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

by Sarah Mitchell

  ‘Right.’

  ‘I hope you understand? That we can be friends?’

  ‘Of course.’ He sounds, he thinks, as if she has merely ruled out the possibility of a trip into town the following weekend.

  ‘If I hadn’t met Thomas, I don’t know, perhaps…’

  He realises that she’s trying to make him feel better, but his reaction is the same hollow sensation he experienced outside the hall. To be second choice, is to lose. What if she had never met the German? If he had never been attacked in the street that night, if he had never been declared unfit for service, she may not have done. In that case, could he have married Fran, knowing his feelings for her would always utterly and completely eclipse her feelings for him? His answer, without a doubt, is yes. A thousand times yes.

  ‘The musicians are back. We’d better take our seats.’ As he speaks, the call of the saxophone permeates the room and Fran’s eyes leap to the stage. Taking her cup, he slips his free arm around her waist so he can murmur more easily in her ear. ‘June is right about one thing. You must be careful. Fraternising with a German is a criminal offence. Nobody can help you very much, should you get caught.’

  While the jazz plays, Martin sinks inside himself, hearing instead Fran’s words, earnest and sweet: it’s like I’m staring at the sun. I can’t see anything but him. Although he knows nothing about astronomy, he recalls, suddenly, the image of a moon in a blue summer sky. He was walking on the beach some time before the war, before mines were buried into the sand, before the dunes were dotted with concrete bunkers and the coast roads barricaded with coils of barbed wire. There was a picnic. A basket swinging from eager hands. Laughter, singing, the smack of sunshine on bare skin and, above the pines, the moon. Pale and ghostlike, a crest of silver light was hanging like a pennant, like a sentry, like a talisman of the unassuming, over the treetops.

  Martin closes his eyes. Even if Fran is lost to him for now, he won’t give up hope, not entirely, not yet.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  7 March 1947

  ‘Well, that was a complete waste of time.’

  The sound of Mrs Markham’s voice takes Fran by surprise. Alice too, who scrambles to her feet, knocking the wooden jigsaw and shooting the pieces over the drawing room rug. She beams at Fran. ‘Mummy’s back!’

  ‘Shall we go and say hello?’ Fran holds out her hand.

  Vivien Markham is in the hallway, taking off the blue coat Fran so terribly admires. There’s no sign of Major Markham. Fran assumes he must be putting away the car, or perhaps he has driven straight to the camp. It rather implies that Mrs Markham was talking to herself and there’s something very precise, very coiled, about the way she is hanging up the coat and brushing flecks of rain from the blue tweed that makes Fran hang onto Alice and stop her from running across the black-and-white tiles.

  ‘You’re back early.’ Fran ventures. ‘I haven’t given Alice her supper yet.’

  ‘Yes.’ Vivien’s features are tight and closed. Fran is thinking that is all the explanation she will get when Vivien groans unexpectedly and her face cracks open. ‘We drove all that way and he said he couldn’t help! Not even one session! The man is retiring soon, apparently. Moving to a different part of the country. I don’t know why he couldn’t have told us that on the telephone instead of making us waste a whole day! And now… now I don’t know what we’ll do.’ She sinks onto a small leather chair as if she has only that second become aware of its existence.

  Fran stares blankly. She has no idea what Mrs Markham is talking about or who the man in question might be. The whole episode, in fact, has been something of a mystery.

  Yesterday Daisy had stopped her as she was leaving. ‘I’ve been asked to look after Alice Markham tomorrow.’ She paused, as though hoping Fran might work out on her own why this was relevant.

  ‘I don’t mind if you need to be away.’ Fran was threading a scarlet scarf around her neck, anxious to go in case Thomas was by the trucks and waiting to intercept her for a stolen five minutes.

  ‘The thing is,’ Daisy said, ‘this time I can’t do it.’ She was holding a fountain pen, clutching the barrel tightly as if someone might try to snatch it away from her.

  ‘Well, tell Major Markham you’re busy. I’m sure he won’t mind.’

  ‘I’m not busy. Rather, I am working of course, but Major Markham is happy to give me Friday off.’

  ‘Then what’s the problem?’

  ‘I can’t do it because I don’t want to do it. I will never babysit for the Markhams again! Ever!’

  Staring, Fran stopped winding the scarf.

  ‘We had a bit of a falling out. The last occasion I was there Mrs Markham was frightfully rude. She said something horrid, something about Martin.’

  ‘Martin? What did she say?’

  Daisy opens her mouth, stops. Colour seeps into her cheeks. ‘I… It doesn’t matter…’ She regathers her momentum. ‘Anyway, they were dreadfully late back. I had the most awful time of it getting home myself. Apparently, their car had gone off the road, which I suppose they couldn’t help. But they never should have gone in the first place. Not in that weather.’

  ‘Where did they go?’

  ‘Only to visit a friend! Even though it meant driving a long way and asking me to come out in the worst conditions imaginable. The thing is’ – Daisy closed her eyes and her blush deepened – ‘I really can’t go back. Not now.’

  ‘What do you mean, not now?’

  ‘It’s rather complicated. When I was putting Alice to bed…’

  Fran glanced at the clock. How long would Thomas wait? ‘You’d like me to look after Alice instead of you. Is that it?’

  Daisy looked surprised. ‘Yes.’

  Fran turned to the door.

  ‘Fran? I know it’s none of my business, but might you step out with Martin again? He came home from the concert yesterday ever so blue. I can’t help wondering if Vivien Markham may have something to do with it. Perhaps it wasn’t just me she spoke to. Perhaps she’s been spreading awful rumours about Martin to other people as well—’ She broke off. ‘Are you in a terrible hurry again?’

  ‘Sorry, Daisy, Mother wants me home early.’ And without looking back, Fran rushed out of the office.

  Now Viv beckons to Alice. ‘Come here, darling. Let me give you a cuddle.’ Although she holds out her arms, there’s a slump to her shoulders and the badger’s streak of grey is starkly conspicuous under the lamplight. She looks quite desperate, Fran thinks. At the end of her tether. Whoever the Markhams were supposed to have seen, they must have been counting on him terribly.

  Alice twists on one leg and grips Fran’s fingers. ‘Where’s Daddy?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Viv gazes around the hallway as if the fact of Toby’s absence has only just registered. ‘He was ahead of me. I wonder where he went. I expect he’ll be here any moment.’

  ‘I want to see—’ Alice breaks off. ‘There he is!’

  The front door opens, and Toby appears looking more like an apparition than a husband, father, or the commander in charge of a prisoner-of-war camp. The grey of his coat, hat and face seems hazy and insubstantial, and the expression in his eyes vacant yet at the same time deeply intense, as though the real Major Markham were somewhere else entirely and the person in the doorway a hastily put together imitation.

  In silence he gazes at the three of them before swivelling abruptly on his heel. Something in the unexpectedness of his movements, the brittleness of his back, makes Fran suddenly shiver. For some reason she can’t look at either Vivien or Alice.

  ‘Daddy! Where are you going?’

  With his hand on the front door, Major Markham pauses. ‘I’m going to the camp, Alice. There’s some work I have to do.’ Then to Viv, ‘Don’t wait up, I won’t be back until late.’

  The door opens and shuts and none of them say a word.

  Eventually Viv gets up and comes across the hall. Bending down, she tucks a lock of white-blond hair behind Alice’
s left ear. ‘There’s nothing to worry about. Daddy is very tired, and he’s had a disappointing day, but he’ll be back to his normal self in no time.’ Although said for Alice’s benefit, Fran supposes she is meant to listen too. Presumably, Mrs Markham is concerned she might gossip about her husband at camp. She could tell her that his behaviour is already a cause for concern. Or at least it would be, if he were ever there long enough for anyone to see him.

  Instead she says, ‘Would you like me to cook Alice some supper? You might want to rest for a while in your bedroom.’ When Viv nods gratefully, she tugs Alice gently towards the kitchen. Over her shoulder the creak and release of the treads on the staircase sound heavy and measured, as if a mountain were being scaled.

  * * *

  Upstairs, Viv can’t decide whether or not to take a bath. She stands for a while at her dressing table and slowly unclips her earrings. They are one of her favourite pairs, tiny crystals shaped like a leaf with a flesh-coloured pearl in the centre – for some reason she had felt the need to dress up for the doctor, make a good impression, as if that would encourage him to take Toby on as a patient. Now she can’t imagine why she bothered. He was such a sleazy little man, with a great big forehead and a nasty-looking bruise over his nose. Not that she would have minded his appearance if he could have helped Toby, but the man didn’t seem at all interested. Did he say he was moving or retiring, or both of those things? He hadn’t even seemed too sure himself.

  Carefully, she puts away the earrings and loosens the collar of her blouse. The luxury, the stupor, of a bath would be wonderful. To immerse herself in the steam and forget the awfulness of the day, but there probably wouldn’t be enough hot water to fill the tub more than a few inches and she would only have to get out again in ten minutes’ time to put Alice to bed. And where is Toby? She can hardly relax when he could be anywhere and, it hits her, doing absolutely anything. Covering her face with her hands, she slumps onto the bed. She badly wants to cry, the release and comfort of tears, but she is too exhausted. And she is also too exhausted to take a bath.

  Afterwards, when she’s unpacking those minutes second by second, Viv realises she must have fallen asleep, sitting bolt upright on the counterpane, because the very next thing that seems to happen is Fran calling up the stairs.

  ‘Mrs Markham? Are you there?’

  It takes Viv a moment to collect herself, and when she stands up she feels light-headed. Stifling a yawn, she hurries to the door. Outside the window the arrival of evening is plainly imminent, although she could have sworn that when she came upstairs the sky was still blue.

  ‘I should be leaving now, Mrs Markham. Alice has had her supper. I made her corned beef fritters and have settled her in the drawing room with the puzzle.’

  Already? Viv wants to say. Alice has eaten, already? Instead she shouts, ‘Thank you, Fran. Do go home before it gets dark. I’ll be down soon.’ Her hand reaches again to her blouse, where the tie-bow collar of the crêpe de Chine seems intent on strangling her. All at once she cannot bear the bows and buttons and tight-fitting seams of these ridiculous clothes an instant longer. Unzipping her skirt, she lets it drop to her ankles, next she rolls down her stockings, followed by the bliss of unhooking her girdle. Once the wretched blouse has come off as well, she’s left with nothing but her slip and puddles of fabric lying at her feet. In the bedroom mirror a wraith appears: a thin, white body of a ghost with an older woman’s head and silver-striped hair. She barely recognises herself.

  Mechanically she collects the discarded garments and hangs them up. Oddly, the wardrobe door is open already, but before she can ponder why this might be, she hears from downstairs Fran say something to Alice, followed by the crunch of the front door. Hurrying to the dressing-table stool, she pulls out her housecoat and slips the gown on top of her underwear. From the depths of the stool, Alex’s letters glower at her accusingly. I must throw them out, Viv resolves. Perhaps I should even get rid of them now, before Toby comes home. The notion of doing so, the finality of the gesture and all of its implications, is like a blade turning slowly in her stomach.

  Suddenly she stretches into the stool and extracts the compact bundle. On the face of it there is nothing amiss: the envelopes have been neatly stacked and secured with an elastic band, and yet there is something wrong, she’s sure of it. Something badly wrong.

  Thumbing through the wedge of paper, Viv casts back her mind. The last time she held these pages was just after she learned Alex had returned to America and shortly before she had that awful argument with Daisy. Viv colours, remembering the glare and hostility of the girl and her own dreadful mood. Alice arrived unexpectedly in the doorway of the bedroom while she was still reading, so didn’t she simply throw all the letters into the stool? She has no memory of organising them into a bundle or using an elastic band. Nor of tidying up the mess afterwards. And in the days since then she hasn’t been able to think of Alex, let alone want to reread all his lies and tinpot endearments.

  Panic grips her.

  Viv removes the band. She begins to sift through the envelopes slowly, pausing to study each one. When she has finished, she does the same thing again, this time more quickly. A confused sort of sickness is rising in her throat. In desperation she makes a fan of the letters and holds them under the bedroom light. However, there is no mistaking what she can see. Or rather what she can’t. There is no green ink. The worst of the letters, the one that nearly caused her to lose her mind, to leave Toby, the one in which Alex said he would take her back to America, is missing. Kneeling on the carpet, she gropes wildly under the bed, but all she retrieves are two hairpins and a sugared almond coated with fluff.

  Viv stands up, shaking. Has Toby taken the letter? After their conversation in the car, she suspected, almost believed, he knew about Alex. Or if not Alex himself, the existence of someone like Alex. Yet he gave no hint he feared Viv might actually leave him, leave the country in fact. Is that what he thinks now? If he has seen the green-inked letter, he might very well make that assumption. Once he gets back, she will have to talk to him candidly and try to explain the madness that overpowered her for a while. The notion of such a conversation is horrifying. Yet there no longer appears to be an alternative. If she wants to save her marriage, she has to find out what Toby knows – and what he might be prepared to forgive.

  For now, however, Alice. Twenty minutes must have passed since Fran went home. Knotting the sash of her housecoat, Viv hastens onto the landing. ‘Alice? Are you waiting for me? I’m coming, darling. Have you finished that jigsaw puzzle yet?’

  There’s no reply.

  From somewhere a draught is blowing. As Viv descends the stairs, cold air is curling around her bare ankles, while in the hall the curtains are rippling as if hanging out to dry on a washing line. Yet when she checks the front door, she finds it closed, the panelling snug against the frame.

  She heads towards the drawing room. ‘Alice?’

  At the threshold she stops. The room is unoccupied. Beside the fire, pieces of the jigsaw lie abandoned on the rug.

  ‘Alice? Alice, where are you?’

  Viv rushes to the kitchen.

  And from there to the larder.

  It seems like she’s going mad. As if from the moment Fran left the house, from those lost minutes sitting on the bed, she has been plunged into the irrational, confused terror of a nightmare. Could Alice have gone upstairs? If Alice used the back staircase, she might not have heard her. She calls into the stairwell. ‘Darling, why are you hiding from me? This isn’t a very nice game, is it? I’m beginning to get quite worried!’

  Silence.

  Viv shivers.

  She cinches the housecoat more tightly. The temperature is freezing, she realises. Somewhere close the night is blowing unchecked straight through walls. With sudden and alarming knowledge, she runs to the dining room. The door that is generally shut, clicked into place by an upward tweak of the handle, is slightly agape, while light spills through the gap like a path
to a forbidden land.

  Tentatively, Viv pushes the door and over the creak of the hinge hears herself gasp. On the far side of the dining table, across from the expanse of polished wood and the bowl of apples, the amber glint of the whisky decanter and Toby’s best crystal, both of the French windows are standing ajar.

  She rushes to the threshold.

  The garden, darkening and empty, stretches before her.

  ‘Alice? Alice? Are you there?’ Viv stares into the dusk. Alice would never have managed these heavy doors herself, she is sure of it. Not unless, it suddenly strikes her, they had been opened already. Earlier she wondered if Alice had slipped unheard up the back staircase, but perhaps, instead, Toby had done so. Perhaps he came inside through the French windows while she was talking to Fran?

  Swivelling on her heel, she races to the main stairs and climbs them two at a time. In the bedroom, she takes a breath to steady herself before wrenching open the wardrobe door. Blindly, she gropes behind the rows of coloured silks and heavy velvets, beyond the memories of champagne and dancing, of parties and cigarette smoke, yet all she can feel is an unfilled void and the hard, hollow knock of the panelling.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Fran cycles behind Thomas with her eyes fixed to his back wheel and the ruby pull of the reflector. On her right the marsh stretches towards the pocket of sea trapped by the spit while the last smudges of light flare in the sky ahead. She doesn’t know where they are going. Only that when she left the Markhams’ house she was supposed to be going home, and now she most definitely is not.

  She was squatting on her heels, attaching the dynamo to the rim of the wheel, when she saw him step from the hedge a little beyond the Markhams’ gate. His shape was so familiar she didn’t even jump, merely dragged the bike over the gravel until his solid presence was wrapped against her and breathing in her ear.

  ‘How did you find me?’