Free The Girl Who Fell From the Sky by Simon Mawer

yet?’
    Marian was on her own now. It was a strange feeling, being the only woman among eight men. It gave her power – she knew instinctively the power of women over men – but also vulnerability, as though with Yvette gone she was now exposed as the next victim in line. But she would not fail. That she knew. The course was at one and the same time a training and an examination, and she would not be found wanting.
    Dear Ned,
    There is a rumour that we will have leave when this is all over. Perhaps I can come and see you? Maybe even stay with you, if that wouldn’t be getting in the way. Have you been to see the parents? I know how busy you are but you must make an effort and find the time.
    On one of our few free days I went hillwalking with a friend. It was a rare sunny day, with the view from the top of miles and miles of deserted hills. And the islands. The Hebrides, that always makes me think of wind and rain. Isit in the name? It sounds breezy and cool, doesn’t it? Hebrides. Say it over to yourself. I know you don’t like words. Numbers have no hidden meanings, you say. But it is the hidden meanings in words that make them so wonderful. When it is sunny like it was that day the place is as beautiful as anywhere in the world, but too often it is raining. And it also has the dreaded midge. These ought to be bottled and dropped on German cities by the RAF. The war would be over in a few days, although the Allies would probably stand accused of violating the Geneva Convention.

England
I
    ‘What’s that uniform?’ her father asked as she came in the front door.
    She shrugged, dumping her suitcase on the floor and accepting his kisses. ‘I’ve been transferred to the FANY.’
    ‘What on earth is that?’
    ‘First Aid Nursing Yeomanry. It’s like an army corps for gay young things with nothing better to do with themselves. That’s what people say. As many titles in the FANY as in Debrett’s.’
    ‘Are you going to be a nurse? I thought you said—’
    ‘They don’t only do nursing, they do all sorts of things.’
    ‘All sorts of things? Really, I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
    ‘It’s best not to ask, Daddy.’
    ‘So how was the course?’
    ‘Lots of hard work.’
    Her mother came out of the kitchen and gave a little cry of happiness and surprise. ‘You’re looking very thin, darling.’
    ‘I’m not thin,
Maman
. I’m fit.’
    ‘And that uniform really doesn’t suit you.’
    ‘She says she’s transferred to a nursing outfit,’ her father said.
    ‘Nursing? That’s useful, I suppose. How was Scotland? What happens next? Where are you off to now?’
    She wanted to tell them. She wanted to shock them with the truth: Parachute School, she wanted to say. And then B School, whatever that meant, and then into the field. But instead she shrugged the question away. ‘More training, somewhere else. I don’t really know. They don’t tell you much.’
    ‘Quite right,’ he said approvingly, as one who understood such things.
    ‘Oh, and there’s a letter for you from Ned,’ her mother said. ‘You’re very privileged: he hardly ever writes to us.’
    She didn’t open the envelope until she was in the privacy of her room. The letter was written – Ned’s familiar scrawl – on the back of some Ministry of Supply pro forma, as though he had grabbed the first piece of paper that had come to hand. He said very little, of course. There was the usual greeting and a hope that all went well with her course, and then ‘
here’s what I told you about
…’ and an address, a Paris address in the place de l’Estrapade in the fifth arrondissement.
Numéro 2, appartement G
. And the name, Clément.
    ‘What does Ned say?’ the parents asked when she came down for dinner.
    She shrugged the question away. ‘Not much. Typical Ned. Have you seen him recently?’
    They hadn’t. He didn’t really keep in touch. She waited for the conversation to drift on to other things – family, friends,