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

by Sarah Mitchell

  Before he can respond, the tyres begin to slide. Slowly, the car glides through the middle of the carriageway and across the opposite lane like a skater balanced on one leg. Viv sees Toby wrench the steering wheel to no avail, hears a muttered curse under his breath, before the front wheels lose contact with the surface and there is a softly definitive thump as the chassis lurches downwards and the glass fills with snow.

  Viv peels herself off the dashboard, shaking but unharmed. ‘Toby! You’re bleeding!’ As he draws his palm across his forehead, crimson streaks his leather glove. ‘Are you hurt? Let me see.’

  He twists out of her reach. ‘It’s nothing. Only a scratch.’

  Viv hesitates, then leans back again.

  The engine purrs into a pocket of silence.

  ‘What do we do now?’ A crystal dam has filled the windscreen and both of the front windows. Smashed stars press the glass, blocking the light as if a drape has been pulled. The road can only be seen through the back windows, the surface tilted at an angle and plainly higher than the boot. Viv has to quell the bubble of panic in her voice. ‘How do we get out?’ When Toby doesn’t answer straight away, she yanks on the passenger handle. The lever swivels uselessly on its hinge.

  ‘I have to turn off the motor.’

  Viv gapes at him. Her hand is still on the door. ‘We’ll freeze to death!’ The efficiency of the Ford Anglia’s heater was one of the reasons she risked the journey and, so far, the temperature of the car has been no less pleasant than that of the drawing room. Once the engine stops turning, they both know the position will change very quickly.

  ‘If I keep the motor on and the exhaust pipe is blocked, we’ll be suffocated by fumes. Besides, if I don’t switch it off, we’ll use up all the petrol.’

  ‘How long do you think we’ll be here?’

  He meets her gaze. There’s a graze on his forehead, a red, angry smudge. ‘It could be quite a while.’ Whatever he reads on her face makes him hold the contact and his tone softens. ‘When the cold becomes unbearable, we’ll switch on the engine for a few minutes to warm ourselves up.’

  ‘What about the exhaust, the fumes?’

  ‘We’ll just have to hope the pipe isn’t clogged, but if the air seems to change then I’ll have to shut the motor down again.’

  He reaches for the ignition.

  ‘Suppose the car doesn’t start again, once you turn it off?’

  ‘I don’t know. We have to hope it will.’

  Viv swallows and nods.

  Within seconds the warmth in the car begins to dissipate. Viv can visualise a bead of mercury shrinking before her eyes, the silver thread collapsing as if the liquid were being sucked out of the tube. Balling her woollen-clad fingers into fists, she jams them into her pockets and stares at the blank wall of the windscreen. With no traffic on the road, who, exactly, is going to find them? And when? And what happens when the petrol is finished, the feeble winter sun has sunk beneath the horizon, and there is nothing to prevent the temperature shrivelling and solidifying into a death chamber of ice.

  Viv glances at Toby. His expression has become vacant, like someone lost within himself. ‘What are you thinking about?’

  He blinks in surprise. The query was plainly not one he was expecting. In fact, he seems surprised to see her sitting beside him. ‘Not a great deal.’

  ‘I’d like to know.’ She hesitates, then. ‘You spend a lot of time on your own, but you never say why, or tell me what’s on your mind.’

  His pupils dart between the passenger and driver’s door, as if his instinct is to escape from her questions. ‘It’s better you don’t know.’

  ‘It isn’t better, Toby.’ She leans across the gear stick and puts her hand on his arm. ‘Not better for us. We never talk anymore. You’ve become a stranger. A silent stranger. And Daisy said…’ she stops.

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘That…’ – she gives him a squeeze through the pelt of his sleeve – ‘that you’re hardly ever at the camp. But you leave for work every morning. So where do you go? What are you doing all day?’

  He doesn’t reply.

  Viv waits.

  The silence stretches like a piece of elastic, the import gathering until unexpectedly the moment passes, the tension dissolves and Viv removes her hand. Miserably, she gazes at the blue folds of her coat. Daisy and Alice must have eaten the cottage pie by now. Daisy must be checking the time, no doubt becoming even more annoyed than she was when Viv left. Perhaps when she and Toby don’t come home, Daisy will raise the alarm and telephone the police or the fire service. Unless, of course, she is so angry she simply abandons Alice and…

  ‘I drive to the cliffs and watch the waves.’

  Viv lifts her head.

  Toby seems to be addressing the steering wheel, the wipers or the acres of snow outside the car – anywhere except the seat next to him. ‘I don’t really think, not as such, not that I’m aware of. I just see things. I can’t stop them. The pictures, the scenes, they keep coming at me. Even when I close my eyes. Often, shutting my eyes makes them worse.’ He lowers his lids now, jamming the thumb and forefinger of his right hand into the corners of his eye sockets. ‘It’s like I’m trapped in the past, forced to live the same hours, the same minutes over and over again. But those images don’t feel like the past, they seem real, as if the war is happening right this minute and all around me, yet I still can’t do anything different to change the result.’

  ‘What things do you see?’ Viv says gently.

  Toby shakes his head. ‘You don’t want me to tell you. You really don’t want that.’

  He falls quiet and for a while they sit in silence.

  Eventually, Viv takes his left hand and draws it into her lap. ‘The doctor will find a way to make it stop. He’ll know what to do, the medicines that can help.’ She pauses. ‘Once we finally manage to see him.’

  The car is becoming darker. A slice of sky is visible through the back windscreen, the thin, grey sliver is turning a sullen shade of purple, and the chill inside the Ford Anglia has the sting of a slap or winter seawater. The time is nearly four o’clock, dusk is pressing on the heels of the afternoon, and after evening, Viv thinks, comes nightfall.

  All at once Toby shivers, the vibration reverberating from his hips, through to his torso and shoulders.

  ‘Should we switch the engine on again?’

  ‘Not yet.’ There’s a tremor to his voice. ‘We should hold out a little longer if we can.’

  A spark of inspiration makes Viv suddenly reach around the seatback and into the well of the floor behind. She pulls out a green tartan rug braided with woollen tassels which she put in the car at the start of the awful weather, before Christmas, before the accident – a lifetime ago. She should have remembered the rug earlier; and also thought to have brought another one with them.

  ‘Here.’ She tucks the blanket behind Toby’s shoulders, draping the other end over his knees.

  ‘You should have it, not me.’

  ‘I don’t need it.’ Viv is being truthful. As cold as she feels, it seems a perfectly normal state of affairs, natural even. Perhaps she’s adjusted to the arctic conditions. Or maybe she’s stopped feeling anything much at all.

  She sits still for a minute, deliberating. Then, ‘Toby, is the shovel in the boot?’

  Over the top of the tartan, his eyelids flicker. ‘I don’t remember. Normally, I put it in the car every winter, but it may still be in the tool shed. It doesn’t make a great deal of difference, since we can’t reach the boot.’

  ‘I might be able to reach it.’ She twists in her seat and points. ‘The back windows are barely obstructed at all. I should be able to wriggle out of one of them. And’ – an image of the garden tools, lined up like metal soldiers in the moonlight comes to mind – ‘I’m fairly certain the shovel was not in the shed a few weeks ago, which means you must have taken it away.’

  ‘You would never be able to dig us out. Not on your own.’ Now his eyes a
re wide open, watching Viv who is already clambering into the back seat.

  ‘I don’t have to dig out the whole car by myself.’ She peeks back over her shoulder. ‘I only have to dig enough so that you can open your door.’

  Close up, the idea that a moment ago seemed wonderful is less convincing. The placement of the hinge does not allow the window to fully open, so the space through which she must wriggle is narrower than she anticipated. But what alternative does she have? Viv hesitates, then unbuttons and peels off the blue bulk of her coat and before she can change her mind pivots the window lever. A rush of flakes falls over the lip and onto her dress. Beyond the glass she can just make out flat white fields and mould-coloured sky.

  Her head fits through first. Next her shoulders, which stick and chafe against the frame. Twisting and wrenching, she squirms her torso through the gap while her fingers scrabble for purchase in the ice until, all at once, the resistance dissolves and she tumbles face down into a basin of frozen white fluff.

  When she flounders to her feet the snow is thigh deep. Her woollen stockings, her dress and heavy Aran cardigan are all soaked, while the flakes cling to the fabric like spilled icing sugar. For a long moment she can’t even catch her breath. A terrible chill has carved its way beneath her skin, cutting into her flesh with the sharpness of a paring knife. It is as if she has fallen from a ship and, submerged and overwhelmed, her body has petrified with shock.

  Eventually, her chest judders. She bangs her palms against each other and stamps her feet. Her boots feel like bricks tied to her ankles, her toes completely numb. Light is draining from the landscape; the sky is a hood of a mauve-grey with a thinning band of yellow at the western edge. The silence, the emptiness and the impending dark all seem to roll together into one combined sensation, as if the world is shutting down.

  Nose-down in the drift, the Ford Anglia’s boot is some way above her head and by the time she has scrabbled up the side of the ditch to reach the back of the car, her teeth and lungs are aching from the freezing air. She turns the handle as soon as the knob is within reach, making one swift movement that doesn’t allow for the possibility the space might be empty. Even before the lid is fully open, she sees the metal face of the shovel glinting back at her, together with a pair of Toby’s wellington boots. Grabbing both, she howls into the dusk in triumph.

  With the relief comes awareness of another desire, the need to pee. The possibility of waiting, of more hours in the car without visiting a lavatory, is impossible. First an instinctive, pointless, sweep of the deserted road, then she hitches her dress, pulls down her knickers, and squats. A hot jet of urine spurts between her calves. As the dirty gold stream drills into the snow, the heat, even the smell, of her own piss is strangely comforting. An act of survival in the wilderness. The second that she’s finished, she hauls up her underwear, picks up the shovel and drives the blade deep into the drift on the right-hand side of the car.

  * * *

  ‘We’re back!’ Viv exclaims into the empty hall. Apart from a single light shining from the landing the house appears to be in total darkness. Nevertheless, she has never been so utterly and purely thankful to be home. She waits a couple of seconds, calls again, ‘Hello! Daisy?’

  The front door clicks shut, and Toby comes to stand beside her. ‘Where is the girl? Do you think she’s gone, left Alice alone?’

  Viv shrugs. She has the impression that she and Toby are leaning towards each other. They are both so exhausted they can barely stand up.

  ‘I’m here.’ With the suddenness of an apparition or ghost, Daisy appears on the landing. Even from below, even in the shadows, Viv can see the ice-white fury on her face. ‘Do you have any idea how late you are?’ With impeccable timing, the grandfather clock begins to chime; ten loud, long strikes that resonate against the floor tiles, swirl around the chandelier and linger accusingly in the air.

  ‘We had a problem,’ Viv begins. ‘We never got as far as the city because the roads were too bad. Then when we turned around the car skidded into—’

  ‘I have to go. I telephoned my mother earlier, but she will be quite frantic by now.’

  ‘It will be quicker to walk than take the car,’ Toby says. ‘Otherwise I’d give you a lift.’

  ‘Why don’t you stay here for the night? We can telephone your mother again.’

  ‘I’d rather go home.’

  ‘But it’s awful out there. I can make up the spare bed in no time.’

  ‘No. Thank you.’ Daisy kicks the offer aside as she walks down the stairs. At the bottom she glowers at Viv. Her expression of disdain doesn’t entirely mask an earlier stamp of anxiety, lurking like a stain that refuses to wash out. ‘You’re six hours later than you said. Six hours!’

  ‘I’m so sorry. There was nothing we could do. At one stage I thought we might not…’ Viv bites her lip, looks down. On the inside of her stockings she can spot splash marks and mud. She lifts her head. ‘What about Alice? Did she worry terribly?’

  ‘She wouldn’t go to sleep. Not for a long while.’ Daisy breaks off and fetches her coat from the hat stand. For somebody impatient to be leaving, she seems to spend a good deal of time adjusting and fastening the buttons and avoiding Viv’s gaze.

  ‘So, what did you do?’ Viv asks finally.

  ‘I put her in your bed and…’ Daisy reaches past Toby, opens the door. There’s rush of cold air just before she closes it again. ‘Well, you’ll see for yourself soon enough.’

  The moment she has gone, Viv races upstairs. The Tiffany lamp is burning on her bedside table, casting small squares of red and aqua onto the cream of the counterpane. Alice is lying on her side, lashes curled against her cheek, hair fanned across Viv’s pillow. Viv listens to her daughter’s breathing, watching the bedclothes rise and fall. She can see nothing untoward, no discernible reason for Daisy’s parting comment. Hooking her finger over the blanket edging, she draws the cover back. Conspicuous against the plain cotton sheets, is Viv’s housecoat. The panels of silk have been tucked around Alice’s small body to make a private cocoon. Viv stares at the rosebud print, the delicate pink petals entwined with the pale green thorny stems, and a warning bell rings within her stomach as clearly as the peals of the grandfather clock.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  26 February 1947

  ‘Are you cold?’

  ‘I’m too happy to be cold.’ Fran is leaning against Thomas’s chest. They are sitting behind the stage curtains of the village hall on chairs they have pushed close together. His right arm is pinning her close while his left caresses her cheek, the flat of his nails running across her skin and leaving a trail of sparks in their wake. The curtains, Fran sees, are filthy. Ropes of dust make stripes in the velvet folds from years of hanging bunched at the side of the stage. A far as she knows, nothing has been performed on stage for years, but when they were new to the area, in the middle of the war, she used to come here with June and her mother to help knit blankets for the bombed-out and the bereaved. Now she is hiding away with a German prisoner of war.

  They find opportunities to be together so frequently that she can’t remember, not properly, how she filled her spare time beforehand. Although she recalls the hours reading in her bedroom, bickering with June or peeling vegetables for dinner, the memories are a sputtering, silent film, devoid of colour and emotion, and trivial to the point of irrelevance. She feels alive only at the end of her working day, when she finds Thomas hiding in the shadows of the military trucks, or at the weekend when they see each other outside the camp and risk an hour – or longer – together.

  The first time they met in daylight was on the third Sunday in January. They went straight to the marsh, thinking the solitude and desolation of the place would protect them. Yet as soon as Fran saw Thomas’s outline, dark and loud against the pale lustre of the fen sky, she realised how the starkness only made them more conspicuous, the absence of any other person less safe than ever from a lone walker’s gaze. Hurrying inland they roamed the h
eath instead, but the weather was so brutal that, on returning to her family, frozen to the core, Fran struggled to come up with a reason as to why she might have gone out at all.

  The next day the snow meant she had to walk to work again, which gave her time to ponder. Instead of turning into the camp, she continued on towards the church and, glancing over her shoulder, picked a path over the grass that led to the adjacent village hall. The entrance was locked, but when she tried the side access, the knob shifted and the door swung open with a gentle, oozing groan. Although the room was grimy and unheated, at least it was out of sight of prying eyes and a refuge from the relentless winter that everyone said was harder to cope with than the war had ever been.

  Thomas pauses the motion of his wrist. ‘I had an interview yesterday.’ His voice is low. They whisper, both of them, all of the time, and keep behind the screen of the curtains in case anyone should happen to peer through the windows.

  ‘An interview?’ She twists in his lap. ‘What for?’

  He takes a breath.

  ‘To test what kind of German I am. Very bad, or maybe not so bad.’ He must sense her bewilderment. ‘I mean, to make certain I am not a Nazi.’

  The word, its ugliness, makes her stiffen. ‘What did they ask you?’

  ‘About my family, where I grew up, when I joined the army. The last question was, did I think it was a good thing that Germany had lost the war?’

  She shakes her head, confused. ‘A good thing? For Germany?’

  ‘A good thing because it stopped Hitler. They wanted me to say it was more important to defeat fascism than that my country should win.’

  ‘What did you say?’