The English Girl: A heartbreaking and beautiful World War 2 historical novel

by Sarah Mitchell

  * * *

  The bus is passing through a hamlet which looks drab and cheerless in the flat light of late October. Still, as Viv glimpses the village sign, her heart soars. According to the timetable, Sculthorpe is the very next stop. Returning the letter to her handbag, she draws out a powder compact and lipstick. In the mirror the wet-black gloss of her hair seems practically promiscuous against the pallor of her complexion, which, even to her, looks whiter, more translucent, than ever. Quickly she applies a touch of red to her mouth, presses her lips together and throws the make-up back into her bag.

  Beyond the window, houses have given way to a plain board fence, the length and height of which suggest that what goes on behind the screen is not for public viewing. If this is the airfield, the bus will stop at the base any moment, and if Alex has received her recent letters he might – he should – be waiting at the side of the road.

  When Viv gets up to press the bell her hand is shaking.

  Alighting under the scrutiny of her fellow passengers, she opens her handbag again, for no reason other than to have somewhere to direct her gaze until the bus pulls away. Then she raises her head and looks up and down an empty road. Panic chokes her throat. She’s pressing her hand to her mouth, eyes filling with tears, even as she sees him step out from behind the gnarly trunk of an oak tree further along the street.

  ‘Alex!’ Viv runs towards him. She is crying properly now, the sheer relief of his presence melting her like candle wax. ‘I thought you weren’t here! That you hadn’t got my letters!’

  As she approaches, he catches hold of her elbow and holds her a little way distant. ‘Not here, darling. Anyone might see us.’

  She glances over her shoulder, at the deserted road. ‘There’s no one about, Alex.’ Pushing closer, she fingers the twill of his jacket. ‘Just us.’

  To her astonishment he steps backwards, though his hand still grips her arm. ‘I said not here, Viv!’ Steering her away from the airbase, he begins to walk quickly in the same direction the bus took moments earlier, twisting back every few steps to peer over his shoulder.

  ‘Where are we going?’ She is stumbling to keep up with him, the heels of her best shoes catching on loose stones and grit.

  ‘Not far, somewhere private, that’s all.’

  Two minutes later he turns off the road and unlatches a five-bar gate where a barn stands at the edge of an empty cattle field. With his free arm, he pushes the heavy wooden door.

  Viv blinks. The gloom is as thick as coaldust. Gradually shapes begin to emerge in the dregs of light trickling like water through the window high above the rafters. To her right, a heap of dirty-yellow straw bales climbs almost to the roof, while the remaining space is occupied with odd pieces of farm machinery: some kind of plough or hay baler, a small trailer with a missing wheel and one ridiculously big tractor tyre propped against the furthest wall. The air smells fusty, of earth and cobwebs and desiccated animal feed. The setting is hardly the ideal location for a romantic tryst, yet just as she is thinking it will have to do, she realises Alex is no longer holding her elbow. For a disconcerting moment he seems to have disappeared and then she spies him, leaning casually against the mountain of straw, the camouflage of his jacket bleeding into the shadowed hue of the dried grasses.

  ‘Alex!’ She takes the four paces necessary to bridge the distance between them and flings herself into his arms. Finding his lips, she pours the agony of the last few weeks into her kiss. At first, he doesn’t respond and then he spins her round so that his mouth and hips are pressing her against the straw.

  By the time they break apart both of them are breathing heavily. Gazing at her, Alex tilts his head. Viv is expecting him to kiss her again. Instead he tucks a lock of escaped hair behind her ear. ‘Vivian Markham,’ he says appraisingly, ‘you sure are one beautiful woman.’

  Viv catches his hand. ‘I don’t like it when you call me that.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Vivian Markham.’

  ‘That’s your name!’

  ‘My married name.’

  ‘Well, last time I checked, honey, you are married. And’ – even in the murky dimness she sees his brows furrow – ‘not only are you married; your husband is back home again.’

  Abruptly, the barn drops into silence. Viv turns over Alex’s hand, traces the lines on his palm with the nail of her index finger. This might not be the lunch date she was hoping for, but at least they are together again. With decisiveness she drops his wrist and begins to unbutton her coat.

  ‘I don’t feel married,’ she says quietly. ‘Not to Toby anyway.’

  ‘Viv…’ The tone is cautionary.

  ‘Toby has changed, Alex! We’re like prisoners in that awful camp of his. People who have to live with each other whether they like it or not. Except we’re the only two adults, stuck together in a great big house. He doesn’t even talk any more, not to me anyway.’ Her voice dips as she recalls how occasionally it seemed as if Toby was in conversation with someone, yet when she walked in the room, expecting to find him with one of his men, nobody else was there.

  She steps into the lee of Alex’s chest and starts to shrug off her coat.

  Alex bends his head. Gently cupping her jaw, his lips graze hers before all at once he steps backwards. ‘Viv, honey, I’m meant to be at work. If I don’t get back to the camp soon, someone will miss me and start asking questions.’

  She stares at him in bewilderment. ‘Didn’t you get my letters?’

  ‘Sure, I got your letters.’ Alex makes a noise as if he is swallowing something too big for his throat. ‘I got all five of them.’

  ‘Then couldn’t you have asked for some time off? It’s been so long since we’ve been together.’

  Alex shakes his head. ‘Sweetheart, it’s not some little office job. I can’t just help myself to an afternoon of holiday whenever I feel like it.’ He pauses, and the hurt must show on her face because he adds in a softer tone. ‘See, I have to be careful, that’s all. And what about Alice? Don’t you need to go home to pick her up from school?’

  ‘It’s not one o’clock yet! Besides, I’ve arranged for someone to mind Alice.’ Daisy, the girl who works for Toby, had been willing to help, even if she hadn’t seemed as pleased as Viv expected by the prospect of earning a little extra money. ‘I thought we would have the rest of the day together.’ The last sentence is no more than a whisper.

  Alex takes hold of her upper arms so that the heat from his hands radiates through the apricot silk of her blouse. The coat has slipped awkwardly around her waist, and except where Alex is gripping her skin every part of her body feels suddenly cold. She’s newly conscious, too, of the bitter wind gusting through the half-open door and the stink of cattle excrement lingering beneath the straw.

  For a long moment Alex looks at her, rather as though he is admiring a painting, and then he tips his head to place his mouth on hers. The press of his lips and the taste of his tongue are as familiar as ever, yet somehow the kiss is not the same as when they first arrived. This time it’s Viv who pulls away and drops her gaze. To her dismay her eyes are pooling. She can feel a thick, velvet tear teetering on her lower lashes.

  Alex’s finger settles under her chin and lifts it gently. ‘When you come again, I’ll have more time. I’ll find somewhere better for us to go. All right?’

  Viv doesn’t trust herself to speak. At least, she tells herself, there will be another time. He does still want to see her again. She is still frozen, numb with disappointment, when she becomes aware of Alex taking hold of her elbow and guiding her towards the exit.

  Outside, it is raining. The drizzle is a curtain, the raindrops hanging in the air as if no longer sure which way to fall. As they head towards the bus stop, beads of water appear on Viv’s coat. She can feel them clinging to her hair and sliding between her neck and the collar of her coat. Alex makes some half-hearted joke about the weather, but she isn’t really listening; she’s thinking that, if anyone were to spot
them, they would probably be mistaken for brother and sister. They may be walking arm-in-arm, his hip swinging inches from her own, but the contact feels deadened, almost chaste.

  At the bus stop, Alex unlinks himself. ‘I hope you don’t have to wait long?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Viv mumbles, although she does. The next bus isn’t for nearly two hours. It had never occurred to her this might be a problem; that she would be leaving so soon. She wonders if he will offer to stay with her for a while and knows immediately that he won’t.

  He bends to peck her on the cheek. ‘I’ll see you soon, sweetheart.’

  Viv nods. Then, as he turns away, ‘Alex?’

  He pivots on his heel without moving closer.

  ‘Shall I come next Tuesday too? At the same time? It will be Bonfire Night!’ As if there’s even the smallest chance of standing hand in hand with him beside the spit and crackle of flames.

  He nods briefly. ‘Next week, sweetheart! Same time, same place!’ Despite his jovial tone of voice there’s a sad, almost wistful, expression on his face that Viv can’t read.

  Chapter Six

  1 November 1946

  Fran is cycling home from work, the air blue with dusk and the smoke-filled start of November. She has been at the camp nearly a week now and can no longer pretend to June – or herself – that she doesn’t intend to stay there. The day before, Major Markham had poked his head around the door to the corridor.

  ‘Daisy looking after you all right?’

  It was the first time Fran had seen him since she started, and she was too startled to respond immediately. Pushing back her chair, she began to stand up, unsure both of the required etiquette and whether she might actually grasp the nettle and ask to speak to him about the possible impermanence of her position. Major Markham, however, seemed to take her brief silence as a sufficient answer. Before Fran could say anything, he exhaled a lungful of smoke into the room and disappeared. A moment later they heard the opening and closing of another door.

  Daisy sighed. ‘He’s in the meeting room again. Captain Holmes is away on leave. At least it means we can keep the window shut without suffocating from his tobacco.’

  Fran hovered by her desk. She could, of course, go and knock on the door to Captain Holmes’s office.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Daisy asked after a moment. ‘Is there something you want to talk to the major about?’

  For an instant Fran saw June’s face, awash with hurt and anger. Then she glanced at her desk, at the open files and her half-drunk cup of tea. ‘No… no, there isn’t. I’d better get on with the orders.’ She sat down and picked up her pen. ‘Goodness,’ she said a minute later, ‘it looks like we’re about to run out of potatoes.’

  * * *

  A sharp-edged voice catches Fran’s attention. Lowering her foot, she stops cycling. Ugly, aggressive insults are being hurled at someone whose replies fade before they reach her. Straining to hear, she pokes her boot into leaves now wet and heavy from the sleet that fell during the afternoon. In less than a week the weather has turned from autumn to winter, the cold descending with a hard, resolved grip that makes the grass crunch under the morning frosts and islands of ice float in the puddles.

  More abuse cuts across the gloom.

  Fran hesitates; she should probably leave the shouter to his quarrel, find another route, hurry to the warmth of supper and the waiting kitchen. Instead, after a moment, she finds herself dismounting and leading the bicycle along a flint wall towards the mouth of an alleyway.

  At the far end of the passage a fair-haired man in a smart black overcoat is cowering by the brickwork. His spectacles are crooked as though recently dislodged, his hat askance. He appears not to notice Fran, probably because the alley is thick with twilight and his attention focused on the two scruffy-looking soldiers who are facing him.

  ‘Did you get lost?’ the first soldier is saying. ‘Forget where you were going?’ Although he’s wearing khaki, his posture is slumped and a bottle dangles from his hand with the carelessness of an umbrella or a cricket bat.

  The man gazes at him warily. ‘I was just out for a walk. I walk every day.’

  ‘It’s a funny time of day to take a walk,’ the other soldier says, ‘when it’s getting dark. But then’ – he nudges his companion – ‘I’ve heard you’re a funny kind of chap.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ The man attempts to shuffle backwards and collides with the wall.

  ‘He means,’ the soldier with the bottle says, and takes a step forwards, ‘that you’re not one of us. Someone who pulls his weight, if you get my drift. It’s been pissing us off for a long while now – and we’re not the only ones.’ He glances sideways. ‘Maybe now’s the time to find out what you’re really made of.’

  ‘Jack…’ The second soldier throws out an arm.

  ‘Come on, Ken, he deserves a good roughing up. He’s had it coming for a long while and now there’s no one about to tell us differently.’

  ‘There’s me!’ The words spring from Fran’s mouth before she can stop herself.

  Three pairs of eyes swivel around.

  The soldier with the beer bottle does an exaggerated double-take that involves a little stagger and placing his free hand over his heart. Straightening up, he leers at her. ‘Run along, darling. This is no place for pretty girls. Better go home before it gets dark or Mummy will be wondering where you are.’

  ‘Let him go!’ Anger is burning in Fran’s throat, powering a determination she didn’t know she was capable of. It’s as much as she can do not to march across and smack the drunken soldier on the face. ‘You’re nothing but a couple of bullies, he’s done nothing to you!’

  Bottle-man turns the whole of his body around to face her with a deliberate, ominous slowness. Even in the half-light Fran can see the gleam in his eyes stoked by alcohol and opportunity. ‘Now that’s where you’re wrong, little darlin’. Though, it’s not so much what’s he’s done as what he’s not done, if you get my drift.’

  ‘Yes, do go home!’ This time it’s the man by the wall who speaks. His voice is so pleasant and clear that he almost succeeds in concealing his fear. ‘There’s no need to worry. I’ll be fine. I expect these two lads only want a chat.’

  ‘That’s right,’ growls bottle-man. ‘We only want to chat. Now then,’ he gathers himself like an animal before practically spitting at her, ‘piss-off!’

  Wrenching the bicycle about, Fran jumps on board and cycles away. Behind her she hears bottle-man say, ‘Looks like Joan of Arc got cold feet after all!’ and wonders what the trapped man is thinking, whether he assumes she has abandoned him, and how many minutes she has to fetch help before the soldier thugs start to get violent.

  At the end of the flint wall she stops, heart banging against her ribs, but the rumble of a motor, the smattering of sound she thought she could hear from the alley, is now unmistakable. Headlights sweep into the street, illuming the black tarmac and the straggle of trees with a wash of yellow, quickly followed by the bulk of a lorry. The vehicle appears to be a truck from the camp, the benches on the back crowded with weary prisoners returning after a day working on the beaches or farms.

  Leaving her bicycle by the wall, Fran leaps into the road waving her arms and shouting. At once the light-beams are blinding and the roar and smell of diesel overwhelming. All she can see is the engine grille bearing down on her like an approaching train. For a petrifying instant she’s certain the driver hasn’t seen her, that he won’t stop, that she’s about to disappear under the wheels of the truck. Then the brakes shriek with the sound of a thousand blackboard dusters and the lorry is shuddering to a halt in a whirlpool of fumes and noise.

  A voice shouts down, ‘Good God! What on earth are you doing?’

  ‘Please!’ cries Fran. ‘There’s a man in danger. He’s being attacked! You need to help him.’

  There’s a pause before the motor is cut and a sudden and absolute quiet descends. The driver drops his voice to conversation
al volume. ‘What’s that you say? Who’s in danger?’

  ‘I don’t know his name, but two other men are threatening to hurt him. To’ – she remembers the horrible phrase they used – ‘rough him up a bit. You – someone – needs to come quickly.’

  The driver blinks and gestures at the prisoners. ‘Well, I can’t leave this lot.’ He looks at Fran again with disbelief. ‘You nearly got yourself killed!’

  ‘It doesn’t matter now! We have to go and help.’

  The driver must read something of the desperation on her face because after a moment he shakes his head and sighs. ‘All right, this is what we’ll do.’ Turning in his seat, he points towards the back of the truck. ‘Thomas, you speak English. Go with the young lady and see what the problem is. I’ll wait here. But if you’re not back in ten minutes sharp, no more privileges and you’ll be headed for a spell in solitary. Understood?’

  There’s a murmur of assent, the clunk of the tailboard being released, and the thud of feet landing on tarmac, before a prisoner emerges from the side of the lorry.

  Fran stares.

  Thomas gazes back.

  Brilliant blue eyes latch onto her own.

  Fran swallows. ‘Please,’ she says. ‘We need to hurry.’