It sent a tremor through me, so strong the beer in my glass rippled. I wasn’t sure if it was from excitement at this tidal wave of energy and American can-do attitude or fear of losing all that was dear to me in my beloved France. I knew that Prime Minister Laniel would just roll over and let the Americans take whatever they demanded, despite the unease about it in France. André was right about that. We needed them. Or we would soon be singing the state anthem of the Soviet Union over our morning coffee.

‘Are you enjoying yourself ?’

It was Mickey who asked, my attentive mechanic from Chicago, who had this evening told me more about the internal combustion engine than I expected ever to need in a lifetime.

‘We’re having a great time, aren’t we, Eloïse?’ Marianne answered for me.

My friend snuggled closer to her handsome lumberjack, Calvin, and treated me to a pointed look in case I complained about the Budweiser beer or the ear-splitting volume of the music. But she was wrong about that. I didn’t object to them at all. The only thing I objected to was the double chainlink fence that stood between me and the business-end of the air base.

I had picked up Marianne from her apartment above her glass shop in Serriac, and was knocked out by her Marilyn Monroe-style figure-hugging dress.

‘Since when?’ I asked.

‘Since the Yanks hauled into town,’ she’d grinned.

I’d driven us out to the air base with one eye on my rear-view mirror. At the gates we were met by Mickey and Calvin in smart khaki uniforms and greeted by two heavily armed guards who wanted to see passes. The base looked to me like a concrete fortress with a double stretch of chain-link fence and barbed wire around it. The sort of place where things went on you didn’t want to know. But I wanted to know so bad, that I was happy to sit through a whole damn day of learning how to fix a carburettor if that’s what it took.

Mickey must have noticed my eyes glazing over because when he heard Big Mama Thornton’s ‘Hound Dog’ come on the jukebox, he wrapped his strong mechanic’s hand around mine and said, ‘C’mon, another jive?’ But I had no more jives left in me, no more kicks and flicks or joyous bounces. I was all out of joy.

It was Calvin who rescued me. ‘Give the girl a break, Mickey. French girls are more . . .’ He studied me for a moment, his eyes as brown and steadfast as one of my father’s dogs. ‘. . . more refined than girls back home. You gotta give them time to breathe. Time to think.’ He smiled at me. ‘Ask her what she wants to do.’

‘Thank you, Calvin.’

‘You’re welcome, ma’am.’