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

by Sarah Mitchell

  The man steps forwards. ‘Call the police, will you?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I? You’re stealing our things! I’ll go straight to the house and telephone them now.’ Viv half-swings away from him, desperate to run, to sprint towards the sanctuary of a lockable door and an electric light, yet terrified to turn her back.

  ‘It’s always the same with people like you.’

  The bitterness in his voice surprises her. Slowly, she turns around. ‘People like us?’

  ‘Rich people. With your big fancy house and big fancy garden. I bet that husband of yours didn’t see any real action. I’d bet my last shilling he spent his war moving toy soldiers over maps instead of burning to death in a desert with nothing but sand and flies and the stench of dead men rotting in the sun. And a girl, whose brother is a fucking draft dodger’ – the words burn through the moonlight – ‘gets a nice little office job while proper soldiers like me come back to nothing!’

  Viv glares at him incensed. ‘My husband did not spend the war in a command room! My husband fought like you did. He must have been just as frightened as his men, but he had to lead them, he had to stay strong even when his friends were dying all around him. Despite the terrible, terrible things he saw, he had to keep going every single day!’ To her astonishment she realises that she’s shouting. She tries to swallow, but the ache in her throat is like a fire in a stubble field. Too late she realises she’s on the verge of tears and before she can stop, her voice cracks completely. ‘It’s ruined him, the war!’ Then abruptly, ‘It’s ruined us.’ She swallows and gazes at the man sadly, ‘Like… like it’s ruined you too.’

  For a long moment they stare at each other. Viv shuts her eyes. Opens them again.

  Eventually she says with an attempt at normality, ‘What do you mean about Daisy?’

  The man is gazing at her mutely.

  ‘That her brother was a draft dodger?’ Viv prompts. ‘What did you mean about that?’

  ‘Don’t you know? Everyone else around here does.’

  Viv shakes her head.

  ‘He never fucking signed up. Got a bit of paper to say he has a dodgy heart and couldn’t fight. Why d’you think he has to work in town? Because nobody round here would give him a job, that’s why!’

  ‘But if he has a weak heart…?’

  ‘Weak heart, my arse! The only thing wrong with him is his lily-coloured liver—’

  ‘Shh!’ Abruptly, Viv turns away. ‘The dog, I think I heard the dog!’ She peers deep into the gloom. ‘Yes, I’m sure that was a whine. He’s been injured by the glass. I need to find him before—’

  The blistering crack of a rifle cleaves the sentence in two.

  Shockwaves reverberate around them like the wash of an ocean liner.

  ‘What the fuck was that?’

  Viv says, ‘I don’t know.’ However, she does know, they both must surely know. They have both heard gunfire before and her best guess as to why she might be hearing it now makes her heart gallop with fear. She ought to move, but her feet are heavy as clay. Motionless, she watches as the bottle-man retreats into the shadows of the tool shed before slipping silently towards the broken fence panelling. An instant later she’s on her own again.

  ‘Toby?’ The word comes out as a whisper. ‘Toby?’ Louder this time. Wrenching her feet free of the earth, Viv makes herself face towards the house. The ice-capped lawn stretches before her, the bulked house brooding in the distance. Her eyes sweep the scene, back and forth, back and forth. Then all at once her gaze locks, a terror she has never known before grabs her heart and she is racing, stumbling in her clumsy boots towards a small heap of clothing that is lying motionless near the edge of the patio.

  ‘Alice! Oh my God, Alice!’ She is screaming now. A cry of anguish from so deep inside she is choking on her own voice. ‘Toby? Toby, where are you? What have you done? What in God’s name have you done?’

  She sees the blood first. A scarlet river streaming through the snow, a deep sluice of red turning pink at the edges where the warmth of the fluid is melting the flakes. Breathing hard, she slithers to a halt and claps her hand over her mouth. Revulsion and relief are thundering through her ribcage simultaneously making her shake uncontrollably.

  She gapes at what she believed to be a bundle of clothes but is in fact the tousled whorls of an animal’s fur dusted in white crystals. Winston, she remembers now. The dog’s name is Winston. How could she have forgotten that? The empty eyes of the Labrador stare back at her. His chest is an open well of flesh, an indistinguishable red mess of ripped muscle and bone where the bullet felled him in his tracks.

  ‘Oh my God.’ Crouching down, Viv places her palm on the dog’s tranquil ribcage. His coat is still warm, a perfect black, gleaming in the moonshine.

  Footsteps crunch behind her shoulder. ‘I got him! He was coming for us and I got him with one shot!’

  Viv twists a piece of ebony hair between her fingers, unable even to glance upwards. ‘This is Winston, Toby. The neighbours’ dog.’

  ‘I told you we had intruders. You didn’t believe me, but I was right, wasn’t I? I was right!’

  ‘This isn’t an intruder, Toby! This was a dog, a friendly dog. He wasn’t coming for you. He probably just wanted to say hello. He was just a puppy. He came through a hole in the fence. He… he must have heard something in our garden.’ It strikes her like a slap in the face that if Toby had seen the bottle-man first he probably would have shot him instead. That if the Labrador hadn’t startled Toby, she could be kneeling beside the corpse of a human being. That her husband would be guilty of murder. And what if Alice had been in the garden? Her first paralysing, petrified instinct when she saw the mound on the snow might have been right. Bile rises in her throat. Still, she can’t lift her eyes.

  ‘He was attacking us. All of us. You and me and Alice.’ Toby’s voice is higher, tighter. Viv can’t tell if he is being defensive or is genuinely confused.

  ‘No, Toby…’

  ‘I had to protect us. That’s my job. To keep everyone safe.’

  ‘Not from a puppy. We don’t need protecting from a puppy.’ Although her head feels heavy as a cannonball, she manages at last to look up. To her surprise, Toby is focused neither on her nor the dog, but somewhere far into the middle distance. As Viv gets up, he snaps around to face her.

  ‘They’re coming! There’ll be more of them any second now!’

  ‘Nobody’s coming, Toby.’

  ‘I can hear them, Viv. Listen!’

  There’s a moment of quiet, of pearly blue silence, when the night softens around them before Toby throws the rifle onto his shoulder and fires into the distance.

  Viv grabs his arm. ‘Dear God, Toby, stop! STOP!’ She is weeping, the tears oddly hot against her face.

  ‘We must take up positions. There’s not much time to lose.’

  ‘Toby!’

  The gun is flat against his cheek, his finger ready on the trigger.

  ‘TOBY!’

  His empty black glance almost makes her crumble to her knees. Words desert her. She thinks, I have never been this tired. Or this alone. Then, steadily with determination. ‘If they’re coming and you need to protect me, I think you should take me inside. That way you can look after Alice as well.’

  She holds his gaze. The cliff edge feels just inches away. From the darkness above, the owl calls again, homeward bound over the trees, announcing his return.

  Slowly, very slowly, Toby lowers the rifle. ‘I suppose you could be right.’ He motions with the butt, as though the weapon is merely an extension of his arm. ‘Walk ahead of me and I’ll provide cover from the rear.’

  Viv starts to move before he can change his mind. As she heads towards the open doors of the dining room, she’s aware of Toby barely a pace behind, his breath grazing her ear, the clunk of the gun as he settles and resettles the casing on his collarbone. Instinct – or fear – tells her not to look back at him.

  Eventually her hand is reaching for the door frame
, her foot stepping over the threshold. Once inside, she stands for a moment absorbing the warmth, the contained silence, the smell of furniture polish, before she flicks on a lamp and the outside night turns the colour of a raven’s wing as if a theatre curtain has dropped and the lights have gone up in the auditorium.

  Cautiously, she turns around. Toby is staring at the garden, the rifle hanging at his side. Eventually he steps away from the window and lays the gun across the mahogany stretch of the dining table.

  ‘Toby?’

  ‘Sorry…’ He shakes his head.

  ‘For a moment,’ Viv says quietly, ‘I thought you’d shot Alice.’

  He shakes his head again more violently. ‘That dog… I believed…’ He stops. For the briefest instant only, his eyes meet hers. ‘I don’t know what I believed.’ He steps past her to pour a whisky from the decanter on the sideboard. She watches the quiver of his wrist, the amber puddle that gathers on the wood and then begins to drip down the front panel of the cupboard. Without a word, he picks up the glass and leaves the room.

  Viv touches her hair. She is newly aware that the rough furrow of stiches is throbbing, but the sensation has a dull, familiar quality as though she has been experiencing the pain for some time without really noticing. She will have to ask Toby to move the Labrador’s body first thing in the morning, before Alice wakes up and sees the carnage on the lawn. And then, of course, she will have to inform the neighbours that their dog is dead.

  What can she possibly say to them? What reason can she give to explain the fact that her husband has shot their puppy? Viv shuts her eyes. Tadpole tails of half-light swim before her lids. The truth is stark and unavoidable. She will have to tell them that her husband is ill. Very ill. That he needs medical attention and she, his wife, is going to find someone to help him. Her gaze moves to the rifle, left casually beside the silver candelabra. The echo of her terror when she first spied the slaughter makes her whimper out loud. And straight away her conscience brings the next ghastly thought: if Toby is fragile, so vulnerable, how can she possibly leave him and take Alice to America? The dog, poor Winston, was tragic enough, but how much worse might the outcome have been – could things become – if Toby is left alone?

  Yet how can she possibly stay?

  As she heads to bed, a sliver of light is seeping from the drawing room. Viv leans against the door and peeps through the opening. Toby is sitting with his hands over his face, the whisky untouched at his side. He is silent, but Viv can see all too plainly the shudder of his shoulders, the ragged heaving of his chest. She prepares herself to go to him, then stops. Although only feet away from her, the blue pile of the carpet might as well be the North Sea and Toby on the other side of it. For a moment or two Viv watches her husband, her bones aching with sadness, before she turns away and climbs slowly up the stairs.

  Chapter Eighteen

  4 January 1947

  ‘Martin, for heaven’s sake! That’s the third time I’ve tripped over you this morning!’

  ‘Sorry! Sorry!’ Backing away, he draws out a chair from under the kitchen table and sinks down heavily.

  His mother disappears into the larder and returns a moment later bearing a large terrine. ‘Irene made oxtail soup yesterday because she won’t be coming in again until Monday. I’ll heat us some up for lunch and Daisy can join us when she gets back.’ She glances at him. ‘Are you quite sure you’re all right? Did you want to speak to me about anything?’

  ‘No… I mean, yes. Everything is fine.’ He pulls a packet of Swan Vesta matches from his trouser pocket and taps them lightly against the table. The snug, square fit of the box in his palm is a comfort and at least keeps his hands busy. It’s tempting to light up, but his mother would never tolerate smoking in the kitchen.

  ‘Where is Daisy?’

  ‘Visiting Barbara. She said she would be back by half past twelve, but you know what those two are like once they start chatting. And with Daisy working, the weekends are their only chance to see each other.’

  Martin glances at the clock. Five past twelve. With Daisy out of the house all morning, this has been the perfect opportunity to ask his mother about the discoveries he made yesterday. How the wrong doctor’s signature could have ended up on his medical report, and why he and Daisy have never been told about the existence of little Frederick. Yet the morning is almost over, and still he hasn’t been able to broach the subject. Swivelling the matchbox between his fingers he watches his mother ladle an unappetising brown liquid from the tureen into a saucepan. From the back she still appears youthful – slim waist and styled crop of gingery curls flecked by the mere occasional silver thread.

  Martin grimaces and his grip on the Swan Vestas tightens. He has no desire to have this conversation, to talk about Frederick or cross-examine his mother about the medical report, for which, he assures himself, there must surely be a straightforward explanation. Nor, however, can he spend another sleepless night wrestling with the impossible until he finds himself doubting everything and anything he has ever been told.

  ‘Martin! That tapping, it’s driving me quite mad! Do stop fiddling with the matchbox, dear. Are you very hungry? I could heat up your soup now, if you like. You don’t have to wait for Daisy.’

  Martin’s palm collapses around the packet as if he is entrapping a small animal. ‘Don’t bother with any soup for me. I’m not particularly hungry.’

  ‘What on earth is it then?’ His mother swings round, wiping her hands on an apron. She examines him appraisingly, head on one side. ‘You seem to be all at sixes and sevens.’

  Without thinking he begins to rap the matchbox on the table before dropping the box abruptly and folding his arms. ‘Actually, there is something I want to talk to you about. A couple of things, in fact.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Maybe you should sit down.’

  ‘Goodness, that does sound rather serious!’ She smiles, but when he doesn’t respond he thinks he sees her colour dip, or a dart of fear, perhaps, flicker across her face.

  Getting up, he pulls out another chair from under the table and watches as she wipes her hands on her apron and lowers herself onto the seat. She throws him a quick glance before her attention is caught by a mark on the oilcloth.

  ‘I want to ask you about my medical report. The conclusion of the medical board that I was unfit for military service.’ He stops, considers for a moment the wretched matchbox. Then, ‘Dr Sands found that I couldn’t fight because I suffer from dilated cardiomyopathy, didn’t he?’

  His mother lifts her gaze from the blue-and-yellow check. ‘You know about this already, Martin. You’ve always known about this.’ She sounds perplexed, and also a trifle relieved. Frowning, she licks her forefinger and rubs at the stain.

  ‘I haven’t—’

  ‘Dilated cardiomyopathy means you have a weak heart. That’s what the doctor told you at the time.’

  ‘The doctor, yes. But not Dr Sands.’

  ‘What on earth do you mean?’

  ‘I wasn’t examined by Dr Sands. I never even met him. The doctor who conducted my medical board was called Dr Dandy.’

  The rubbing stops. Both of her hands fly to her lap.

  ‘You must be mistaken, Martin. It was such a stressful time for us all. I expect you’ve misremembered the doctor’s name. It’s very easily done—’

  ‘No—’

  ‘It was years ago and in the middle of the war. So much has happened since then—’

  ‘I haven’t misremembered the doctor’s name!’ The voice, his voice, is shockingly loud. He lowers his eyelids, presses his fingers to his forehead. The last thing he should want is to drag his mother’s secrets into the daylight and dissect them as if he were conducting an autopsy, and yet the last thing he finds he can bear is to suffer these dreadful, cancerous, destabilising doubts a second longer. He takes a breath. ‘I checked my old diary for the day of the examination, the tenth of August 1941, and the entry says I was seen by Dr Dandy. The name must have s
truck me as a little odd, humorous even, I suppose, and so I wrote it down.’

  ‘Well, perhaps you got the name wrong at the time. Perhaps you misheard. Sands and Dandy do sound alike. Very similar, I would say.’

  ‘Sands isn’t a bit like Dandy. Besides’ – Martin feels his torso drawing upright, as if he is about to hurdle a fence – ‘there’s another reason, an extremely good reason, why I couldn’t have seen Dr Sands…’ A pause. A breath. ‘Dr Sands had most probably died by the tenth of August 1941 and if he wasn’t dead, he certainly wasn’t well enough to see any patients!’

  Martin’s mother stares at the floral print of her apron. For a while the silence vibrates around them, lapping at the table as if they are victims of a shipwreck stranded upon an island, until eventually she says quietly, ‘How did you find out?’

  ‘It wasn’t terribly hard. I obtained the number for Dr Sands’ surgery and spoke to the receptionist.’

  Her head snaps upwards. ‘But why, Martin? What on earth made you do that?’

  ‘The night you had a visitor, when I came downstairs because I thought you were upset, I overheard part of a conversation, someone talking about my heart condition and describing the situation as very serious. You’ve always been so vague about the diagnosis, so I decided to find the medical report and see for myself exactly what it said. When I didn’t recognise the name of Dr Sands, I hunted for the record in my diary.’

  ‘You went through my private papers?’ His mother’s face is a mask of alarm and fury – and something else too, an emotion he can’t quite identify.

  ‘Only in search of a document about me. That belongs to me in actual fact!’

  He squints at the clock again, steadies his breath and gently encloses his mother’s hands within his own. ‘Look, never mind about that now. Please. I need to know what happened. Tell me before Daisy comes home, while it’s just the two of us and we can talk by ourselves.’