Widowland

by C. J. Carey

  Even when she didn’t understand the words, when they were essentially meaningless to her, their magic still reached inside her and made the air between them tremble. The poetry her father read seemed exhilarating, as though its cadences could affect your life, and maybe even transmute it.

  The thought of Dad brought back the encounter with Celia, and a fresh jolt of sorrow assailed her. She could imagine Geoffrey bundling his hapless old father-in-law into the back of his Jaguar, talking heartily of a day trip or some other concocted lie, as the car sped towards the faceless institution where Dad would sit in a chair, knowing no one, out of contact with everything he held dear.

  What would Dad make of her mission today? She dearly wished she could ask him.

  She hadn’t dared tell Martin about the Commissioner’s threat.

  She’d managed to see him briefly over the weekend. He rented an apartment in Dolphin Square – a handsome red-brick set of mansion blocks in Pimlico on the north bank of the Thames, largely occupied by single men rather than families, SS and Ministry civil servants and their women friends. He had given Rose a key, but she had never used it and was nervous of calling on Martin unexpectedly; it breached some unspoken rule between them that said his private territory was sacrosanct, to be visited by invitation only, whereas he might call on her at any time. The Commissioner’s request, however, had left her in a state of anxious desperation.

  Martin was wearing a dark green dressing gown, luxuriously silky and flattering against his tanned flesh, the neck revealing a glimpse of curled chest hair that was damp from the shower. A towel was draped around his shoulders and he had a razor in one hand. He looked so attractive, Rose wondered immediately if he had a female visitor, but on his bed was only his uniform laid out: black tunic with silver buttons, white shirt, black jodhpurs, peaked black cap with silver braiding below the death’s head, and on the floor beneath, black leather boots polished to a mirror shine.

  He glanced rapidly up and down the corridor and quickly ushered her in.

  ‘This is a pleasant surprise, Liebling.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Martin.’

  She only realized she was trembling when he put a steadying hand on her arm.

  ‘I wouldn’t have come, only the Commissioner’s ordered me to visit the Widowlands outside Oxford and interview some Friedas for the Protector’s book. I’m to go on Monday. But I haven’t the first clue where to start. And I’ve no idea how to find anything out.’

  ‘Hey. Calm down.’

  ‘But I was thinking—’

  ‘Trouble with you, my darling? You do too much thinking.’ He tapped her forehead, mock stern. ‘What else did he say?’

  ‘Nothing much.’

  ‘Then what are you worried about?’ He went over to his desk and scribbled on a piece of paper. ‘I have a colleague who lives in Oxford. Detective Bruno Schumacher. We were at school together. When I went off to study law, he, poor fellow, joined the police force, got divorced, then was drafted over here for his sins. If you have any problems, give Bruno a call.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Of course. Tell him I sent you. And don’t worry!’

  He tipped her chin towards him.

  ‘This isn’t like you, Rose. What are these Friedas going to do? Attack you with their knitting needles? They’re old women. What is there to be frightened of?’

  Martin was right. What was she frightened of?

  After all, she rarely had cause to see or speak to a Frieda. When the Alliance was formed, the office that regulated women on the mainland – the Frauenshaft, or Women’s Service – was rolled out in Britain. Each caste was overseen by a division of the FS that did everything from administering ration books to running Mother Service classes and policing adherence to clothing and behaviour rules. Once women were assigned a caste, FS officers instructed them in appropriate behaviour. Those who violated any kind of ordinance faced deprivation of rations, imprisonment, downgrading of caste and worse. Klaras who behaved inappropriately risked having their children taken into the care of the state.

  Women in the Alliance faced regulations for everything – where to go, shop, eat, live. How to style their hair. Their identity cards specified the precise number of calories each category of woman would be allocated – 2,613 for Gelis, 2,020 for Lenis, 2,006 for Magdas, Gretls 1,800, and Friedas 879. All these calculations were based on guidelines drawn up on the mainland.

  Yet even more plentiful were the regulations for what was forbidden, and the list for women of Class VI was the longest. Friedas were forbidden to walk in public parks, to attend cinemas, theatres, hospitals or restaurants. They could not keep pets. They were allowed no meat or eggs. They could shop only after five o’clock, when most of the produce was gone.

  They were not to associate with men.

  For some reason, into Rose’s head came an incident shortly after the formation of the Alliance, when she had accompanied her father to the Royal Albert Hall in Kensington. It was Ransom family tradition to attend a concert at Christmas, and their father always booked the tickets well in advance, yet when they arrived at the box office that day, everything was at sixes and sevens. The venue had been co-opted as a ‘designated collection point’, someone apologized, as a posse of uniformed men strode through the foyer past the winding queue. On impulse, while her father waited, Rose slipped away along a corridor, up some steps, and parted a crimson velvet curtain to peer inside.

  It was an astonishing sight.

  The auditorium was filled with hundreds of Friedas in spiralling lines, waiting to be interviewed by a row of officers behind desks, each with a pile of manila folders to hand. It seemed that the women were being given the details of their relocations and instructions as to what clothes and possessions they could take. A large board had been erected with the instructions.

  2 x black dresses

  2 x underwear

  1 x black coat

  1 x pair boots

  2 x towels

  As she watched from behind the velvet curtain, Rose could not tear her eyes away. The Friedas’ faces were sallow moons above a basalt sea. Although none of them spoke, they milled anxiously like the crawling mass of a beehive, exuding insect energy. They seemed, in their ubiquitous black, almost inhuman. Repelled, and a little scared, Rose let the curtain drop.

  Now, the memory disturbed her. She rarely gave Friedas any thought. A Frieda was not allowed to address a Geli directly without permission and there were very few occasions in which their paths would even cross. So why did she feel trepidation, almost revulsion, at the idea of entering Widowland, and a sinking dread of what she might find?

  With an effortful screech of brakes, the train pulled into Oxford station and almost immediately, it was clear something was happening. The platform was crowded with excited children, girls in the sky-blue and white uniform of the Alliance Girls’ League and boys in the chestnut-brown shirts of the Alliance Boys, hurrying past. Others, with trays of tin badges, were stationed at each side of the exit, making it impossible for commuters to avoid a donation. It was only when Rose had produced an Alliance mark and had a tin badge thrust into her hand that she understood.

  How could she have forgotten? Tomorrow was the Leader’s birthday.

  The 20th of April was a special day across the whole of Europe, marked each year by rallies and brass bands in town squares, readings in decommissioned churches and school plays re-enacting scenes from the Leader’s life. Workers in factories and offices would sing the national hymn and a relaxation in rations was allowed – either an extra packet of National cigarettes or a small quantity of sugar per family.

  Judging by the instruments and sheet music they were carrying, these children must be practising for the next day. As their instructors shepherded them towards the city centre, the faint thump of brass instruments and drums could already be heard.

  Rose allowed herself to be carried along in the stream of children, swallowed up in their bubble of excited chatter, gazin
g at the honey-coloured buildings around her. Long ago, her father had studied here for a year, at a place called Ruskin Hall, established for working men who could never dream of the traditional university route. His reminiscences of the mediaeval quadrangles, the domes and spires, and the neo-classical Sheldonian Theatre designed by a young Christopher Wren had percolated their childhood. In Rose’s father’s mind, Oxford was the most exquisite city in England, a lost kingdom of beauty and culture and learning for its own sake. She had not for a second expected the place to match up to Dad’s rose-tinted memories, but now she saw that he was right. Even though the sandstone was dulled with soot and the pillars and pediments were crumbling with age, there was a harmony about them, and the way they seemed to fit together, that enchanted her. Above the towers and pearl-grey cupolas, a filigree of leaves unfurled against a soft blue sky.

  Many of the colleges had been commandeered for VIPs in anticipation of the Leader’s visit, and each ancient stone door was manned by a brace of sentries in field-grey uniform, to the obvious disdain of the traditional college porters, who could be seen, in their black coats and familiar bowler hats, moving officiously around their lodges just inside the gates.

  Outside the Sheldonian Theatre, a ring of square stone pillars topped by head and shoulder busts of ancient sages had for centuries stood guard. Yet now the Roman emperors and philosophers had been replaced by busts of the Leader, his deputies Hess and Himmler, Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Müller, and a couple of other senior men. Their freshly carved faces stared balefully out from their pillars, like decapitated warriors in some ancient and bloody battle. Fleetingly, Rose wondered what her father would make of the renovation. Martin had explained that what people like her father saw as a reverence for culture was really only a small-minded attachment to the recent past by people who had no ability to innovate, but still, it was a small mercy that Dad was not here to see it.

  The children were congregating, unpacking their instruments and being assembled into lines. Before long they had begun a rendition of ‘Land of Alliance Glory’, a song whose music never failed to stir the blood, even if many people could not bring themselves to mouth the words. The children had no such qualms, their high, pure voices wavering into the clear April air.

  Rose stood for a while among the onlookers enjoying the sight until, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed something less harmonious going on.

  In the grip of three policemen a black shape that appeared, on closer inspection, to be an old Frieda was thrashing vigorously as the men restrained her. Her mouth was a gappy void – Friedas were not entitled to false teeth – and her stringy hair was coming loose from her bun. She was shouting, her voice clear and educated, ringing out among the mediaeval facades.

  ‘Take your hands off me, you louts!’

  Her tone took Rose straight back to school and the figure of Miss Price, a maths teacher at the Clapham School for Girls. A mini martinet, in pebble glasses and a steel-grey bun, Miss Price was known not to suffer fools gladly and the sternest of men withered in her glare. Miss Price had been the bane of Celia’s life, but when she taught Rose, a glint of humour softened the icy rigour. It crossed Rose’s mind to wonder where Miss Price would be now. In some distant Widowland perhaps, fenced in and draped in black?

  The burliest policeman was gripping the old woman pincer fashion by the back of the neck, his face rigid with anger, his jaw jutting and skin flushed with the effort of restraining his more violent urges.

  ‘I am not Class Six subsection C or any other kind of class.’

  Faces began to turn. Interest quickened and a thrill of diversion ran through the crowd.

  ‘I’m an individual. My name is Adeline Adams.’

  Her voice, hoarse with shouting, retained the timbre of command. Presumably some Friedas had once been more used to giving orders than taking them.

  ‘I’m a British citizen and I demand to be treated with respect. Your behaviour is despicable. I said, remove your hands.’

  Only a Frieda would dare to be so subordinate. It was almost as if Friedas didn’t care what happened to them. The policeman gave an aggressive laugh.

  ‘If that’s what you want.’

  He thrust her forward onto the ground, where she fell awkwardly on her forearm, and pinioned her with a foot on her chest. Attracted by the commotion, children turned away from the singing and with tribal excitement began pointing and laughing at the woman’s predicament.

  The sound of a motor closed in as a car, closely followed by a dingy van, swung round the corner and came to a halt at the kerb. Instantly, the mood amongst the onlookers changed and the children’s teachers attempted physically to block their view. Out of the back of the car a man in civilian clothes emerged. The policeman removed his foot from the Frieda’s chest and straightened up. Rose strained to hear the conversation.

  ‘What the hell’s this about?’

  ‘Suspected guerrilla action, sir.’

  ‘Evidence?’

  ‘Eyewitness, sir.’

  ‘And the reason for this?’

  The newcomer gestured with distaste at the woman, now sitting on the ground, cradling her arm.

  ‘Resisting arrest, sir.’

  The suited man looked around at the three police officers.

  ‘And that took three of you, did it? What was she in her previous life? A professional wrestler?’

  ‘She’s stronger than she looks, sir,’ said the policeman in an injured tone, casting a vindictive glance at his elderly victim, who was now dusting down her black serge dress with meticulous care.

  ‘Well, Sergeant Johnson, you know the form. Get her in and take the witness statement. Don’t for Christ’s sake make more of a spectacle of yourself than you have already.’

  With a sigh, the man clambered back into his car, and the three policemen set about shoving the old woman into the back of the collection van with some extra kicks for good measure.

  The morning that had seemed so pure was spoiled. It was starting to drizzle. Water was speckling the sheet music of the trumpet players and the children were shifting restively, focused on getting out of the rain. Moisture dappled the shop windows and the Alliance flags hung limply against their poles.

  Turning away, Rose checked again the address of the hotel. The Red Lion. Judging by her map, it was only a few streets away. Hurrying off, she turned left down a slip of a cobbled passage called Magpie Lane squeezed between two colleges. It was so narrow that it set her mind wandering back to the past again – how ancient carts might have squeezed through its rough mediaeval walls and very likely got stuck there. Now, the only transport in evidence was a couple of bicycles leaning against the wall of a student lodging house.

  Then, towards the end, at the point where the lane measured no more than ten feet across, a vivid scrawl of paint leapt out at her, arcing across the brickwork like a spasm of blood.

  Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind

  The Commissioner was right. It was everywhere.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The Red Lion hotel was shabby and tired, with a receptionist who matched the decor. She had obviously rouged cheeks and ringlets hanging down each side of her face, like a china Staffordshire dog that had lost its pair. Her sweat-stained Magda’s tunic dress was as worn as the upholstery and her perfume fought a losing battle with the aroma of mothballs, mingled with the scent of that evening’s dinner drifting up from the kitchens.

  The Red Lion had certainly seen better days. But the same was true of England now.

  ‘Will that be one breakfast or two?’ she enquired nosily. It was not her place to ask direct questions but framing it as a technical query was just about permissible. She glanced down at Rose’s left hand as she signed the register, then up again, lips puckering into a smile. Rose considered reprimanding her for such an intrusive question, but common sense overtook her.

  ‘It’s just me.’
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br />   She smiled and accepted the key.

  On the wall of room thirty-seven, directly opposite the bed, hung a portrait of the Queen. Despite the softened lens and the cloud of ivory tulle that caressed her cadaverous form, her Majesty did not look well. In fact, even the sight of her was stressful. Her complexion was chalky, the wide jaw clenched like a trap, and the elaborate tiara on her blackened hair seemed to claw her skull like the talons of some great jewelled bird. She looks her age, thought Rose. At fifty-seven, Wallis Windsor could have been a poster woman for Pervitin, the nerve tonic that was so popular among the lower castes.

  A Pervitin a day takes your worries away!

  Not for Wallis and Edward, it wouldn’t. Not with the Leader on his way.

  Rose lay down on the bed and immediately regretted it. The mattress might have been stuffed with tennis balls. It was no more than three feet wide, caved generously in the centre, and the rusty springs complained at the slightest shift.

  She considered the Magda’s surprise to see a woman like her travelling alone. Celia was right. At the age of twenty-nine she ought to be more worried about the implications of her failure to find a man. She should be settled now, with three or four children instead of a job, and a nice house somewhere in the suburbs. Entertaining her husband’s friends. Discussing menus with the Gretl. Shopping, gardening, playing bridge. By staying single, she ran a big risk of being reclassified. The duty to reproduce was even more important for Gelis, because of their quality.

  It wasn’t as though she hadn’t tried. Men had come and gone, but she had never felt deeply connected to any of them. Not the way Jane Eyre felt about Mr Rochester. Or Catherine about Heathcliff. Not even the way that Queen Wallis must once have felt towards the King. Rose had experienced no bolt of lightning, or coup de foudre. Once the early rush of infatuation had faded, her feelings towards Martin were a muddle of curiosity, apathy and guilt. Every emotion was splintered with questions. Was Martin being honest when he said the relationship between himself and Helga was more that of brother and sister than man and wife? Did Helga know of Rose’s existence and hate her, or was she blissfully unaware as she went about her Hausfrau life in the Berlin suburbs, meeting her friends for Kaffeeklatsch and nagging her children about their music lessons?