Leslie's Story

by Andrea

 

Part 2

 

Chapter 3: L'Ecole St Germaine

Although over the next year I lost my fear of the girls in my class and even became friendly with many of them, I suppose that for the first two terms at the school the only person I really trusted in my new life had to be Madame Le Blanc, our concierge.

Despite the fact that she herself wore only black - a reminder of her important position in the social structure of L'ecole and also the memory of her Cher Henri, Madame was a dedicated follower of fashion, a skilled seamstress and a complete gossip. Under the stairs, helping her with the darning of the college linen and the repair of the dormitory girls clothes, I learned first not only the basic techniques of crochet, sewing and embroidery but also the language of the couturier and many of the seamy little secrets of the fashion houses of Paris.

During term time the junior school had Thursday afternoons free which happily coincided with Madame's day off. Frequently she would invite me to go with her on her outings. It was fantastic to get out of school uniform and wander through the Paris streets wearing a simple little black dress. I used to fantasise that I was Madame's youngest granddaughter helping her grandmere with the shopping. Sometimes we just went to the market to buy fish or vegetables - she could make the most excellent bouillabaisse - and was it a delight to listen to her bargain with the stallholders. Eventually a satisfactory price would be agreed but it was always qualified with the phrase 'but only for you Madame'. On special occasions we visited some of her old friends in the fashion workshops. I recall memorable visits to the houses of Gebon, Marchand and Toulard. I would sit on the tables munching an apple, usually a gift from a stall holder who was grateful to rid himself of Madame, while Madame and her friends discussed the trends of the day, the peculiarities of this or that designer or the poor hourly rate of truly dedicated seamstresses. Occasionally one of her friends would give her a small swatch of fabric - "Pour votre jeune fille". For endless evenings Madame would regard the fabric and discuss the potential it could have. Eventually she would reluctantly consent to make me a conservative little blouse or a skirt copied from the designs we had looked at in the magazines. She took endless care with the cutting and basting but normally it was I who had to do the hand stitching since Madame's eyes were not what they were. Tante Matilde wasn't ever consulted. She continued to think of me as a child to be dressed in pretty things and trotted out at the weekends. She would not have approved my dressing in the more modern fashions. So I could only wear Madame's little creations when ma Tante was not present. And that was so very rarely.

So autumn waned into winter and winter turned into spring. George the sixth and his handsome wife became king and queen of England in the May of that year and the tragically romantic Duke of Windsor and his American fiancée were married at Le Chateau de Cande the next month. I was happy that my blonde hair grew longer and Madame Le Blanc pleated it into braids. That summer Tante Matilde took me to on a long tour stopping off in Vienna, Berlin and Prague to visit her friends. We went to some fabulous concerts and of course she bought me really pretty clothes. I still remember the outfit I wore to a concert in Berlin. It was pink tulle with a tight waist and had a white sash. Tante Matilde had put my hair in pigtails and tied it with pink ribbons. At the end of the performance a man with a tickly little black mustache kissed my forehead and said I was the perfect 'Arianne Fraulein'. I protested that this was not my name but he swept on with a little wave. Somehow his remark pleased Tante Matilde. Later that evening she sat on my bed and told me about 'Lebensraum' but I'm afraid it was boring and I fell asleep.

By the next year my German was reasonable and my French was fairly fluent but my English was slipping badly. I practiced hard but it was so difficult to remember. Pamela was in stitches when Sister Augusta corrected me for saying "I have goed" instead of "I went". The good thing was that my hair was now past shoulder length and could be curled into a respectable style. Also I was now practiced in etiquette and caused no real embarrassment to Tante Matilde even when she entertained guests in her salon. Surprisingly also I showed some aptitude for mathematics and by the end of the year had achieved good marks in my studies. My friendships with Marie and Antoinette also became closer .. we became a special giggly little group. Bernice and Pamela were part of the set also but a little removed.

At Christmas Tante Matilde and her friend Docteur Bernard took all of us to the circus as a treat. The tent was crowded and unfortunately we were able to purchase only three seats. So Antoinette and Marie had to share a seat and I had to sit on the lap of Docteur Bernard. He was so excited by the acrobats that he clutched my bottom quite tightly.

When the next summer vacance came Pamela went back to Canada. Antoinette went off to Marseilles and Marie asked me to visit her family in Britanny. Tante Matilde gave her blessing very reluctantly. "C'est OK, mais .. but .. don't undress when anyone else is there, even Marie ... It's not .. nice!" So happily Marie and I got on the train to Brittany and shared little secrets until the train stopped at Nantes. There we were met by Marie's papa. M. Gabon was a big man with long moustaches who picked Marie up and turned her round and round then he grabbed me round the waist, lifted me high in the air and kissed me on the cheeks. Ah, Leslee, he said, Marie has told us you are her very special friend. Then he packed us into a big Citroen and drove us to their home. Mdme Gabon was waiting at the door. "Allo, Leslee", she said and pulled me forward cradling my head between her ample breasts.

The vacation was marvelous. The Gabon's were wonderful people. However, I remembered what my aunt had said and when everyone went swimming I said I had a headache and stayed in my room. Too bad, said M. Gabon, when they got back. He took me on his knee and patted me on the bottom to show me he was truelly sorry. He was a really nice man.

School started in September but Marie had to go to Nantes to visit her Grandparents so I had to take the train to Paris by myself. It was warm and I wore a print summer frock with a collar of lace for the journey. From Lyon I had to share an apartment with three American soldiers. They were strange people with very peculiar accents but I welcomed the chance it gave me to practice my english. One asked me if I had a little blonde pussy.

"Mais non Monsieur, in the apartment where I live sadly one cannot own a cat, the only cat is that of the concierge and it is very old and completely black."

For some reason they all laughed and slapped each other on the shoulders. I felt a little embarrassed. When we were near to Le Gare du Lyon one of the soldiers asked me to close the compartment window. I had to stretch up to do this and as I did so he whispered to his friend that he could see the cutest little ass imaginable. I looked out of the window but all I could see were the houses of the outskirts of Paris -- I felt myself go red in the face. How totally ignorant he must be,

"Monsieur, surely even you must recognise that it is totally impossible that there could be even a small donkey kept so close to the centre of Paris!"

When he laughed again I was even more embarrassed - and realised that somehow he had made a fool out of me. However, I got my own back - just as we pulled into the station he pulled out his pipe and asked "Tell me little girlie, if I wish to smoke how do I ask permission from the Frenchies?" I thought for a moment and then whispered, "You must point to yourself and say loudly 'Je suis un fumier' - everyone will understand."

As I walked down the platform I could hear shrieks of laughter coming from the carriage. I suppose he thought he'd asked if he could smoke! Really, I could not see how persons permitted to fire guns could be so very stupid.

That September I asked Tante Mathilde if I could move into the dormitory with Marie and the other girls but she said no. I screamed and had a real temper tantrum and slammed the door of my room twice, but she said if I kept this up I was no young lady and she would have to send me away. Alternatively she reminded me that she still had the rubber panties waiting in the closet for naughty little girls who disagreed with their aunt. So I determined that I would have to wait another year before tackling her again.

In December it was Antionette's thirteenth birthday party and we were all invited. Marie's mother sent her a cheque for a whole fifty francs for party clothes. We decided that we would ask to go shopping on the Thursday. When I told Tante Matilde she gave me permission to accompany Marie but required that one of the monitors from the senior school must chaperone us. She suggested Valerie Baldet who was a particular favourite of hers and who frequently visited the apartment. Valerie was a real pain and it was with true sadness that we found that she had viola practice that particular afternoon. So we asked Catherine Lamberg, who was Marie's cousin and she agreed. That was great since we knew Catherine was boy crazy and would ignore us completely and spend the day ogling every young man she past in the street. Unfortunately I was not so fortunate in extracting money for my outfit. Tante Matilde insisted that I had a large collection of suitable dresses. This wasn't true since everything she had bought me was very childish and old fashioned. But I knew better than to argue. I compromised and was able to get six francs for a new pair of stockings and twelve francs for a pair of shoes.

"But no shiny shoes, ma petite, remember the boys can see your knickers reflected in the shiny shoes!"

Marie and I went shopping. We almost visited every store in the centre of Paris. Catherine soon got bored and told us she was going to walk to the park where we could meet her at six o'clock. Finally Marie bought a dark blue party dress from LeChaups with a tight bodice which accented her budding breasts. With Catherine out of the way we visited a lingerie boutique where we both bought absolutely sheer stockings. Marie insisted that she had to buy new underwear to match her outfit. She chose a pair of silky blue panties to complement her dress while I looked longingly at a pretty pair of pink silk knickers with little white lace frills. Still I couldn't afford them and a pair of shoes. While we were standing in the line waiting to pay Marie whispered "Leslee, I can't understand why aren't wearing a brassiere yet. Doesn't your aunt realise that at our age you just have to have a bra for support" That was the first I'd realised that there was such a thing. "Look" Marie said, "I've got eight francs left, why don't you pick out a bra for yourself." So we went back into the shop and looked through the rails until I found a little white bra. Then the shoe shop - While Marie bought suede pumps I just threw caution to the winds and bought the shiniest pair of patent leather shoes that they had in the shop. Predictably Catherine was just where we thought she'd be - sitting in the park watching the boys. Honestly, for a girl of seventeen, she needed lessons.

Tante Matilde was out when I got back to the apartment. I bathed and got dressed for Antionette's party. I certainly wasn't going to wear any of the 'little girlie' dresses that my aunt would have chosen so I decided on a short pleated black skirt which Madame had made and a white blouse. It was impossible to find a pair of knickers short enough in my cabinet so I decided to do without. After all if you are not wearing underwear no one can see its reflection in your shoes. I had to cut up an old pair of cullottes to get enough elastic to construct a pair of garters for my new stockings. Most of my petticoats were too long for my skirt but I was able to salvage one which I'd grown out of. I had thought about letting my hair down but finally decided to tie it up in two little bows. Since Tante Matilde still wasn't back I sneaked into her room, opened her makeup case and used her lipstick. The shade was a little too red but it looked very grown up. I twisted in front of the mirror. My nipples felt tight and I was really sure my breasts were growing but even with the new brassiere I was so disappointingly flat chested. I certainly wasn't developing nearly as fast as the other girls in my class. So I padded my bra with a few sheets of toilet tissue. Not enough that anyone would really notice but enough to make my breasts point out just a tiny little bit. Then I bounced downstairs to show myself off to Madame Le Blanc.

"Hello Madame, Lesley ici, je suis jolie n'est pas?" and I pirouetted in the stairwell before her window showing her the stockings above my knees.

Madame Le Blanc looked at me, carefully. "Oui, Leslee.. Mais.. but where are you going?"

"Oh, to Antionette's party, all the girls are going to be there and we will have a lot of fun"

She shrugged her shoulders, "OK, d'accord, mais.. but .. no boys, pas garcons - and do not be late!"

"D'accord Madame, tout les garcon sont sale!"

So off I went down the street to the party. It was great. Antionette had her hair pleated in coloured ribbons and was wearing a straight dress that obviously came from Gusants' and must have cost the absolute earth. Pamela, that obvious little bitch, now had her hair cut even shorter than mine had been last year, and was wearing an almost totally transparent white blouse and a cheap little blue skirt which looked like it came from an American catalog. Her little breasts bounced when she danced. "Regardez Quebec Libre" joked Marie. But no one really cared. We danced and talked and giggled and then Antionette brought out a bottle of liquor that she had liberated from her papa's cellar. Then we danced again until Adrienne produced some pills she'd got from her brother. Things got a little wilder after that. I remember Marie put her arms round my waist and asked me to dance. We danced like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and Marie put her hands on my derriere. We rubbed our bodies against each other in time to the music. At that moment Marie was so pretty and perfect and despite the fact that we had full skirts between us I could feel a pulsing sensation and my thoughts were focused visions of her derriere encased in the shear silk of the pretty blue panties she'd bought. Finally we kissed each other on the mouth like in the movies and then I held both her hands behind her back and kissed her on her neck. She pretended to be shocked but when we broke apart she smiled and held my arm. It was nice to make her happy like that. Quelle partie!

I walked back to the apartment at eleven o'clock. Madame Le Blanc was still awake and a little anxious. "Where have you been so late, Leslee? I was worried."

"O, Madame, you are silly. I was at Antionette's party. We danced, we had fun. Antionette was lovely. Madame, she had ribbons in her hair and her dress was silk. Do you think Tante Matilde would allow me to have a silk dress? Marie was fabulous also, she is now a special friend. I am so happy and will tell Tante Matilde everything thing that happened, and .... "

"Enough, enough, ma petite, Mads'elle Matilde has company," she interrupted. "and I t'ink you had best be quiet, comme un petit mouse, d'accord! "

I took off my shoes in the hall and crept up the stairs. As I opened the door of the apartment I could hear Tante Matilde talking to someone. So I tiptoed up the second stair and slowly opened the door to my room. I didn't dare turn on the light but undressed in the dark. I hung my skirt and blouse at the back of my closet and I threw the petite brassiere, the stockings and shoes under my bed. Then I washed my face, brushed out my hair and changed into my nightdress. I thought of going to bed immediately but I could still hear voices from downstairs. So Florence and I went out and sat on the landing. We sat there with my legs dangling between the rails. Although it was dark in the corridor below I could see the shape of Tante Matilde and her companion standing at the apartment door. They were standing very close and Tante Matilde had her arm round her friend's waist. Then they turned and kissed each other with passion. Quelle romance. Then the door opened and in the light from the stairway I could see the face of Valerie Baldet as she turned down the passageway. I decided that this was a good time to go to bed but as I snuggled up to Florence I was glad to know that, just like me and Marie, Tante Matilde had also found an extra special friend to cuddle.

Early the next morning, before washing and combing my hair, I rescued the shoes, stockings and the pretty little brassiere and hid them in a shoe box at the back of the closet. Then I dressed in my school uniform and was sitting demurely at the breakfast table in the blue skirt and blouse when Tante Matilde came down. "Bon matin, Tante Matilde." I said. She stared at me as she sat down, "Bon Matin, Leslie; mais... I believe you were home late last night. May I enquire as to when you returned to the apartment?"

"Ma Tante, I was at the birthday party of Antionette, I had a fantastic time but it was not very late when I returned. I believed you to be asleep - and I did not hear a sound from the parlour so I went immediately to bed. And did you have a good evening? And, Ma chere Tante, I just have to have good silk stockings since all the girls have them and I am quite desolute - please - I emplore you "

This was quite enough for Tante Matilde, "D'accord, Leslie, you will have silk stockings when and if you finally grow up. For now your clothing is most adequate! Now, have you learned the lecon mathematique for the class this day?"

 

Madame Le Blanc and I continued our friendship although I think about it the affection was mainly mine. I would help her whenever I had the time and there was ever so much work to do. To earn a few extra francs she washed and repaired the clothing of a few of the teachers and that of some of the girls of the senior school. As her eyesight was getting worse it frequently meant that I did the sewing. Actually I became very skillful. I loved the feel of the soft cloth between my fingers and enjoyed learning new stitches. By the time I was thirteen I could do hand-picoting and padded satin stitching on delicate fabrics and I had mastered Bruge and Richelieu cut-work even on crepe-de-Chine. I earned extra money sewing lace trimmings and working monogramed initials on the lingerie of some of the older girls. When I delivered them to the school dormitories, Madame being normally indisposed by virtue of her requirement for a medicinal glass of wine after lunch, the big girls used to tease me and boast about their experience of the world. Catherine would say "Of course, as a silly little girl who still plays with dolls you will not understand, but I am now a woman and all the men look at me and many would wish to entertain a 'l'assaince amourous' if I was so inclined. However I have decided to save myself for the perfect man." These comments made me furious, but as I was growing up now I held my tongue. After all it would not be polite to tell the silly bitch that she had a big nose and that the only man she was likely to entice would be one who was as blind as she was stupid.

As the year wore on I took increased interest in my Thursday afternoon visits to Madame's friends in the fashion houses. The clatter of those old Cazal sewing machines, the chatter of the girls at the benches and the smell of the workshops excited me. Now and again I would dare to ask Madame Bertald or one of the others to instruct me in a stitching technique and sometimes one of these delightful ladies would take the time to show me one or other of the little secrets of seamstress's trade. One day in late April, when we were leaving her workshop Madame Bertald slipped a brown parcel under my coat. "Madame Le Blanc tells me it is your birthday soon, Leslee. Here is a little something special - see what you can make." I clutched the parcel close to my chest all the way home and ran up to my room. What a special surprise. Here were two metres of the most exquisite piece of silk that was ever created. It's champagne colour shimmered in the light and when you rubbed it against your face it was as soft as a feather. For weeks I just looked at it, touched it and wrapped it round my body in diaphanous folds. To attempt to cut it or soil its delicate surface with the stab of a needle would be a sin punishable by eternal damnation in the fires of Hell for ever and ever. When I met Madame Bertald several weeks later she asked me how my project was progressing and I had to admit that I was terrified of starting. "C'est understandable, ma petite. But you must realise that the fabric is meant to be cut, only when it fashioned into a garment of elegance will it become truly alive. See, here is Maria cutting a pattern of M. Gaston, our patron, the material it is priceless, as there is none more manufactured. But Maria, who earns only ten francs a week, will cut it with exact certainty, and then Sophie, who earns only a few sous more, will sew it to his customer's specification. It is simple - the skill of our profession can transform a shapeless 'Grande Dame' into 'une femme fatale' and M. Gaston will be two thousand francs richer. But I understand your little problem. Perh'ps you could discretely regard Le Patron's pattern book I stupidly left on my bureau while I take Madame Le Blanc for a small promenade to the Cafe du Lion. There is a pencil and paper in the drawer." The book was magic, in the wrong hands it would fetch a million francs. My hands moved frantically, sketching the lines and cut of one of the next seasons creations. I could see the silk take shape as I pushed the pencil over the paper. When the ladies returned I was shivering. "You were not too bored waiting here, Leslee?" said Madame Bertald. "But no, Madame, I am quite content." The ladies smiled. Marie looked up from her work as I left and cautioned, "Don't copy that particular pattern too closely, Leslee, it requires to be gathered more at the waist and the shoulders will require some work." Then she bent her head to the exact precision that was worth only ten francs each week.

That evening I copied and recopied the drawing I had made onto my pad from the art class. Maria, bless her immortal soul, was correct. The fabric required to breathe more easily and the design was too economical. With a more pronounced pinch to the waist and a fold on the shoulders it would definitively be 'plus naturale'. Fortunately Tante Matilde was going to Deauville for the week. I feinted a headache and sadly couldn't go. So I was able to spent the Saturday afternoon cutting a paper pattern from old newspapers. By the early evening I was able to make the first cut and as Marie had told me it was easy from then on. My fingers flew across the fabric and by midnight the dress was finished. I sat and looked at it for hours - it was so pretty. As I drifted to sleep I decided that I would have to 'promenade' wearing the dress the very next day.

Next morning I had my breakfast with Madame Le Blanc but between the obligatory two croissants realised that there was a little flaw in my plan. I had the perfect couturier dress but absolutely no accessories! It would be inconceivable to compliment such an exquisite creation with the accessories of a little girl. So since there was no alternative, I raided the trays in the school laundry. I borrowed Dominique Monquant's white lace bra and panties and Pauline Feuland's suspender belt. Then I crossed the road and visited the bathrooms of the senior dormitories where I purloined a pair of white gloves and a pair of silk stockings which were hanging up to dry.

I ran back to the apartment and locked the door behind me with some relief. Then I changed. The silly little skirt and blouse I'd been wearing that morning were consigned to the closet and my awful blue schoolgirl's knickers thrown in the laundry. I had a bath augmented with liberal quantities of Tante Matilde's bath salts, washed and dried my hair brushing in liberal quantities of Henna oil to made it shine and finally, standing naked in front of the mirror in ma Tante's room, I sprayed myself from head to foot with her most expensive cologne. I spent a long time deciding about my hair style but eventually decided to curl it up with ma tante's tongs. How indulgent! Finally I dressed. But, quelle horror! I found that I had cut the bodice of the dress a little too generously and that my tiny breasts were quite flat and inadequate. This problem I solved by an ingeneous means. I sewed two flat cotton panels, cut from the hem of my nightgown, inside Dominique's bra and filled the space in between with dry lentils taken from Madame's kitchen. Honestly this required almost half a kilo of lentils. I had no idea that Dominique was so well developed.

When I ventured into the street I cut a really stylish figure. I enjoyed the furtive, admiring glances from the men I passed in the street. C'est tres bonne to be 'une jeune fille du Paris'! I caught the tramcar to the jardin zoologique and queued to pay my entrance. My courage almost faltered when the custodian stopped me. "I must apologise for troubling you Mads'elle, but you only paid for un enfant - the price for an adult is two francs." I handed over the extra franc realising that I would now have to walk home. What a problem to be an adult!

However my irritation at being overcharged was counterweighted by the delight that I obviously passed for being over seventeen. I was no longer a 'petite fille' I was now a stylish 'jeune femme.' This was reinforced only five minutes later when suddenly I encountered Bernice Marquet and her parents. Bernice was wearing a silly little sailor's outfit with a hideous collar and her eyes just bulged out from her head when she recognised me. I could have ignored them but I was a real little bitch. As we passed I said "Allo Bernice, et Bonjour Mousieur et Madame Marquet. Je pense Bernice est une tres joile jeune fille aujourdhui" They stopped, and while Bernice looked at her shoes and wished me dead and rotting in Hell for a thousand years, her mama and papa chatted quite amicably. They obviously thought I was one of the older girls in the school. Finally I had to make a break for it before I dissolved in laughter so I waved my hand in the air towards a group of young men standing in front of the Lion enclosure. "I'm so very sorry Bernice, but here is my fiancé and I have to go." With that I walked towards the enclosure. I could feel the critical eyes of Bernice's papa on my legs and bottom as I left them and when I turned round at the Lion enclosure, out of the corner of my eye, I could see Bernice still staring at me in the faint hope that I would soon die.

I thought to disappear at that point but fate intervened. Fate's name was Jean-Claude. He was about nineteen or twenty years old, drop-dead gorgeous and two metres tall with broad shoulders and eyelashes that you would kill for. His suit was impeccably tailored and he wore a broad silk tie of the latest fashion. He was standing across the pathway and when I tried to pass he touched my arm. "Why are you in such a hurry Mads'elle, did you not wave to me?" I was suddenly absolutely flustered and quite embarrassed and whispered a weak response. "I waved, but it was, of course, not to you, Mousieur, I waved to a female friend, une amie, who stood behind you" He glanced round and then smiled, and his teeth were white and perfect. "But Mads'elle, your friend seems to have deserted you - So perhaps you will permit me to walk with you until we find her" And then, before I could protest, he took my arm in his and guided me through the park telling me little secrets about the animals. Having visited the park with Soeur Bernedette on numberous previous occasions I knew much of what he said was total rubbish but he was so absolutely charming and so flattering that I quite forgave him! I told him my name was Angelique and that I was a student of music. Eventually we reached the gate cafe and he insisted on buying me a coffee and a gateaux. We were still sitting there talking when Bernice Marquet and her parents passed. Bernice was looking at me so I quickly pecked Jean-Claude on the cheek. Afterward it was awkward to get away - Jean-Claude held on to my arm and protested that he wanted to see me soon - and I had to tell him that I lived with an old aunt and it was difficult for me to get away. We eventually arranged to meet in the same cafe on the Sunday afternoon of the next week at four o'clock.

Although Jean-Claude wished to walk me home I bid him goodbye at the tram stop. I only had the fare for two stages and had to get off at Notre Dame and walk the rest of the way. But I was in love and five kilometres isn't far when you are walking on air. I came to the apartment and climbed the stairs. After I'd hung up my new dress I picked up Florence and stuck her firmly into the back of the closet. I'd done with all the little girlie things. My dreams were wonderful.

When I walked into Souer Marie-Claire's class the next morning I could hear whispers from the rest of the girls but I kept my head up. Eventually, at the break, Marie accosted me, saying "Bernice tells me that you are having a liasance with an elegant jeune homme but it obviously cannot be true, so since I am still your best friend and you have not told me, you had better please explain!" So I told Marie, in total secrecy, the absolute truth. That is, that on Sunday I had gone to the park to look at the animals but there, much to my surprise, I had met a very rich and handsome young gentleman who had became enchanted with my beauty and charm and immediately proposed marriage. However, I while I told him that this was impossible since I did not want to marry young, this particular young man was so madly obsessed with me that he desired to kill himself if I would not be his immediately. Of course Marie did not breath a word of this to anyone - but somehow it seemed to leak out and by the end of the week I had become the tragic, romantic heroine of the junior school.

Tante Matilde came home on the Saturday. She was full of the joy of life and even had a present for me. Her present was a serious problem. It was a little sailor suit just like Bernice's. On the next Sunday she insisted that I wear it to go out and she also tied my hair in little bows with navy blue cotton ribbons. I looked like a tiny child! But the absolute total horror was when she announced that she and her friend Madame DuChand had decided that on Sunday we should all visit the jardin zoologuique as a special treat. I tried to say I was sick again but that was to no avail. I was dragged to the park and had the most miserable afternoon. But worse was to come. Tante Matilde insisted that we had coffee at the cafe. It was exactly 3.45pm. As I sat holding my glass of milk and looking at my shoes who should I see coming into the cafe but Jean-Claude. I had to get away. I broke into the ladies conversation, "Ma Tante, please I have to go to the bathroom, please excuse me!" and with that I darted off. But quelle horrore - when I got round the corner Jean-Claude was standing infront of me. I tried to evade him but he caught my arm as I passed. I looked up into his soft brown eyes and my knees felt weak. "Excuse me jeune fille" he said "I came here looking for a friend, a young lady called Angelique, but I cannot find her. However you are so like her that I know that she must be her younger sister. Please tell me where she is." He looked so forlorn, so like a little lost puppy, that my heart almost stopped. I could not bear to see him so sad. So I told him the absolute, total truth. I told him that I was indeed Angelique's sister but that she was currently indisposed. In fact our wicked aunt had found out about her liasance with him and had locked her in her room. So she was both desolated and heartbroken. He believed it all and told me that I must tell Angelique that he was her slave. Then he took a little pocket book from his jacket and scribbled a little note for me to give to her. I put it in my garter and promised to deliver it.

Later, in my chamber, I unfolded the note and put it on the bed. It said "Ma Cherie, do not despair. Please come to the Parc de Rolance on Tuesday at lunch time if you can." The note was signed Jean-Claude and there were three darling little crosses under his signature. How romantic. I slept with the note under my pillow.

The next evening I composed a long reply. I told him that I was most flattered by his attention and devotion but that my aunt had found out about our meeting and had forbade me to see him ever again. She was very strict and had struck me when I protested. However I was sending him this note, carried by my sweet little sister, to assure him of my affection. I signed it 'Angelique' and put four little crosses under signature. Then I put it in a pink envelope and sprayed it with my aunt's Eau de Cologne.

On the Tuesday I excused myself from the lunch table in the school canteen and ran all the way to the park. Jean-Claude was siting at a bench. He was dressed in a brown suit and wore a matching homburg. I sat down beside him and passed him the letter which he read in silence. He was obviously moved. Then, at last, he sighed and asked me about my sister. I told him a long story about how our rich parents had perished in the Hindenburg disaster and that we now had to live with our aunt who was most cruel and had taken all our money. That Angelique was very talented but because of that and her beauty our aunt was very jealous and constantly punished her for no reason. Moreover, when our aunt had found out about Jean-Claude she had struck her on the face and told her that she must never see him again. When Angelique refused our aunt threatened that she would strike me also. Angelique had been so brave and so very strong and told our aunt that she could do what she wished with her but if she struck her little sister she would kill herself. At this point I thought I'd gone too far but Jean-Claude was obviously believing all of it since his beautiful brown eyes filled with tears. Finally he said, "Jeune Fille, I adore and worship your sister. She is the most beautiful and courageous girl on the earth. Please tell her that I have to see her again." Then he asked me to meet him in the park the next Tuesday when he would give me letter for Angelique. Finally he grasped both my hands and kissed me on the cheeks.

I was almost late for afternoon class but as I sat down I realised that some of the girls were whispering at the back of the room. Pamela came up to me at the break and said, "So it is true, Leslee, you have a lover - Bernice followed you to the park and tells me that he is a very handsome garcon." Of course my stock rose enormously after that - I was now confirmed as the femme fatale of the class and everyone was jealous. I was walking on a cloud.

The gossip even spread to the senior school and when I delivered their laundry on the Saturday morning the big girls didn't tease me so much but involved me in their conversation. Even Catherine de Lamberg was pleasant. But the main topic of discourse was sadly not my romance but about how Valerie Baldet had had to leave the school earlier that week. Catherine swore me to secrecy and told me that Valerie had confided in her and told her that she was ruined and that her parents would not have anything to do with her. Apparently Valerie had gone to a sanitorium in Switzerland. Somehow Catherine found that funny and giggled. I felt it was sad that Valerie was ill. However I also thought it my duty to inform Marie and Antoinette of the news - if only to confirm in their eyes that I was a confidant of the senior girls.

The next Tuesday I met Jean-Claude in the park and received the promised letter. He was relieved to hear that Angelique was well and that she sent her love. From the corner of my eye I could see Marie, Antionette and Bernice hiding in the bushes so I asked Jean-Claude to give me little kiss so that I could relate it to his sweetheart. He kissed me full on the lips. It was totally perfect. From then on my position in the school was completely assured. I had a handsome lover and everyone knew!

Jean-Claude's letter was more problematique. He was obsessed with Angelique and swore to rescue her and 'her sweet little sister' from our evil aunt. He proposed a liasance at 'Le Tour d'Argent' for Saturday night at eight o'clock when he knew from her sister that her aunt would be away. Me and my big mouth. I'd told Jean-Claude that Tante Matilde was going to Valence on Saturday. But... c'est vrai .. Tante Matilde really was going away .. and 'Le Tour d'Argent' was one of the most fashionable and expensive restaurants in all of Paris. It was too tempting to resist. I mailed him a note accepting the invitation and went to bed dreaming of dancing in his arms.

The next morning I was in absolute, total panic. I had nothing to wear. The day dress I had made for the trip to the zoo was not at all suitable and even if it was possible to obtain an evening dress pattern from Madame Bertald's workbench I could not even afford the thread, far less the material, to make a suitable costume. So I had to compromise. I raided my aunt's wardrobe and rescued an old evening dress she had worn until last year. Then I cut it down to size, completely resewing the skirt and bodice, until - even with jaundiced, tired eyes - it was a satisfactory fit. It was a lot of work and I had barely finished the dress by the Saturday afternoon. But when I dressed that evening it was almost perfect, a swirling creation of white silk which showed off my legs (and Domique's bust) to their best advantage. When I leant towards the mirror and crossed my arms I almost had a cleavage. I pushed myself against the mirror, pushing my breasts forward, imagining Jean-Claude's firm body crushed against mine, and I kissed the reflected image of my lips on the glass. It was 'tres sensual'.

I finished my toilette with a liberal application of Tante Matilde's perfume and then purloined pair of her high heeled court shoes. Since I only had ten francs in the world I couldn't take a cab and so I took the tram to the stop round the corner from the restaurant. I hid behind the taxi rank, for almost half an hour, until I saw Jean-Claude arrive. Then, with some effort I persuaded a sullen taxi driver to deliver me to the front of Le Tour d'Argent. He protested violently about a fare of one hundred metres but finally when I gave him two francs he agreed. So I arrived in style.

Jean-Claude was quite ecstatic. As I got out of the taxi he kissed my hand and held it to his breast. Slowly I realised that he wasn't wearing evening clothes but only the afternoon suit he had previously worn when we met at the zoo. Surely he must know that we would not be admitted to the restaurant if he was wearing such attire. Then he took my arm and walked me down the street. It was obvious we weren't going to Le Tour. As we walked he passionately explained that he adored me and that although he realised that his social class was lower than mine he would do anything for me. He was, he explained, in reality only a simple clerk for the railways but that he was my devoted slave. We walked for ages and Tante Matilde's shoes were killing me. I protested that I was tired and hungry. Finally we sat down at a small cafe and he ordered a bowl of soup and some bread for me and a café cognac for himself. He swore his eternal love for his darling Angelique but finally he had to explain that he hadn't enough money and so I would have to pay. So I sat there, in full evening dress, furious with myself, listening to this beautiful, idiotic boy who had absolutely no money and no prospects try to assure me of his undying love. Finally the proprietor asked us to pay the bill and when I could offer him only my remaining three francs he started shouting and ordered us to leave immediately. Jean-Claude steered me round the corner into an alley. There he pressed me up against a wall and kissed me rather brutally, pushing his tongue into my mouth. As he did so his knee moved between my legs and his hand clasped my left breast squeezing it and tearing my bodice. I could have laughed because I knew he was only squeezing two hundred grams of lentils but instead I got quite angry and told him to stop it immediately. This only made him more passionate and he bit my neck. That was the last straw. I raised my knee swiftly and as he pulled back and I kicked him firmly between the legs. He moaned like a cow and sat down on the pavement. Then I ran off.

It was a long way home and I was really tired. Also I had broken the heel of one of my shoes somewhere and the walking was difficult. The congac hadn't helped. Several men tried to talk to me and offer assistance but I was determined to ignore them and get home on my own. It took over three hours and when I eventually got into the school buildings I was exhausted and just wanted to go to bed and cry my heart out. However when I got into the apartment I realised that the evening was only just beginning.

Tante Matilde was waiting in the hallway. She was dressed only in her housecoat and chemise and she was really drunk. I thought she might be angry, but I was wrong, she was absolutely furious. She dragged me into the apartment by the front of my bodice. "Lesley.. if I live to be a hundred .. I will never die more deaths .. what has happened .. And where did you get that dress! And those shoes! And is this lipstick!" With that she touched my bodice and discovered that I was wearing a brassiere. That really made her mad. "You are a tart!" she screamed "You dress like a whore from Marseilles! She pushed me down the hall towards the parlor. I stood there tottering on my feet, the broken heel making it difficult to stand up properly, while she clutched onto the rail of the stair for support and reviled me.

"And who is it we see here?" she said waving a half empty cognac bottle in front of my face, "C'est Leslee. Ici the child of passion. And what have you done tonight Ma Cherie? Since you are a proper 'jeune fille' so you have probably dined with most important people and discussed the current political situation. But," and here she grabbed me by the shoulder and whispered in my ear, "P'rhaps you 'ave been suck'ng the cocks of les mendicants under the bridges?" I tried to break free and get up the stairs but her grip was too strong and she dragged me into the parlor. "Please regard yourself, Ma Petite" she said and thrust me up to the mirror in the corner. She stood behind me and put one of her hands on my neck and her other hand drifted over my bodice. "Look, Leslie, how pretty you look - but what is this - Oh! How you must have grown. But there is a mistake here which requires some rectification." Her fingers cupped my bodice, softly at first but then they tightened and clutched the fabric. With a sudden movement she ripped open the top of my dress and laid bare the false brassiere. The stitching of my bra tore open a little and in the mirror I could see lentils slowly trickling out of the rip. They ran down my chest onto the floor. I was so ashamed. But Tante Matilde was amused. "I think your boyfriend must be a vegetarian, Leslee. Tell me are you one also? Do you fondle his pears and suck his firm cucumber? But wait, that is not possible for I see that there is a mark on your neck which tells me he may be a vampire!" Then she laughed, sat down on the chair and had another swig at her bottle. I was looking down at my feet wondering was coming next and knowing that it would be terrible. It was.

Tante Matilde finally tired of ridiculing me and decided on action. She grabbed my hair with one hand and twisted it round her hand till I cried out and got down on my knees. Then she pulled me across the room and made me bend over the large table. I struggled but she was very strong and she tied curtain cords round each of my wrists and pulled them round the opposite legs of the table. She pulled the cords so tight that my stomach was resting flat on the table top and my feet could only just touch the floor. I was screaming by now so she ripped off my panties and stuffed them into my mouth. I couldn't move anything except my legs so I kicked them up and down and tried to make it difficult for her to hit me. But it was useless. She grabbed first one ankle then the other and fastened them to the back legs of the chair with the old handcuffs that hung on the wall near the fireplace. "Well, my little darling p'rhaps you need to be taught a lesson". I was trapped there squirming and helpless and dreading the beating with her hairbrush that was sure to follow. The reality was far worse. Through my sobbing I could hear her voice. It was hard and throaty as if she was having trouble with her breathing. "Pauvre, Petite Leslee," she whispered, "You are so very, very innocent. I think you now require a lesson in the real world." With that she waved the gendarme's baton in front of my face. "Perhaps this reminds you of something, ma petite." Then she walked behind me and I could feel the hardness of the baton as she rubbed it up my thighs and between my legs. She did this for ages and as she did her voice became thicker. "Poor tight little Lesley," she slurred and then she disappeared into the kitchen. In the mirror I could see her sway in the doorway carrying a bottle of olive oil. Then she started to rub me between the legs with the oil, her oily fingertips probing and entering my anus. I can still hear her voice as she said "What a tight petit cul you have". I tried to scream and choked. She held me firmly round the waist and I could feel something hard tearing into me. The pain was unendurable. Successive waves of pain racked my entire body as I felt the hard thick baton thrust repeatedly into me, burying itself inside me. I wanted to faint. Finally it was over. Ma tante said "Let that be a lesson to you, You little tart!" and she went out and slammed the door.

It took me more than an hour to wriggle free of the ropes and undo the handcuffs and the gag. I lay on my stomach on the floor for another hour. I was sore and torn up inside and when I touched myself between the legs I was horrified to see blood on my hands. Finally I was able to crawl and as I did I found that bloody baton under my fingers. I was so full of hate that I think I lost my mind. Pushing open Tante Matilde's door I saw that she was lying on the bed. I flew at her and beat her with the baton. I must have hit her a thousand times. She was moaning and swearing and trying to get up so I picked up the brass poker from the fireside and hit her with that. Blood spurted from her head but that only made me more angry and I kept on hitting her, over and over, until she was completely still.

When it was finished I went upstairs and washed. There were bloodstains all over my clothes but I couldn't be sure where they had come from. After I'd washed I took all my soiled clothes downstairs and fed them to the boiler fire in the basement. Then I crawled upstairs to bed and cried myself to sleep.

In the morning I was woken up by Madame Le Blanc. I was still half asleep, having had horrible dreams, when I realised she was in a state of shock. "Awake, awake, Leslee - there has been a horrib'l disaster - les gendarmes sont ici - your dear aunt has been murdered by a burglar." So it was true. I got up and dressed in my school clothes. I hurt inside and couldn't walk without assistance. When I got downstairs I was interviewed by a sympathetique agent de police who revealed to me that my aunt must have intercepted a burglar who bluggened her to death with a police baton and then a fireside poker. It was so very sad and I must be distracted with grief. So I cried and then I went downstairs with Madame while the police searched the apartment. The next day the investigating magistrate came to see me and explained in simple terms - that they were looking at the case thoroughly, but it was complicated by the fact that the murder of my aunt wasn't exactly 'a normal case' and so there were many complications to the crime. However, this should be of little consequence to me. It seemed that a tall man who might be likely to be the culprit had been seen in the neighborhood and an arrest was imminent. Meanwhile, since their examination was complete, if it was not too painful for me, I could go back to the apartment after the funeral.

So ended Tante Matilde, but even when I tried hard I couldn't shed a single tear for her soul. I hated her so much. They laid her out in the school chapel and I had to keep vigil with the nuns. Finally everyone left and I had her to myself. She looked so innocent in her coffin, her badly bruised face was covered with a veil and she was dressed in frilly white satin up to her neck - but I had other plans. Revenge. Late that night I undressed her corpse. Funnily enough, although she had always appeared to have a statuesque figure I found that she wore falsies, and was really quite flat chested. I cut off all her hair and dripped hot candle wax over her face and body. Then I pulled the hated rubber panties over her knees - but before I pulled them over her bottom - I pushed the biggest candle I could find right up her hole – hammering it home with my shoe. Finally I kissed her on the lips and when I closed the lid I said, "Rest in Hell, Ma Tante."

I was terrified that someone would open the coffin before the funeral but the undertakers came early and took it away. Madame Le Blanc accompanied me to the graveside and I had to throw a bunch of flowers into the grave as the coffin was lowered. I wore my black velvet dress and a black veil over my hair and, although I was laughing insanely inside, I tried to look most desolated and distressed. Afterwards we went to a small hotel for the wake. I had expected to see ma Tante's friends but there were very few people there except for the staff from the school. A few people approached me and said cryptically how tragic it was, but that they had no idea .. , but peut etre it was for the best and I should not be so very upset.

Madame had the notion that I should sleep downstairs with her that night but I insisted that I would be happier in my own room. Eventually she acquiesced to my plea. I had thought a lot about my future and realised there were serious things to sort out. It obviously was only a matter of time before the police realised they had been fooled and then they would arrest me, so I had to get away. When I got in the apartment I locked and bolted the door. Then I raided my aunt's room. There was nothing in the cabinets or under the bed. Finally I searched the closet. I probed the walls and floorboards until I found a loose board at the back of the closet. It took some effort to pry it free and although I broke a fingernail in the process I eventually managed. Behind it was a small box. The contents were mainly letters. I didn't read any but the most recent which were addressed from a sanatorium in Lausanne and concerned donations from Tante Matilde. More interestingly, underneath the pile of correspondence was a thick wad of money in various currencies. I put the box back in its place but took the money and a few of the letters to my room. I didn't really know what I was going to do at first but as I packed my small valise the outline of a plan came into my mind. Obviously I had to get out of France. The fact that Tante Matilde liked Germany didn't endear it to me and anyway, in view of current events, like most of my friends I was terrified of 'Les Boche'. Belgium and the Netherlands were in turmoil so the closest, safest place seemed to be was in Switzerland. The only problem was a passport and I didn't have one. However I definitely knew someone who had. Imogen Gunosgen, the daughter of a Swedish diplomat, was a senior in the school. Imogen and I were of a similar height and she had blonde hair just like me. So late that night I crept into the senior girls dormitory and purloined Imogen's passport from her locker. Then I walked to the Gare de Lion and purchased an allez simple to Geneve on the midnight train. "Goodbye Paris", I whispered as the train pulled out.

Chapter 4: On the run

Imogen's neutral passport enabled me to pass the border without trouble. A strapping young frontier guard tried to chat me up but I told him I had TB and was going to a sanatorium for treatment. That certainly shut him up. I hadn't really thought of where I was going up till then but the sanatorium at Lausanne mentioned in Tante Matilde's letters seemed a reasonable destination and so I didn't stop in Geneve but took the early morning train up the shore of Lac Leman. At six o'clock in the morning Lausanne was more deserted than the far side of the moon and it took me till eight to find a taxi to the sanatorium.

There I introduced myself as Mads'elle Lesley Fourchand, the niece of Matilde Fourchand, who had been sent by her aunt for a few weeks rest. The Mother Superior was a little suspicious at first and wanted to know 'my condition' but when I explained that my aunt was ill and wanted me out of Paris for a few weeks till she recovered her health she relaxed. "You know, ma petite, that your aunt has a generous heart - she has sent several poor girls of 'delicate constitution' to our sanatorium - even presently we have a destitute 'jeune fille' here who is generously supported by your aunt. She is severely depressed and per'haps, after you have rested, you could talk to her?"

I was indeed exhausted by the events of the previous week and it took two days before I could face going out. But on the third morning I woke early and ate a big breakfast. Later, as I wandered along the sun porch, squinting in the morning sunlight, I suddenly saw Valerie Baldet sitting by the steps. But she was not the Valerie I knew in Paris. She was totally immense - she had the fattest stomach I had ever seen.

"Oh, Valerie, what has happened, are you ill" I exclaimed. She looked at me with a wry twisted smile, "Do not try to be drole, petite Leslee, did your 'aunt' send you to spy on her latest victim? Will you now return to Paris and tell stories about me?" Then she turned her face to the wall and started to cry. I tried to tell her that Aunt Matilde was dead but she wouldn't listen to me. I tried talk to her again the next day but she refused to speak to me and turned her head to the wall. I talked to the back of her head for ten minutes but she didn't respond so I gave up and decided to go for a long walk in the mountains and try to talk to her again in the evening.

Actually I had a lot to think about. I wasn't that stupid, I knew that Valerie was pregnant and that was some cause for concern. I'd listened to the other girls talk about how babies are made and it worried me a lot. Bernadette knew all about it since her papa was a doctor and she said that when a married couple wanted to make a baby the man put a little seed on his tongue and when they were kissing goodnight he passed in into the wife's mouth and she would swallow it and it would grow into a child in her tummy. What worried me was that I thought it couldn't happen if you weren't married but Valerie's condition proved that that was quite untrue. Jean-Claude had put his tongue in my mouth that night behind the cafe in Monmatre. What if the sale bastard had put a seed on his tongue? The thought was terrifying. I would have to do something. Perhaps if I gargled with antiseptic lotion it would kill the seed before it could grow. That was probably the answer. After all Valerie was probably not too good on oral hygiene.

When I got back the whole place was in an uproar. The sisters were running everywhere and there was an ambulance in the drive. Eventually I discovered that Valerie had been found face down in the lake. Poor soul, she was quite dead. Quelle triste. So I went to my room and gargled for hours.

After Valerie's funeral the Mother Superior called me to her office. She was most serious. Apparently as I had been the last person to talk to Valerie before 'the accident' the local police would like to talk to me. In fact the local inspector of police was at that moment waiting in her outer office. He walked in as Mere Eugene walked out and for the next hour, with typical Swiss efficiency, he questioned me about my knowledge of Valerie and our conversations. I told him what little I knew but clearly he didn't believe me. Before he left he stared me in the eye and said, 'This afternoon I will telephone the Prefecture de Police in Paris to confirm your story and tomorrow when I shall return and I will require to see your passport and papers are in order'.

Mere Eugene looked very stern as she walked me upstairs to my room. She made me sit on the bed and stood looking at me from the doorway for some minutes. Then, as she turned to leave, she whispered "I think you should pray to the blessed Virgin, my child". As the door closed I knew then that I was in serious trouble, the policeman knew that I was hiding something and was in all probability now telephoning the Paris police. Slowly the full reality of my situation dawned - I was a murderess and a thief, I had a stolen passport and no papers. I was totally terrified. My first impulse was to run but when I tried to open the door I realised it was locked from the outside. So I sat down on the floor beside the bed and started to cry.

After a while it started to get dark. The shadows of the tree outside my window made a shape like an enormous guillotine on the wall and I huddled into the corner listening to a voice inside my head telling me that I was going to die. I prayed then. I knelt by the bed and asked the Virgin's forgiveness. With tears of remorse and self pity streaming down my cheeks I promised that I would atone for my sins. I would become a nun, I would be the most devout nun in the world, I would beg for the poor, I would feed the hungry, I would cure the sick, I would..."

Suddenly there was a knock on the door, then a click as the key turned in the lock. I wiped my eyes on the hem of my skirt and started to get up. A figure in a nun's habit stood silhouetted in the doorway. I remember trying to say "It's alright, Mother Superior, I am going to confess all my sins. Please forgive me....", when the voice of Jacqueline, one of the younger novices said "You did not come to dinner, Leslee. Look, I have brought you a petit pain and some sausage before I go to chapel. Why was your door locked?"

God indeed moves in mysterious ways. Jacqueline brought the tray into the room and laid it on the table by the window. Even now, I don't know whether it was that I was totally panicked and irrational or whether I had a malicious escape plan in mind, but I shudder at the memory of the cold bloodied way I hit her on the head with the bed pan. She collapsed unconscious on the floor. Fortunately she was still breathing.

The door was open and I could escape - but how far would I get? Now that I had committed an assault on Swiss soil the police would be looking for me everywhere and there was little chance of getting to the border. However, the means to evade the police lay at my feet. I knew Jacqueline was intending a short visit to her parents in her native Alsace before taking her final vows. Wasn't it was just that morning that she had told everyone who would listen that her travel documents had arrived! The blessed Virgin had listened to my prayers! Stopping only to check that she was still breathing and to pick up my purse I quietly locked the door and stole down the corridor to the novices' dormitory. Fortunately all the other novices were at chapel so I was able to raid their lockers. Within minutes I found Jacqueline's identity papers and travel pass and was dressed in her habit and wimple. I stuffed my skirt and blouse into the space between her locker and the wall. Then I crept downstairs past the chapel where I borrowed a bicycle from the rack outside the lodge. As I pedaled madly to the gates I could hear the sweet sound of the psalm the sisters were singing behind me, but the sweetest sound of all was the crunch of gravel underneath the tires.

 

Chapter 5: Lausanne to Alsace, 1941

I think I cycled for three days, but it could have been four. I begged for food at farmhouse doors. "For the poor, Madame, for the poor...." When I could, I slept in isolated barns and wolfed the morsels like an animal. Eventually I reached the frontier at a small town west of Basle. Ditching the bicycle in a wood, I brushed down my habit and crossed the border with a group of children who were returning from a day's outing. I was dizzy with fatigue and I seem to remember that I blessed the French gendarme at the customs post.

I was tired and stinking of sweat and what I really needed a bath and a bed. But this was a problem as nuns, at least at that time, did not stay in hotels or pensions and I could hardly present myself at the local convent. So I wandered through the town until I arrived, quite by chance, in an elegant area next to a park where an idea occurred to me. I went from door to door identifying myself as a novice of the 'Sisters of the little flowers of Bethlehem' and begged for old clothes for our women's hospice in India. I made up the name on the spur of the moment but found out later that it is an actual order. I hope they can forgive me. I also hope they have better success in extracting suitable clothing from the burgers of Mulhouse. Admittedly after three hours I had a big bag of clothes but when I examined it in the park I could find only one dress close to my size and that was a hideous pink creation with little rosebuds on the bodice which had obviously been bought by a colour blind, provincial housewife. None the less, it was the best that I could do, so I changed into it and dumped my habit and the bag of clothes into a public litter bin. After all, littering is a sin.

I looked longingly at the Hotel du Gare where I knew the rooms would be comfortable but decided that it would be politic to stay in a less public place. After all the photograph on Jaqueline's papers didn't look very like me. So I booked into a rather seedy little pension. The owner was female, five hundred years old and half blind. She sniffed as she shuffled up the stairs to show me the room. I had to wash in a hand basin with hard gritty soap but it was so marvelous to be clean again. I threw myself into the lumpy bed and slept for fourteen hours.

The next morning I sat in my room and had a good think about what to do next. I would have loved to go back to Paris but I knew that I might as well wish for the moon. On the other hand I couldn't stay in Mulhouse since I had no residence papers. I'd left Ingrid's passport at the convent. On the other hand, Jaqueline's travel papers for Strasbourg were still current. While we were roughly the same height Jaqueline was dark haired and rather florid in complexion, features which showed up only too well in her photograph. But these things can be fixed, so I made up my mind to get to Strasbourg and disappear for a while as Jaqueline Houtare, ex novice nun. I made a list of the things I had to do on the flyleaf of the bible which was lying on the bureau using a stub of a pencil I found lying in the desk drawer. First, I had to get some decent clothes. So after grabbing a quick petit dejeuner in a local cafe I visited the shops in the main street. It didn't take long to work out that this was a provincial town. The choice was extremely limited and most of the clothes were of last year's fashion. I don't know what it is with me and shopping. It might be in the blood, or perhaps it was my aunt's training, but it takes me hours to buy even a pair of gloves. Finally I did buy a pair of white crocheted gloves but only after I had spent an hour finding a decent black skirt and an absolutely loveable, lambs wool yoke-necked balloon-sleeved jumper. Then I indulged myself by buying lingerie. I paid the earth for two pairs of silk drawers, a suspender belt and a brassiere which was advertised as 'enhancing the feminine figure'. Sadly, it didn't do as much for me as I'd hoped, but 'c'est la vie'. I padded it out a little with tissue from the packing in the box it came in. Since my long blonde hair was a real give away I finished the expedition with a visit to the hairdresser and emerged with short black hair in a rather fetching perm. A visit to a perfumiere followed where I obtained a jar of rouge and the indulgence of a bottle of eau de Cologne. As I looked at my new image in the mirror I thought I looked rather fetching and reflected that Aunt Mathilde would have absolutely hated my hairstyle. That thought made me feel smug for the first time in weeks. Then I took the night train to Strasbourg.

Strasbourg is a pretty city but the atmosphere when I arrived was very tense. The entire place was crawling with troops and the population was talking of nothing else but impending war with Germany. I'd have liked to leave but my papers were not valid for travel except back to Switzerland. Also my money was almost exhausted and I had to obtain a employment. After walking the streets for days, ever conscious of my dwindling reserves of capital I finally managed to talk myself into a job as a chambermaid in the Hotel Marcard. At least it included room and board. It also included the unwanted attentions of the assistant manager, a pompous little prig called Maurice, who insisted in calling me 'Cherie' and exhausted much of his energy trying to lure me, on one pretext or another, into the laundry room. However, I had been warned of his proclivities by Marie, the other chambermaid, and managed to evade his clutches without too much effort. I have to explain that Marie was in her late fifties and had suffered the indignity of being chased, so she said, by more assistant managers than she'd had lovers. Judging by her stories, she must have been chased a lot in her youth. Actually I was becoming a bit of a recluse. I was still terrified that the police would follow my trail and I was full of remorse that I'd been a very bad girl and would definitely go to Hell. I couldn't bring myself to go to Mass or the confessional. I was altogether totally contrite and very confused.

Life dragged on in Strasbourg. I worked, avoided Maurice's little pink hands, chatted to Marie and worked on my exercises. I was still worried about how painfully flat-chested I was and I'd read in a health magazine somewhere how one could achieve a perfect bust through exercise. So every evening I rubbed my chest with baby oil and then stood in front of the mirror and did deep breathing, arm flinging exercises. Every morning I measured myself. I didn't seem to be getting any bigger but I was convinced that eventually I would. On my free nights went to the cinema. For a few stolen hours each week I could be Olivia deHavilland being kidnapped by Errol Flynn or Katherine Hepburn being romanced by Spenser Tracy. I could lose myself in fantasy and romance. The worrying thing about the cinema was the newsreel. Every week it seemed that the whole world was going to erupt into war. At work and in the streets all everyone talked about was how the Nazis had invaded Holland and Belgium. The Alsacians were a confused and panicked people. Our hall porter, Fritz, who spoke German as his mother tongue, assured me that the Germans only wanted 'Lebensraum' and the current tension would be over as soon as France ceded the region back to Germany. The ethnic French, like Marie and Maurice, had a different view, which was that Alsace was always going to remain French. They believed that our army was invincible, and anyway weren't the English expeditionary force available to assist although of course it wasn't really going to be necessary. Of course what actually happened is history.

I was on my knees cleaning one of the second floor bathrooms on that fateful Friday morning when the first German tanks swept into the town. I went out to the balcony at the front of the hotel to watch. Marie was crying and I put my arm round her shoulders to comfort her. We could see Fritzy standing in the street below shouting "Welcomen!" Funnily enough, poor pathetic little Maurice had apparently found out that morning that he just might have had a German great grandfather and was out on the first floor balcony waving a little red flag with a swastika on it with all the enthusiasm I'd seen in the crowds in Munchen five years before. I felt a little sick and went back to scrubbing out the bathroom.

I suppose I would have stayed in Strasbourg if it had been possible. Life had been quiet there and I'd being trying to atone for my sins. Cleaning bathrooms is good for the soul even if it leaves your hands raw and your nails split. Each week, before I went to the cinema, I put half my earnings in the church poor box and I prayed for Valerie and Jaqueline. Perhaps, if I'd had sufficient time, I would have eventually achieved that state of grace where I could have brought myself to pray for the soul of Aunt Mathilde. Peut etre.

It was the new administration that forced me to leave. Under the name of Jaqueline Houtare I'd been petitioning the Hotel de Ville for regularisation of my visiting permit and had eventually persuaded the clerk, his name was Pierre, he came from Arras and he had very dark brown eyes, to issue me with a residence permit. However when the Nazis invaded that May everything changed. When I went to collect my permit there was a new clerk on the desk who directed me to a queue in an adjacent room. After two hours I was interviewed by an officer of the Wehrmacht. He was tired and bored, his French was terrible and didn't listen to my requests. As a last resort, as he waved me out the room, I switched to German and asked him if he liked Strasbourg. The effect was electrifying -- "You speak good German, Mademoiselle. You a German Alsasian?"

"I regret Herr Major, that I am not, but I have spent a considerable time in your very beautiful country and have even met the Furher, albeit briefly"

"I am impressed. On what occasion did you meet the Furher?"

"Oh, in 1938 at a performance of Wagner's Ring in Berlin. My aunt, who alas is now dead, presented me to him. He said I was a pretty child and I cherish the memory."

After that the interview went better. The major was a little concerned that someone of my class was working as a simple chambermaid but he eventually signed a temporary permit of residence for two weeks. However he warned me that I would have to produce my birth certificate and nationality papers to renew the permit.

Chapter 6: The Road to England, 1940

I hated leaving Strasbourg but I knew that if I stayed I would be declared a stateless person. With no friends, no family and no birth certificate the only legal route open was to go back to Paris and throw myself into the arms of the police. I almost got to that point but at the last minute realised that there might be an alternative. After all I was really English and the British Expeditionary Force, although retreating, was only a few hundred kilometers away. If I could get to Calais they would surely take me to England!

It wasn't difficult leaving. Using the hotel master key I let myself into the manager's office and took his road guide to France. Then I 'borrowed' one of Marie's dresses from her closet and padded it out with material from three pillows so I looked quite gross. Padded out like a dirigible carrying a suitcase I waddled west through the fragmentary lines. After all, no one stops a fat French matron unless they want an appalling earful of abuse about their ancestry. The difficulty was getting north. The whole of the province was in turmoil. There were no trains and everyone seemed desperate to get to Paris or the channel ports. In the persona of Marie I couldn't possibly get a lift although I tried for hours, running along the road beside the trucks and pleading with the drivers. In desperation I changed my tactics. I threw away Marie's outfit and the associated padding, put on my shortest dress and changed my stockings at the side of the road. The next truck squealed to a stop and the driver asked me if he could be of assistance. So, tightly squeezed between a sweaty routier and his equally sweaty mate I made it as far as Lille. The journey took twelve hours and for most of it I fought off crawling hands. I eventually had to let the two bastards fondle my knees, but that was as far as they got.

From Lille the journey got much harder. There were burning military vehicles at the road junctions and the sounds of artillery fire coming from every direction. For the first two days I used the roads, joining up with the immense, slow moving columns of refugees. We were all hungry, thirsty and afraid. But the worst was when the Stukas came. Imagine a small spot coming out of the sun, getting larger and larger until it looks like a gigantic eagle about to crash on your head. The noise is frightening. You freeze on the road. Your legs are immobile. Then miraculously, just in time, it turns away. The engine noise disappears but is replaced by a shrill whistle which grows in intensity. No one hears the whistle stop. If you are lucky your legs have moved and you are lying in a ditch where the blast can roll over you. Afterwards everyone gets up and moves on and you all try to ignore the dead and maimed lying in the road.

After the second day I'd got past Hazebrouk and my nerves were shattered. Someone, I have no idea who, told me that the English were evacuating from Dunkirque. Using the map I set off cross country trying to navigate using the stars. But by the morning I was lost. The dawn found me wandering down a lane into a little village. It was there I found the boy soldier. He was lying beside a hedge, propped up as if he were sleeping. I shook him and asked him where I was. He moved a little and swore in English. I couldn't understand the words. After a little while he closed his eyes and his head fell forward on his chest. Then I saw that his hair was crusted in blood and there was a horrific wound behind his left ear. Even after all the carnage I'd seen on the roads I felt horribly sick at the sight.

I tore my underskirt into strips and tried to bind up the wound but the hole was so big that the fabric was soaked in blood in minutes. There was nothing else I could do for the poor boy so I sat down beside him and cradled his head on my lap. Some time later he woke up. His eyes were wild with fear and pain. "Mammy" he said, "it hurts so much. Please make it go away!"

Oh God, I was crying again. The poor lamb was dying and instead of his wonderful mother there was only me, a useless, selfish, little bitch. So I kissed him on the forehead and crooned a English lullaby that I'd learned from my last nanny. Before he shut his eyes he whispered, "Yur' beautiful Mammy, an' a' luv ye". Then his head rolled over and liters of blood poured from his neck. I sat there in a blood soaked skirt with the boy's head in my lap till the sun was high in the sky. I must have sung that song a hundred times. I would have sung it a hundred thousand times to bring him back to his mother. I would have carried him back home and said to the beautiful lady, "I am Leslee, I have been a very wicked girl but I have brought your son home." Then we would kiss and she would invite me to stay in her village far away from this horrible war, and the boy would get well, and I would become a nurse and cure all the sick children, and everything would be perfect again.

It was the sound of cannons that brought me back to the real world. They were far away but still frightening. I gently pushed the dead boy's head off my lap and crawled to the roadside. There, right in front of me, was a signpost. It said 'Dunkirque 2 km'. I was almost home! Without thinking I started to run down the road. I remember thinking that there would be baths on the ferryboat and perhaps a laundry to wash my clothes. I was panting with exertion when I ran straight into the roadblock guarded by a squad of English soldiers. By their surprised reaction you would have thought I was entire panzer division rather than a somewhat grateful jeune fille. A soldier stuck his rifle forward into my face and shouted "Who goes there!" I could see that his finger was on the trigger so I summoned up my best English and spoke directly to the soldier behind him who seemed to be in charge. Somehow, in my panic, my lips kept trembling and my words didn't seem to come out right.

"Allo, I am Leslee Hillaree Smeeth, I am an English girl and wish to .. how you say? .. go home. Can you pleese direct me to the h'arbour? I wish to take passage on a shee'p"

The soldier's eyes rolled, then he snorted. Finally he shouted to one of the men behind him,

"Sarge, there's a mad Madmoiselle here who wants through. Claims she's English."

The sergeant finally came over and I repeated my request. He seemed to think for a moment before he replied. "Look Miss, I know all you Frenchies want to get to Blighty but we can't take the whole soddin' nation. There are good men dying on the beaches waitin' for the boats. So go back to your mummy and daddy an' keep your head down, we'll be back in six months to kick the Huns out."

I tried to plead with them but it was useless. My accent became worse and worse the more agitated I got. After half an hour it was obvious, even to me, that they perceived me as a lunatic who would say anything to flee the country. So I started to retrace my steps. What now? I was caught between two armies and had nowhere to go. Perhaps I could get to Brittany and stay with the Gabons? Maybe that was a good plan. I could walk the coast road to Calais, stay in the Tour Rouge and buy a decent frock. Then I could get a train to St Malo and phone Marie's papa. After all he liked me a lot.

However by the time I'd got back to the crossroads at Bergues I could see major flaws in my strategy, beginning with the fact that I'd lost the map somewhere and ending with the realisation that I was very likely wanted for murder and theft and throwing myself into the hands of a senior magistrate of the Provence of Brittany probably wasn't a really good idea. It was at that point that the only other plausible avenue of escape presented itself. If they were only taking soldiers onto the boats I would have to become a soldier!

It was distasteful to undress the poor boy in the ditch. I took only his outer clothing and boots, however, and covered him with bracken. I hoped that the Wehrmacht would realise he was a soldier and treat his body with respect. Then I changed into his uniform and set off down the road again this time affecting an exaggerated limp, as if I was wounded. I need not have bothered. By the time I got to the road block everyone except the sergeant had gone. He shouted, "Move your arse, lad!" and took off after his men. I followed.

It was night when I got to the beach but the sky was lit up by flares and the glow of fire from burning ships. The sound of gunfire was deafening. A portly soldier pushed me into a long line of men standing at the waters edge and I realised that the line extended well into the sea where the fortunate few at the front were climbing into little boats. I spent the entire night in the line gradually shuffling forward into the sea. All along the beach there were similar lines of miserable soldiers. What was amazing was the comradeship and the discipline of these men. Always there were jokes. Once when I stubbled and fell a soldier beside me pulled me up and whispered, "Hey, Mac! Your not allowed to drown on active service - Army regulations forbid it!" I found being called 'Mac' peculiar and it was only then that I noticed that my shoulder patch said 'Cameron Highlanders'. Sometimes they started singing. The tunes of the songs were old ones from the Great War but I couldn't understand a lot of the verses. One completely unintelligible one started with the words,

'It fairly broke her father's heart

When Lady Jane became a tart.'

But the rest of the song had nothing to do with fruit pastries. Truly these brave, exhausted men were touched with the sun! When dawn came I was chest deep in water and so cold I couldn't move my feet. A little boat was moving towards me. I remember reading the name on its bow. It said 'Hobson's Choice'. I didn't care who Hobson was. That boat was my choice and for that instant it was the prettiest, most darling little boat in the whole wide world.

Suddenly there was a blinding flash and the sea erupted round me. I must have gone under again. But when I found my feet and struggled to the surface the boat was gone, blown to bits by a bomb. Pieces of wood floated on the surface and I felt terribly sick. Then I felt a dull pain in my stomach. I looked down and saw that the water in front of me was deep red. When I pushed my hand into the front of my battledress trousers I could feel a hard lump.

I don't remember any more about the beach. I was told that the soldier beside me threw me onto the next boat and that we were strafed by the Luftwaffe several times before we got to Dover. I do remember the inside of an ambulance and the anxious look on the nurse's face as they wheeled me into casualty. I tried to tell her that it was alright, I was going to atone for my sins and become a nurse myself, but I think I spoke in French.

Chapter 7: Dover to Somerset, 1940

It hurt bad. It hurt like seven kinds of hell. Someone was pushing a sword into my stomach and twisting it. But when I opened my eyes there wasn't anyone there. I was floating in a sea of white linen. Oh dear God, I'm dead! This is what Aunt Mathilde must have felt like. I wondered if I was wearing those horrible rubber pants, but when I moved my hand to check it hurt so much that I fainted. When I woke again I could see the angelic face of a young woman. She was dressed in white and had a white hat. I knew that she was Sister Marie-Claude from L'Ecole St Germaine and that she had come to hear my confession. So I talked to Sister Marie-Claude for hours, trying to explain in detail all the rotten thinks I'd done in my life and asking for forgiveness. Sometimes she went away and I knew she was cross with me so the next time I was more explicit and included all the little sins, like the time I unstitched and resewed Catherine's corset so she thought she was getting fat and the episode where I put peroxide in Maurice's hair gel.

One day I woke up and could focus properly. My stomach was sore but it didn't hurt as much. There were a group of people round my bed including a dark-haired nurse in a starched white uniform. She had a big nose and didn't look the least bit like Sister Marie-Claude. They were discussing me.

"We almost lost this one. The shrapnel hit in the lower stomach and we had to remove a bit of the colon. When infection set in it was touch and go. Has the patient tried to say anything Nurse Carson"

"I'm afraid it's been mainly gibberish, Sir. I think it must be Gaelic but sometimes I can make out jumbled French and English words. There seems to be a fixation with nuns and French schoolgirls."

I tried hard to listen but drifted off to sleep.

The next time I woke up my head was clearer. There was a British officer standing at the bottom of my bed.

"Oh goody, you're awake. Glad to hear you pulled through. The doctor chappie tells me it was a very nasty wound. Almost hit the crown jewels, so to speak! Still, no damage in that department! Nurse tells me some gossip that you had something going with a little lassie from Brittany. Good lad! Wish I was your age again, what! Don't worry, two months rest and you'll be fit for duty. Up and at 'em again, what?"

Thankfully he went away. I was a little confused at his remarks but as I drifted back to sleep I realised that he was probably some escaped lunatic from the psychiatric wards. A brave soldier who had been through a very tough time.

Then there was Toby. Toby was a conscientious objector who worked as a ward attendant. He got all the rotten jobs like cleaning out the toilets and giving bed baths. Toby was all talk. He gossiped all the time he was bathing you. He was rather like a male version of Madame LeBlanc..

"Oh, what a pretty one you are, indeed! I wouldn't have guessed you would have such a big one. I bet you gave all the pretty little Frenchies a big surprise. Nursie tells me that you are quite the lad!

What he said worried me but I had a more immediate problem to deal with. I was really desperate for a pee. I rung my bell but the nurse didn't come so I eased myself gently out of bed and opened the curtains. As I looked into the ward I was appalled. There were rows and rows of beds and each one had an occupant. But all of them were men!

Somerset to London, 1940

I suppose now that I should have worked it out rationally but at that time and place I was in intense pain, shocked and mentally unstable. So I started to scream. I didn't stop screaming for days. I woke up screaming in the middle of the night. Nurse Carson bathed my head. I asked her why I was in a men's ward and she said, "You're not a child anymore. In fact you're a very handsome and brave young man. I doubt if there is anyone here who doesn't think that." Half drugged I was comforted by that, until I saw myself in a mirror and then I started to scream again. The sale bastards had cut my hair and it looked dreadful!

It's not very easy to change your gender, but suddenly there I was, a young man. For several weeks I thought that the doctors had only technically changed my sex because the English were short of soldiers. However, when I had to shower with the other patients I realised that while none of us had well developed busts we all had identical dangly bits between our legs. Obviously that didn't prove I was a man but it was getting to be suspicious. My bloodstained papers were no real help. They said that I was Jack M^cGregor from Glasgow, age seventeen, a boy soldier in the 1^st Battalion of the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders.

When my condition got better I was transferred to a recovery ward where over the next few months, my condition improved. I spent three months recovering with very little to do but listen to my fellow convalescents. I suppose it should have been boring but I was on a steep learning curve. I'd never really been exposed to men's company before and since I was obviously now a man I had to learn how to deal with it. At first trivial mechanical things like how to pee standing up defeated me but since my fellow inmates left the seats of the toilets soaked in piss I developed that skill fairly quickly. Other little quirks of typical male behaviour like not washing out the bath, spitting, farting and scratching were less attractive. But worse of all was the demeaning way they regarded women. They seemed to get excited every time a nurse came into the room and talked about 'riding' and 'screwing' all the time. I knew they were all brave soldiers but I felt that I'd joined a gang of equestrian carpenters. So I just kept my mouth shut. It was easier to just to keep my own council and answer 'naw' and 'aye' to any question.

I had two regular visitors. Nurse Carson and Toby. I liked talking to Nurse Carson. Her first name was Violet and she was a vicar's daughter from a little village near Abingdon. She wasn't pretty, but was what the English diplomatically describe as handsome, with rather full blown features. Violet had joined Princess Alexandra's Nursing Corps not out of a sense of duty but out of a desperate desire to escape the vicarage. I think that she originally imagined nursing to be about administering pills to handsome, dashing, superficially wounded Spitfire pilots. The reality of crude, foulmouthed, crippled infantrymen was a shock she was only beginning to get to terms with. She confided in me that she had a lot of problems relating to the men but that I was so much more sensitive and understanding. Actually, she could have been quite attractive but she dressed extremely badly and that uniform didn't help her. I couldn't help but feel sorry for the poor girl. One day when she came into the ward her uniform skirt was torn and she was in tears because she had been criticised by the matron. So I decided to help. I told her I'd worked in my father's tailoring concern before the war and if she wanted I'd mend the tears in her uniform if she could provide a needle and thread.

The tears were so very easy to repair and they took me less that an hour, but I felt I owed Violet a little bit more so I borrowed a white cotton sheet from the laundry and set to serious work. First I raised the hem of the skirt by about five centimetres and sewed in a complex series of overlapping underskirt layers, made from the laundry sheet, to give the skirt a decided bounce. Then I tucked a lot of little darts in the bodice to accentuate her narrow waist and her rather full bust and used the liberated material to build in a gay little puff into the upper sleeves. After that a lot of the men told her she was 'so dammed attractive' and she just glowed and lapped it all up.

It was much more difficult with Toby. He seemed to have taken a special liking to me. Even after I was able to move around the ward and get to the toilet by myself he used to visit me. He was very affable and kind, and honestly he made me laugh, but Harry, the Welsh Fusilier in the next bed, told me that Toby was as queer as a nine bob note and I'd better watch my fucking arse. So the next time Toby offered to wash my back I had to tell him to 'Fuck off'. He went away and I think we were both very upset.

A week later I was visited by what Harry described as a 'poofy, la-de-da officer' who told me that I was to be discharged within a few days. He said I had a weeks leave coming but then, I would be happy to know, my application to join the bomb disposal unit had been approved and I was to report to Bristol for training. Then he gave me a travel voucher, smiled and left.

The evening before I was due to be discharged was traumatic. After dinner Violet invited me down to the nurses' quarters for what she described as 'a little soirée'. I got there a little late but when I arrived I realised that there were still only two persons present. As she opened her door Violet was a little flushed but tried hard to appear startled. She was dressed only in a tight pink knitted two ply dress. I could see the firm outline of her nipples pocking through the fabric. "Oh, Jackie", she said, "You are a card! Whatever would you think! I didn't quite expect you so soon and I'm not even dressed yet!"

I really, really liked Violet - she was a terribly nice girl. She tried hard but she had chosen quite the wrong chap. At that time I still didn't really understand my own sexuality. However as she fussed about, pouring me a sherry and putting some music on the gramophone and telling me how so much she admired me because I was not only brave, but quite artistic and that I was so terribly clever, I really began to think that perhaps being male might be rather fun. So after she had given me a meal, which although it would have been by normal French standards appalling - it must have cost her two weeks' meat ration, I was content to sit beside her on the sofa and listen to soft music. Violet poured out two glasses of something optimistically called 'white wine' and wanted to know all about France. "I know it must have been terrible Jackie, but it might help to talk."

Even after we'd had three glasses of wine there was nothing I could say. How could I even start? So I changed the subject and we talked about her family and her job. At first she talked about her family then she started crying and said she was a failure and she hated being a nurse since everyone died or was horribly disfigured and it was totally nasty and really horrible. I felt quite sorry for her so I put my arm round her shoulder, in a sisterly fashion, and told her it was really alright, she was a very nice person, she had a kind face and a wonderful smile, she had a nice figure and the pink colour of her outfit complimented her shape and her skin tone. I obviously went much too far. She laid her head on my shoulder and purred into my ear that 'I was her perfect hero'. A little confused, I decided to kiss her forehead and hold her tight for a little while she calmed down but as soon as I moved she pulled my head down to hers and fastened her lips onto mine. At the same time she guided my other hand between her legs. We lay together for a moment as my hand was forced to her groin but my fingers found that there was hardly anything at all between her thighs but dampness. I could feel nothing but a warm slit between her legs.

I was in shock, I knew men and women might be a little different but I hadn't worked out how much. Everything was happening so fast. I tried to get up but Violet pushed me down on my back and kissed me. Then she put her hands where Aunt Matilde had told me never to touch myself and started to fumble at my buttons. Things were going haywire. With a great deal of effort I pushed her away and got to my feet. She burst into tears. Poor thing, but what did she expect? Eventually I sat down beside her and cuddled for a long time until she fell asleep.

I woke up very early in the morning with Violet's head resting on my shoulder and some very confused thoughts. For the first time since that brief kiss with Marie I really felt something close to partnership with another human being. I felt something for Violet but probably she liked me only because she thought I might be something I wasn't. She had no idea of who I really was, and if she found out she wouldn't like it one tiny little bit. Also, I couldn't stay in the hospital any longer and I had no real desire to be a soldier. The idea of being a bomb disposal person frightened me completely stupid. The late Jack M^cGregor had one obviously ridiculous character defect - a serious death wish! I'd seen what actually happened when real bombs interacted with real people and the idea of spending what little might be left of my life in intimate contact with high explosive devices had no particular attraction. Therefore, the best thing was to get out as soon as possible. So I gently laid Violet's head to one side on the sofa, borrowed her uniform and quietly left the hospital to board the early morning London train, dressed as an angel of mercy.

Look, there is a real danger that I could be misunderstood here. Alright, I did take Violet's second best uniform and underskirt and her best stockings and shoes, but you couldn't expect me to be less than smart. It wasn't a real theft - after all I didn't take any of her money. Well, just enough for the train. And I don't want to give you the impression that I was unpatriotic or anything like that. I was now an extremely confused individual. Eighteen months before I had been an innocent schoolgirl in Paris. Since then I'd committed numerous crimes. I'd probably murdered my aunt - well perhaps she was my aunt, mutilated her corpse, stolen money and documents, crossed three borders illegally, assaulted and impersonated a nun and stolen the identity of a dying soldier. As if this wasn't enough I had now found out that I had the wrong sex and I'd had some sort of confused encounter with a nurse. Look, this wasn't about anything simple like patriotism or loyalty. I was going through a very personal crisis and I really needed some serious time and space to get myself together. So when I arrived at Paddington I decided to disappear and try to think things out.

  

 

 

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