Dark Summer in Bordeaux by Allan Massie Read Free Book Online

him purring. When Lannes entered, Alain closed his notebook and looked up.
    ‘Don’t let me interrupt your work,’ Lannes said.
    ‘It’s nothing, Papa, just notes for an essay.’
    ‘Where are the others?’
    ‘Dominique’s at one of his meetings, the Légion of the Youth of Aquitaine , or some such nonsense. Clothilde went with him. I wish she wouldn’t. And Maman’s in church, praying I suppose.’
    ‘So it’s just you and me.’
    ‘Yes.’
    Lannes had always been able to talk more easily with Alain than with Dominique, but now there was some constraint between them. Curiously it was because they took the same view of the Occupation and of Vichy, and this made Lannes afraid. Anything he said on the subject might encourage Alain to do something rash. No doubt the time might come when acts of resistance were not futile as well as dangerous, but, even if this was so, he knew that he would still hope that Alain did nothing. Love makes cowards of us, he thought. How much better if the boy was to content himself with his rugby, his books and his cat. It wasn’t the hour for d’Artagnan and heroics.
    ‘Do you still see Léon?’ he said.
    ‘Yes of course, he’s my best friend now. Why do you ask?’
    Why couldn’t he reply? Because I suspect he’s in love with you, and that’s dangerous. Because people want to use him and I’m afraid for him and afraid too that somehow you may get caught up in the complications of his life, and this thought makes me ashamed too. Because you are both being robbed of your youth by the stupidity of politicians and the viciousness of the men of power.
    He couldn’t say any of this.
    ‘I’m glad you’re friends,’ he said, ‘I’m sure he needs you and your support. Perhaps you need him too. But be careful. Don’t get involved in anything rash.’
    ‘You sound mysterious, Papa. But we’re not fools, you know. We both realise there’s nothing much to be done now. If you want my opinion, it’s Dominique we should be worried about. Vichy can’t last, I’m convinced of that, and when it’s over there will be a reckoning with those who took its side and engaged in collaboration. So I think you ought to speak to him. And if he’s involving Clothilde . . . ’
    ‘Yes,’ Lannes said, and would have continued but at that moment Marguerite returned.
    ‘I found eggs in the market,’ she said. ‘Alain, I want you to take three round to your grandmother. She likes an egg and I know she hasn’t had any for days.’
    ‘She’d prefer Dominique to do it,’ Alain said.
    ‘Yes, but he’s not here, he’s at his meeting. If you hurry you can do it and be back before the curfew. Besides, she was saying the other day that she never sees you now. So hurry along.’
    ‘All right, all right,’ he said, putting his notebook in his pocket and making a face at his father.
    When he had gone, she said, ‘It’s good for him to do something for other people. I don’t understand him these days. He used to be so eager and lively and now he seems to spend all day moping. Do you think he’s jealous of Dominique? It’s as if he resents his return.’
    ‘Not jealous, no,’ Lannes said. ‘It’s just that they have different ideas.’

    Actually Alain was pleased to have an excuse to be out of the house. He calculated that if he delivered the eggs quickly and cut short his grandmother’s usual litany of complaint by telling her he was only stopping off on his way to an urgent appointment, he would have time to call on Léon in the bookshop and hand over the notebook in which he had been writing what he intended to be the editorial for the first edition of their underground paper; he thought of the editorial as their manifesto. He hadn’t quite lied to his father; ‘nothing much to be done now’ wasn’t exactly the same as ‘nothing to be done’. The old woman tried to detain him, but he managed to get away.
    Léon read what he had written while this time it was Alain who made