The Hidden

by Mary Chamberlain

  They went indoors and sat on sofas in the sitting room which overlooked the garden. The maid brought the coffee in a silver pot and placed it on the table with a plate of thin wafer biscuits.

  Sometimes, Dora thought, those events were far away, as if they were disconnected from her. They languished in hazy forms on the flats of her mind. At those times, she wondered if they had even happened. Then they would return, like the tail of a storm and whip her to the ground.

  That December, Uncle Otto bought a garden fork and a spade and gave them to her as a present. ‘To take your mind off things.’

  After the visit to Anna she’d ventured into the garden, stood at the end with her back to the wall and looked at the house with its blackened bricks and shabby green paint. She picked up the fork, and Uncle Otto nodded.

  ‘Go on, go on. I’m watching. You’re safe.’

  The grass was wet and left streaks of damp on her shoes. She stuck the fork in the soil and a robin sat on the handle. Dora laughed. Laughed. She’d heard herself laughing. She looked up at Uncle Otto and waved. No, she’d ignore those after events. Let them run amok behind her back. The bird knows no stress. Has no memories, no anxieties. Lucky him. She was laughing out loud, not inside.

  She’d dug the vegetable patch and in the spring planted potatoes and radishes, beans and lettuces. She’d walked over to Maresfield Gardens with the surplus and left them at Anna’s door. Uncle Otto told her that Anna was Sigmund Freud’s daughter. Of course she hadn’t invited them for tea. Uncle Otto had engineered it, tricked Dora, to get her to leave the flat. Doctor to doctor. She knew that now.

  Dora brushed the soil from her hands, kicked off her wellington boots and padded through the flat in stockinged feet. The second post had come and she picked the letters off the mat. Gas Board, Electricity Board. She stuck the bills on the mantelpiece. She’d deal with them on Saturday morning, sitting at her desk with her paperknife to one hand, her chequebook in the other. The house gave her an income, tenants in the basement, tenants on the top floor. Supplemented her modest pension. Even so, she had to watch her pennies, dreaded the bills. The house was a constant drain, ‘a bottomless pit’, Uncle Otto used to say, with the damp and the roof, the decorating and modernising. Tenants demanding central heating and the like, were careless with her carpets and the paintwork. Sometimes Dora thought it would be easier to sell up and go and live in a bungalow. But she’d be alone then.

  She flicked through the other letters. There was a postcard from a neighbour in Rome, and another letter with a Crawley postmark. Dora recognised the writing. She went to tear it up, thought better, and ripped open the envelope.

  Dear Miss or Mrs Simon,

  Dora wished she’d get it right. There was much to be said for the new ‘Ms’. It might grate on the ear, but at least it was neutral.

  I was very pleased to receive your letter which caught me just before I left London today (I am posting this at Gatwick airport). I will be away for a week or so but would like to make contact with you again on my return.

  What could this woman want? Dora had been careful not to include her telephone number. She’d have to write first, and that would give Dora time.

  I believe my mother had some connection with Jersey which I am anxious to explore further and hope to meet with Mr Joseph O’Cleary to see if he can shed further light on this.

  Well, that explained nothing. Lots of people passed through Jersey. Though she’d like to know who this Joseph O’Cleary was.

  Dora fingered the letter. Sometimes, flashes from the past caught her unawares, slammed into focus with exacting detail. Those after events weren’t entirely dormant, they could still ambush her from within. Was that him? Had it been an Irishman who’d saved her? It’d happened so fast. He hadn’t said police. He’d said, ‘Call the gardaí.’ Curled his ‘r’s. Garrdaí. Like the Irish did. Had he told this Hummel woman how he knew her? I rescued her. Thought they’d kill her. She’d told no one. Not a soul. Not even Uncle Otto. Had this O’Cleary chap blabbered her business out loud, where it had no right to be?

  She wandered into the sitting room. Uncle Otto’s photo was framed on the piano. It had been taken at the palace when he received his MBE. The pair of them. She in a borrowed panama with a big brim, he with his top hat and tails. He was grinning. Proud. ‘Chuffed,’ he’d said. He’d never lost his accent, made two syllables of the word. Chuff-tt. It was just before he died. A heart attack, like her father. Far too young. Dora always thought that’s how she’d die, but she was already older than either of them, and her heart was as fit as a fiddle, the doctor said. Blood pressure too. She’d go on forever.

  She picked the photo up, dusted it with her sleeve. He’d collected her from Southampton. Didn’t recognise her at first. Thin as a rake, and covered in bruises. She’d wrapped a scarf round her head, tied it into a turban so no one could see her. He’d pulled her close, without a word, arms folding round her. He’d smelled like her father, of tobacco and sweat, his tweed jacket scratching her cheek. He was the same size as Vati, the same build, and she didn’t cry until he whispered, Doralein. Meine Doralein, the way her father used to say it.

  Only the Hummel woman didn’t write. She was standing on the doorstep one morning, unannounced, expecting to be let in.

  ‘No,’ Dora said. ‘You can’t just turn up without warning.’

  The woman reminded Dora of someone, but she couldn’t think who. She was slim, well-dressed, her face carried a mature beauty, like the models in Woman’s Own, older women for the most part, with worn-in faces. Perhaps that’s where she’d seen her. She might be a model. Her skin was fair, but her hair dark. Sometimes Scottish people had complexions like that, or Irish. She’d heard once it was because of the Spanish. It was said they’d peopled Hibernia in the early days, before proper history, but she didn’t know how true that was.

  ‘Is it not convenient?’

  ‘No,’ Dora said. That was a fib, but she didn’t want to give the woman encouragement. Perhaps she had been one of her tenants? Rented out the basement to her? Or a student? She’d had so many pass through her hands, it was difficult to remember them all. It wasn’t as if she had taught them. She’d see them once at the start of term pleading with her to find them accommodation, as if she could conjure rooms out of nowhere.

  ‘When would be a good time?’

  Dora wanted to say, Never. ‘What’s this about?’ she said instead.

  ‘I just have a few questions,’ the woman said.

  Barbara Hummel. The name meant nothing. Besides, a tenant or a student wouldn’t have had the wartime connection. It could still be a hoax. A con-woman.

  ‘They are very important to me.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Please,’ Barbara said. Her face puckered and Dora thought she was about to cry. She didn’t have time to cope with that. Dora was tempted to say, Pull yourself together.

  ‘It’s difficult to explain, in a few words, on the doorstep. When would be a more convenient time?’

  Her English was very good, but Dora could spot a German accent a mile away. She could even tell which part of Germany the speaker came from. This woman came from the north. Bremen or Hamburg. Hannover, perhaps. Wouldn’t be Rostock or Lübeck, because that was in the Communist East, and they had a different accent anyway, as different as a Scouser from a Geordie.

  ‘I don’t know this Mr O’Cleary,’ Dora said. ‘If that’s what you think. He must have the wrong person. Dora Simon is a common name.’

  ‘You were in Jersey,’ Barbara said. She smiled, a touch of irony drifting about her lips, as if she knew more than she was letting on. ‘I doubt there would be two Dora Simons there at the same time.’

  ‘You are very sure of yourself, young woman,’ Dora said. She could hear her voice, crisp and bitter. Forbidding.

  ‘Yes,’ Barbara said. She was looking Dora in the eye, standing up to her, tears gone. ‘Yes, I am.’ She shifted her weight. ‘I don’t want to upset you,’ she
went on. ‘It wouldn’t take long. Why don’t we meet for tea? There’s a little café in Bury Place, opposite the British Museum. It will be my treat. Perhaps tomorrow?’

  Dora calculated. She was planning to go to the new exhibition on Aztec treasures after lunch anyway. She wasn’t sure this woman would take no for an answer. She’d have to meet her sooner or later and Dora didn’t want to spend any more time fretting. Quick cup of tea together. Get it over and done with.

  ‘I know the café,’ Dora said. ‘This afternoon. At four. Goodbye.’ Shut the door before Barbara could answer.

  She went into the sitting room, watched through the window as Barbara walked down the path and headed up the hill. She waited until she was out of sight, then turned to go into the kitchen, catching sight of the silver coffee set that sat on the console table to the right of the door. Her colleagues had clubbed together and bought it for her from John Lewis when she retired. It was plate, but they’d had it engraved. To Dora Simon, Housing Administration Officer, University of London 1949 to 1975.

  The design, they told her, was a copy of a Bauscher Weiden coffee-pot. Her father had had the same. How were they to know? They also gave her a travel poster, a rare and elegant 1930s original, framed, simple art deco lines of sea and sand and sky. Jersey. The sunny Channel Island.

  ‘Now you have all the time in the world,’ they said.

  She’d cried when they gave it to her.

  Dora walked to the window of the café and stood with her back to Barbara, studying the photo. It was a mugshot. The sides had curled and the image was specked with mildew. Her hair had been fair then, her eyes, even in the grainy picture, were light. Her lip was swollen and there was a graze on her chin, though you had to look carefully. The dress had been red, rayon, a cocktail dress before the war. It was backless. From the front, it looked demure with a high halterneck. In the photo, it looked grey. Lifeless.

  She returned to the table, her shoulders rising and falling with her breath.

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t help you,’ Dora said, handing back the photograph. She wanted to say, Where did you get this? But that would unleash too much and she wasn’t ready. She could hear those demons already howling to be let out.

  ‘Joseph O’Cleary said it was you.’

  ‘I’ve told you,’ Dora said, hoping the quiver in her voice wasn’t telling, ‘I don’t know who he is. If I don’t know him, how can he know me? He is mistaken.’

  Barbara picked up her teacup and leaned back. ‘The photo was with my mother’s things, when she died.’

  ‘So?’

  She wished she had never agreed to meet Barbara. She’d had a strange feeling all along. Something was amiss. Barbara Hummel was a good actress, fraudsters had to be. What did she want? Money?

  Barbara took the photo from Dora, turned it over.

  ‘It says aus Jersey on the back.’

  ‘So?’

  Whatever she wanted, this was a shabby, sordid trick. Dora signalled to the waitress for the bill. She dabbed at the crumbs on her plate with her finger, aware that Barbara was studying her.

  ‘Before you go,’ Barbara said. She delved into her bag and pulled out another photo. A fraudster would have given up, surely, but this woman persevered.

  ‘Do you know this man?’

  An SS officer. Grey tunic. Three silver pips on the left-hand collar. Cap with a black band, leather belt with a revolver. He wore the Iron Cross. Breeches. Boots. High-ranking. Hauptsturmführer. Captain. A studio portrait.

  Dora’s hands were trembling and her heart pounding. She could feel the blood rushing to her face. She knew the physiology. Uncle Otto explained it to her in those early days when she couldn’t sleep. Your mind perceives a threat, so your body responds. Blood diverts itself away from the stomach and into your muscles. Your heart pumps harder to inject sugar and fats into the system for energy. Fight or flight, mein Liebling. But if there is no threat, if it’s just in your imagination, in your memory…

  Who was this woman?

  ‘No,’ Dora said. ‘Never seen him before.’

  She was tempted to say, Who are you? How did your mother have these photos? But that would give away the lie. Dora’d had to live on a lie. She didn’t want to do it again, thought those days were over. But here she was. Lying. Lies have short legs, her father used to say. Lies corrupted, built fear. Lies caught up with you. She could feel the bitter taste of fury swell inside her, the choking resentment at this woman churning up so much, without explanation, without a care. She was aware that Barbara was still studying her, weighing up Dora’s expressions, the way her body moved, her eyes flickered. She picked up her teaspoon, polished it with her napkin, returned Barbara’s gaze. Barbara looked away and Dora saw a brittleness there, a fragility she’d not spotted before.

  ‘Do you have children?’ Barbara said.

  ‘I never married.’ That was easier than the truth. She couldn’t have children. Not after what they did.

  ‘You don’t need to be married to have children.’

  ‘You did in my day.’ Dora pushed her chair back and pulled the jacket up on her shoulders.

  ‘Could I explain?’ Barbara said.

  ‘Explain what?’

  ‘Why these photographs are important to me. Why I have to know why my mother had them.’

  ‘I am not interested,’ Dora said. She put her hands in the pocket of her jacket so Barbara could not see her shaking. ‘Nor can I help you. Goodbye.’

  ‘May we meet again?’

  Dora walked out of the door, into the street. She couldn’t – wouldn’t – contemplate how Hummel had come by those photographs.

  Jersey: January – May 1943

  ‘We live a topsy-turvy life,’ Geoffrey said. ‘We farmers. Dawn to dusk, dusk to dawn. Always on duty.’

  Back to front, upside down. Dora had never felt like this. It wasn’t just that the days were turned inside out. She was turned inside out, looping the loop, tangled vapour trails across the sky. She understood now what it meant, being head over heels in love, for love somersaulted, bounced. Love was reckless. Breathless.

  She wished she could have someone to ask, Is this what it’s always like? It would have to be a special friend who could keep a secret and Dora had no one like that. Certainly not her landlady, Miss Besson, nor the other nurses she lived with. Dora had never felt so alone, or so exhilarated. She saw herself as a rocket blasting into the sky with blazing engines. Excited. Terrified.

  Geoffrey had a gramophone. He kept it in the sitting room, but if they left the door open they could still hear the music in the kitchen, the only room he could keep warm now there was no coal. He polished the records before he placed them on the turntable, winding the handle, balancing the needle.

  Sang in her ear as he waltzed her round the kitchen table that winter day. The record finished in the room next door.

  ‘I’ll put another one on,’ Dora said, added, ‘don’t worry. I’ll be careful. I know how to do it. Wind the gramophone first and all that.’

  His collection was small and modern. American music. Dance. Nothing like her father’s collection of operas and symphonies. Dora riffled through the records, picked ‘Moonlight Serenade’, pulled it from its cover and picked up the duster to clean it. The fabric was soft, perfect for removing the static and dust, but there was no mistaking. This was one of Geoffrey’s underpants, and Dora blundering into something so intimate. She wanted to laugh, clapped a hand over her mouth in case he heard, guffawed into her fingers. And there he was behind her, taking the garment away and wiping it round the black shellac. He held the record by the edges and lowered it gently onto the turntable.

  ‘Now you know one of my secrets,’ he said, taking her hand and leading her back into the kitchen.

  ‘One?’ Dora said. The sins of the fathers. Could she draw him out? ‘You have others?’

  ‘Who doesn’t? I bet you have a few, Nurse Simon.’

  She shook her head but a blush was working its way
up her neck, burning as it went. He brushed the back of his fingers against her cheek and pulled her close so her head rested on his shoulder. She wanted him to kiss her then, but he didn’t make a move. Perhaps he didn’t care for her, not deep down. Perhaps her breath smelled, her diet was not a healthy one. Perhaps he had another girlfriend who visited at the weekends. What was it Sir Leonard had said? A most unsavoury character. Or perhaps he was still in love with Margaret’s mother, even though he never talked about her. It was silly to be so unsure, but she didn’t know if he loved her, too. He’d never said.

  ‘Tell me about your wife.’

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘What was she like?’

  He paused. She felt his chest rise and fall as he breathed, heard him swallow, a hard gulp shoving past his Adam’s apple and down his gullet.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Dora said. She felt a rip of panic, a premonition. Perhaps he’d abandoned her. Or something dreadful had happened. An accident. Worse. ‘I shouldn’t have asked.’

  ‘You have every right to ask,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure how to answer. Bea died, in childbirth. I’d met her nine months earlier. She’d been here on holiday.’

  ‘Oh,’ Dora said. ‘How terrible. How did she die exactly?’ It was such a risky business, childbirth.

  ‘Eclampsia.’ He rested his chin on her head and she listened as he breathed in the kitchen air with its steam and wood smoke.

  ‘Like her daughter,’ Dora said.

  He nodded. ‘I was powerless to help her. I thought her the most beautiful creature that walked the earth,’ he went on. ‘If that doesn’t sound too corny.’ He pushed Dora away, held her shoulders at arm’s length, added, ‘Before I met you, that is.’ He smiled and pulled her close again. ‘I thought my grief was fathomless, that I could no sooner see my life without her than live on the moon. I wandered the beaches longing for a rip tide or a freak wave to suck me away and into oblivion.’

  Dora pressed her hand against his waist. I know about sorrow. She shouldn’t have raised the question, but she was glad she had. He had loved his wife very much. She thought she’d be jealous, but Geoffrey was sharing this part of himself with her, this intimacy, and she felt included, part of him, one with him. She knew now that he was capable of great love. Passion. Rage?