Authors: Lucy di Legge
“Isn’t this a problem, though? Isn’t it drawing too much attention to you?” Charlotte worried.
Even though no one was around to hear, Harriet leaned in and whispered in her ear, “Plain sight is the perfect place to hide. This is what’s expected of a person of my status. Wealth, power… patronage.”
Charlotte nodded.
Harriet definitely looked the part with the crisp lines of her clothes, her impeccably styled hair, and her self-confident bearing. Charlotte wondered about Harriet’s background and whether she had been born into money or somehow had risen to her position through merit and luck. Both positions, really. Charlotte really wasn’t sure what kind of start in life gave someone the career trajectory to be either a government propagandist or the leader of a rebellion.
Harriet said, “And for tonight, the gallery is ours to enjoy. Come, let me show you my favorite – a Cézanne.”
They made their way to Room Five. Above a small table, alone on its wall, was a single painting, a tree dominating the top and left sides of the composition and a mountain as the focus.
“
The Montagne Sainte-Victoire
, circa 1887,” Harriet told her with an enticing French pronunciation. “Aren’t impressionist paintings simply sublime?”
Charlotte hesitated before saying, “Some say Cézanne is an impressionist, others say post-impressionist. Supposedly, his work bridges impressionism and Cubism. At least, I think I’m remembering correctly.”
Harriet cocked her head and said, “I had no idea you knew about art. You surprise me, Charlie.”
Charlotte let the corner of her mouth turn upward and said, “I am, in fact, a fan of impressionism. It’s the kind of art where… I feel like I can feel the warmth of the sun, can smell the flowers. It’s familiar somehow, yet mysterious, like peeking into someone else’s dream.”
Harriet regarded her. “How beautiful.”
They walked on through the gallery, pausing to admire certain pieces.
Charlotte ventured, “One might think you’re more interested in me than in the paintings.”
“I’ve seen these countless times. But the look in your eye, how you seem so far away when you’re studying a painting… It takes me back.”
“To when? To before the war?” Charlotte asked.
“To when life was less complicated.”
“Harriet, I find it hard to believe that your life was ever uncomplicated,” Charlotte said.
She smiled. “I said less complicated, not uncomplicated.”
“Semantics,” Charlotte replied.
Harriet moved to close the distance between them and said, “You have a lovely smile. I think galleries might bring out a happier side of you, Charlie. Is it the art?”
Charlotte hesitated, her smile faltering, and said, “I haven’t been to a gallery since….”
“Since…?” Harriet asked, seeming genuinely confused.
“Since Maggie,” Charlotte replied, looking away to a painting –
Bridge of Courbevoie
, 1886-1887, by Georges Seurat, the plaque read.
“Oh, I see,” Harriet said, turning to also look in the direction of the same painting.
“It’s just… she worked at a museum. She was the one who was interested in art, culture, architecture, history in general. Not that I minded going to galleries and museums. I hadn’t even known there was so much to see, to learn. Before I met her, I could hardly have told a Monet from a Picasso.” Charlotte gave a short, bittersweet laugh. Harriet didn’t seek to fill the silence so Charlotte added, “I guess that wasn’t in my employment file.”
“There’s so much more to you, Charlie, than what was in that bloody file.”
Charlotte said, “I can play the piano, you know. Or rather, you probably didn’t know that. I bet that wasn’t in the file either. Maggie liked that about me, how caught up I would get in the music.”
They were walking again, slowly, when Harriet asked, “Do you still play? The piano, that is?”
“I haven’t even
seen
a piano in ages.”
“Well, we’ll have to remedy that,” she said, taking Charlotte’s hand and squeezing it.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Charlotte found herself in the midst of a dream, one where she was foggily aware that she was sleeping, yet she didn’t want the dream to end. Maggie was there, sitting at their old wooden kitchen table with its chipped paint and one short leg that they’d evened out with a square of cardboard. Her hair was flowing loosely around her face, spilling out over her shoulders, forming an unruly, strawberry contrast to her stark white blouse and pale, freckled skin.
Was this a dream or a memory? Maggie was saying something; Charlotte could see her lips moving but couldn’t hear what she was saying. Maggie stopped and looked at her expectantly, a smile forming on Maggie’s face, as much in her eyes as in her mouth.
Knocking sounded, hard and urgent. Maggie’s lips were moving again and finally Charlotte could hear her voice. She said, “The door, my love. Won’t you answer it?”
The knocking brought Charlotte out of her sleep. The knocking was real.
“McGillicuddy,” she muttered, “Lights, half power.”
She had fallen asleep in her clothes – a tank top, button-down shirt, and trousers – so she stumbled to the door without needing to dress. When she twisted the knob, the door flung open to reveal Daniel, the speaker from the rebel meeting. His dark skin was shiny with sweat and he was breathing hard.
“You’re Charlie?” he asked in a hushed but urgent tone.
“Yes, what –”
“You need to come with me. Quickly,” he demanded. “Harriet sent me.”
“Is she okay?” Charlotte asked, her heart pounding, as she shoved her feet into her boots without bothering to unlace them first.
“Yes. You really need to hurry. There isn’t time to explain, but I have bikes waiting for us downstairs. You can ride, can’t you?”
“Yes, of course, but –”
“Then come on,” he said, grabbing her baseball cap from its peg just inside her door, and handing it to her. Charlotte momentarily registered how it must be mid-day and she hadn’t put on any sunscreen, but she knew better than to protest.
The light was blinding when they stepped out onto the sidewalk, where two bicycles were indeed waiting for them. A man who she’d never seen before was standing holding them – two equally sized and equally rusted bikes that had definitely seen better days. Daniel took hold of one bike, pushing off the curb as he threw his leg over the center bar, and said to her, “Let’s go.”
As Charlotte straddled the other bike, giving the handbrakes a quick squeeze as if to remind herself of how they worked, she wondered how much time had passed since she’d been in her bed, dreaming. Three minutes, maybe? And now here she was, on a bike for the first time in a decade, and following Daniel.
Following Daniel where? Charlotte tried to keep her paranoia in check as Daniel got off to a fast start, stomping his pedals down in a furious motion without so much as a goodbye to the man who had handed over the bikes. A glance over her shoulder revealed that the man was gone out of sight, presumably out of the sunlight. At least in the heat of the day, the streets were practically empty, making it easier to cycle quickly.
They cycled for a solid twenty minutes at a pace that felt like a competitive athlete’s. Charlotte’s thighs were burning from exhaustion and she could feel sweat running down the center of her back. She wondered how long she could hold out before needing to tell Daniel that she wasn’t in the kind of shape he was. Finally, Daniel braked to take a sharp turn into a narrow alley, and resumed pedaling but at a much slower pace. Charlotte caught up to just behind him and huffed, “Where are we going?”
“Keep your voice down. Act natural,” he said.
They were weaving their way through a maze of alleyways in a neighborhood Charlotte had never visited. Her breathing was returning to normal as she was able to take deeper breaths, but her heart was still beating hard. She wanted to know what was awaiting them in this neighborhood – an ordinary-looking place with street after street of brick row houses with tiny windows, some shuttered and some not. It could have been any number of places in London but she knew from the direction they had headed from her apartment that she had never been here.
A brick and stone wall divided the alley from the back yard of the row houses. They had stopped at a seemingly insignificant and unmarked, wrought iron gate. Daniel hopped off his bike to unlatch the gate – which was no wider than a meter – and then walked his bike through the entrance. Charlotte followed. Once in the back yard, they leaned the bikes against the interior wall and hustled to the door. Daniel gave a hard knock and the door swung open.
The doorman had been expecting them. They were ushered inside and the door closed hard behind them.
“This way,” the doorman said to Charlotte. He had a plain look – a fair complexion, typical English features, and grey eyes – but his posture was rigid and this worried her.
Charlotte was led to the kitchen, where Thomas was sitting at the kitchen table. He held his left arm up, his elbow crooked and forearm resting on the top of his head. She could see that his arm was bloody, as was the side of his face, smudges of darkening blood smeared across his cheek.
Her eyes snapped to Harriet, who stood behind Thomas.
“What happened?” Charlotte asked. Thomas looked too pale to answer. Harriet was supporting his upheld arm.
“He needs stitches,” Harriet said. That wasn’t what Charlotte had asked.
“Do you have a medical kit?” Charlotte asked, going to Thomas’ side. She carefully adjusted his arm. A tourniquet had been crudely applied. His shirtsleeve was ripped open and bloody, and through the gap she could see jaggedly cut skin and a deep wound.
Someone brought a kit and placed it on the table. Charlotte took off her button-down shirt, figuring that her tank top would be cleaner and less obstructive. She washed her hands in the sink, which thankfully had hot running water, and found a cloth on which to dry her hands. She hoped it was clean. She searched the kit for a pair of gloves and came up empty, but she kept looking, hoping she could find something to numb him or at least dull the pain.
“What medicine do you have? Antibiotics? Numbing agents?” Charlotte asked.
“We don’t have anything here,” Harriet answered tersely.
Thomas’s eyes were fluttering open and closed and he was groaning wordlessly. This wasn’t going to be pleasant for him.
With Daniel and another man trying their best to hold Thomas still, Charlotte worked as quickly as she could to irrigate the wound and stitch the tissue back together. It wasn’t pretty and the scar would be quite noticeable, but it would hold. There was no way to know yet, though, if the wound had been exposed to infection.
By the time Charlotte finished, her hands and forearms were almost bloody as Thomas. “He needs a transfusion right away,” she told Harriet. “Do you know his blood type?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Daniel answered, rolling up his sleeve. “I’m O-negative.”
Her mouth hung open for a second before she asked in disbelief, “Are you seriously suggesting a direct transfusion? Don’t you have any reserves? Bagged blood that’s been screened? I mean, I can’t imagine this is the first time that something like this –”
“We lost many of our supplies in a raid,” Daniel interrupted, turning a chair around to sit down next to Thomas.
Daniel and Charlotte both looked to Harriet, who gave a sharp nod and said, “Do it.”
With a held back sigh, Charlotte washed her hands again and then set up the transfusion.
Harriet led her to another room and spoke in hushed tones. “Thank you, Charlie.”
Charlotte didn’t know how to react, standing there with Harriet, having minutes ago been covered with the sticky blood of Harriet’s husband coating her hands and forearms. She felt oddly chilled, standing there in her tank top. “Should I expect more of these surprise calls?”
“We needed someone right away and I knew I could count on you,” Harriet said, a slight frown sullying her face.
“I’m sorry. I just would have assumed you had a medic of your own,” Charlotte said to her.
“We used to, until recently,” Harriet said.
Charlotte didn’t ask what she meant. “Are you going to tell me what happened with Thomas?”
“Don’t you think it’s better that you don’t know?” Harriet asked.
Charlotte gave an uncertain shrug in response. She wasn’t indifferent, but rather she didn’t know if she should press Harriet on the topic. “I should monitor them – Thomas and Daniel, I mean,” Charlotte said. “And Thomas will need a course of antibiotics, if you can arrange for that.”
Harriet nodded and left, and Charlotte returned to the kitchen.
After the transfusion was complete, Daniel rolled down his sleeve and helped with supporting Thomas as he was moved to the next room, where a couch had been covered in a sheet for him to lie down. As the others filed out of the room, Harriet again appeared at Charlotte’s side.
“There’s a shower upstairs that you can use, if you want. I’ll show you to it.” Harriet led Charlotte up the wooden staircase.
Once in the bathroom, Charlotte was surprised that Harriet started the shower for her. Harriet moved to lean back against the sink and Charlotte realized she wasn’t eager to get back downstairs. Curious, Charlotte thought. In the midst of the worry and tension and whatever harm had befallen Thomas, perhaps Harriet’s attention was here with her.
Charlotte peeled off her tank top and let it drop to the floor. She paused, her hand hovering over the button of her trousers, and boldly repeated a request she’d once made of Harriet. “Join me,” she said.
Silently, Harriet stepped closer. Her hands covered Charlotte’s. She kissed the side of Charlotte’s neck before her lips paused beside her ear. “Not today,” she whispered. It was the same response she’d given Charlotte the last time she’d made her request.
Harriet stepped away, looking over her shoulder toward the door before saying, “Duty calls.”
#
As Charlotte was toweling off from the shower, someone knocked on the door. “Yes?” she called, hoping it would be Harriet on the other side of the door.