jacket, with his normally tousled hair trimmed short and neatly combed, exposing a tender strip of pale skin where it had been cut away from the back of his neck.
‘Jean-Paul! What are you doing here?’ she exclaimed.
He took a step towards her, then hesitated as if unsure how to greet the elegant young woman his little sister had become. But she reached across the space that separated them and put her arms around him, breathing in his scent of woodsmoke and sea salt and feeling an unexpected pang of homesickness as he hugged her back.
‘You look good, Claire.’ He stood back to appraise her, his grey eyes crinkling as his weather-tanned face creased into a smile. ‘Quite the Parisian lady. The city life obviously suits you. I don’t know how you can stand living here, though; too many people and not enough fishing boats for my liking.’ He gestured towards the scuffed canvas duffel bag that leant against Delavigne Couture’s plate glass vitrine. ‘I’m on my way to Germany. Been ordered to report for work in a factory there. I’ve got an hour or so before I have to be at the station, though, so I thought I’d look you up on my way through Paris.’
She took him by the hand. ‘Come up to the apartment, then.’ Taking the key from her bag, she pushed the door open and led the way upstairs. ‘Oh, Jean-Paul, I can’t tell you how good it is to see you. How is Papa? And the others?’
‘Papa is well. Told me to make sure you’re looking after yourself in the big city and getting enough to eat. He sent you these.’
With a grin, from the top of his bag Jean-Paul drew a newspaper-wrapped parcel tied with twine and set it on the table. She opened it to find three mackerel, their skins gleaming, as silver as the sea off the Brittany coastline from which they’d been pulled.
‘And the others? Marc and Théo and Luc?’
Her brother’s face grew serious then and his eyes clouded with sadness. ‘Théo and Luc went to fight when the war was declared. I’m sorry to have to tell you like this, but Luc was killed, Claire, when the Germans broke through the Maginot Line.’
Claire gasped and abruptly sat down on a chair, the colour draining from her face. Her eldest brother, dead for nearly two years and she hadn’t known. ‘And Théo?’ she whispered.
‘We received word that he was captured and kept in a camp for prisoners of war for a while. But when France surrendered he was released, on condition that he work in a German factory. That was the last we heard. I’m hoping that I might be able to find out where he is and request a placement in the same factory so that we can be together. Though I’m not sure whether the Germans will allow that.’
Claire buried her face in her hands and sobbed. ‘Thank God Théo is okay. But Luc . . . gone . . . I can scarcely believe it. Why didn’t you let me know?’
‘Papa did write. He sent a letter, but it was just after the Germans had taken over so it probably got lost in the chaos. And he tried to send you one of those official postcards but it was returned to us marked “inadmis” because he’d written more than the permitted thirteen lines. He’s been knocked sideways by the loss, Claire. You wouldn’t believe how it has aged him. He spends every waking minute out on the boat these days, hardly says a word. Marc and I have been trying to support him. But some days he goes out on his own, in all weathers. Doesn’t even wait for us. It’s like he doesn’t care that he’s taking such risks, almost like he couldn’t care less if he lives or dies.’
He put an arm around Claire and she could feel the definition of his muscles, like twisted strands of rope, beneath the rough cotton of his jacket as she sobbed into his shoulder.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said at last, drawing away to fish a crumpled handkerchief out of his pocket so that she could blow her nose and dry her eyes. ‘Marc has stayed behind to take care of Papa for us all. And I will be closer to Théo very soon. It will make them all happy to know that you are doing so well here in Paris. Maybe send Papa and Marc a postcard now and then