraculous to me. Not miraculous as in something that’s impossible, but a miracle of nature – a miracle of the female body, if that makes any sense.

That makes perfect sense.

If I’m honest, I’d struggle to explain how I felt about it. I was very conflicted. Sometimes, it made me feel a bit queasy, as if I was turning into a cow or a goat or something, and other times, I believed I’d manifested a miracle and had channelled some ancient, miraculous female power. It calmed Guillaume down a bit too, thank God. I don’t think he really accepted me as his mother until my milk came on. I sensed – and this might sound silly – but I sensed he didn’t trust me properly until I was able to feed him myself. It was the moment he started loving me back. Plus, locked in that cabin, in winter, God knows what we would have done otherwise. I expect I would have had to leave him with Lucienne.

And this all continued for the duration of the war? You lived like that until 1945?

Yes, pretty much. We made the place a little more liveable over time. Christophe had some access to building materials because of his job, so he was able to plug the gaps in the walls and that kind of thing. We insulated the roof with straw. We dug a latrine in the garden and Christophe built a sort of shed over it to keep the snow off. He put a stone sink he’d recovered from someone’s garden just to the left of the front door and ran a pipe to it from the spring that spurted out at the top of our land. But it all remained incredibly basic. We never had electricity or hot water. We never had any kind of bathroom and, with a baby and later a toddler, that was very, very hard work.

In summer, none of those things really mattered. We’d bathe in the river and spend our time outdoors and sometimes it could really be quite lovely. Christophe was away a lot, working, so that was the one downside to summer. You know, no one ever talks about how boring child-rearing can be. Being alone with a toddler can be quite numbing. I felt like my brain had melted, sometimes. But at least we could get out and about. Once he started walking he’d run around chasing birds while I tended the vegetables, or he’d splash in the river while I did the washing. But the winters remained terrible. Being stuck in that cold hut was horrific.

Guillaume must have been growing up. By the end of the war, he was how old? Five?

Yes, he was five. He was gorgeous when he was five. So cuddly. So funny.

Actually, we never knew the exact date of his real birthday, and that was my fault for not being able to remember when Leah had given birth. I tried so hard to remember, but so much had been going on back then . . . I suppose it wasn’t that surprising that I’d forgotten the date. But when the mayor had offered us the option of fresh paperwork, we’d had to choose a birthday for him and had plumped for the fifth of June, which can’t have been far from the truth. So, officially, he would have been four the day before D-Day, and almost five in ’45 when the Germans finally surrendered.

It was wonderful seeing him become this little person. The first time he called me Mama, the first time he stood, walked, helped me with the vegetable patch . . . Despite all the screaming and tantrums and poo, you never forget those moments. Once he started speaking it was just the best thing ever. He had so much character. He was so funny. With every stage of his development I loved him a little bit more.

So when was the south liberated? Did you leave the minute you were able?

No, not quite. The south was liberated in August ’44, so we could have left then. But it was summer, and I’d have to admit that we were enjoying it. Plus, Mulhouse was still occupied. The Battle of the Ardennes didn’t end until January the next year. So we stayed on until the summer of ’45. It was only when the Germans finally capitulated in May that we were able to accept it was safe to move on. We discussed it a lot, I recall, the risks, our safety, Guillaume’s safety . . . So even though we were both desperate to see our families, we stayed until it was really, finally, over.

You still didn’t know . . . about your parents . . . ?

No. I had no idea. I was what people like to call ‘blissfully ignorant’.

And presumably you were still desperate to find Ethel?

I was, but you know, it had been so long; so much had happened . . . I’d half convinced myself that she would have moved on to someone new in the meantime. I was protecting myself against disappointment, I suppose. But, you know, you’re making me jump ahead. First, I need to tell you about our pilot. I need to tell you my most exciting memory of the war.

Your pilot?

Yes! At the end of May ’44, an American bomber crashed right near us. There was a mountain behind where we lived called the Col de Bleine, and they crashed into the trees near the peak after a bombing raid. There were ten people on board, I think, but four went down the south side of the mountain and got sold to the Germans by the locals.

Sold?

Yes, if you handed people over, they’d give you food or cigarettes or whatever, so those four probably ended up in the camps. But the other six got lucky. They came down our side of the mountain, and all got saved, including two who ended up in our village. To keep them safe, they used to move them around at night. Almost everyone in the village was known to be sympathetic to the cause by then, but there was one woman that nobody trusted. There were rumours she gave information to the Germans and, as she always seemed to have cigarettes and tins of food, everyone was suspicious. And that meant there was real danger for the poor Air Force men they were hiding as well as for anyone caught hiding them.