What Tomorrow Brings

by Mary Fitzgerald

  ‘How are you?’ I asked.

  ‘This place is ghastly,’ she said. ‘D’you know, I asked that sister person to get me drink, a gin or a brandy, and she just laughed. “I’m far too busy to wait on you,” she said. “I’m not a barmaid.”’

  I laughed too. ‘This is a hospital, Xanthe. Not a hotel. Anyway, you’re leaving here tomorrow. I’m taking you to Cornwall.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ she cried. ‘I can’t go there. It’s awful.’

  ‘The doctor says you have to have lots of fresh air. You can’t stay here and there’s nowhere else for you to go. A few weeks by the sea will do you lots of good and I’m going to be there too. We’ll take Max and he’ll love it.’

  ‘But I’m not well enough to look after him.’

  ‘You don’t need to. Alice will take care of him.’

  ‘Alice?’

  It was only then that I realised I’d never told her about Marisol. At first, I’d kept the knowledge of my little daughter to myself because I knew Xanthe would say something cutting about her. Or make fun of me, and I couldn’t bear that. And then I’d forgotten that she didn’t know.

  ‘I have an adopted daughter,’ I said. ‘She’s two years old and Alice is her nanny.’

  ‘You’ve adopted a child?’ Xanthe stared at me. ‘What does Mummy say about that?’

  ‘I haven’t told her. Have you told her about Max?’

  She scowled. ‘I don’t know where she is. But she met Wolf and she liked him.’

  It occurred to me that I should get in touch with my mother and tell her how ill Xanthe was and I resolved to write a letter as soon as I got home.

  ‘Anyway, let me tell you the arrangements for your travel. I’ve hired you a private nurse.’ That pleased her, as I knew it would, and she soon forgot about Marisol.

  The next day Jacob, Kitty and I drove down to Cornwall with Max. It was a tiring journey, and with lots of military traffic on the road, we had to pull over continually, so it was evening by the time we got there. Kitty jumped out of the car when I parked it by the garage and called ‘Alice!’

  ‘Look what we’ve got,’ she cried when Alice came out of the house leading Marisol by the hand.

  ‘By God,’ said Alice, gazing at Max who was clutching his rattle. ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘It’s Max. Isn’t he sweet?’

  Alice looked at me. ‘You’ve never adopted another one, Miss Seffy?’

  ‘No,’ I smiled, wearily climbing out of the car. ‘Not exactly. He belongs to my sister, who will be here tomorrow. I’ll tell you all about it later on.’

  ‘All right,’ she said, and took Max out of Kitty’s arms. ‘He’s a little lad, I see, judging by his blue frock. Does he have a name?’

  ‘He’s Max,’ I said. ‘Maximilian.’

  ‘Aye, right nice name that,’ she said, and bending down showed him to Marisol. ‘Baby,’ Marisol said, and then patted him on the cheek

  I went over and picked her up. ‘Hello, my little love. Mummy has missed you so much.’

  Alice smiled at Jacob and was thrilled when he took her hand and raised it to his lips. ‘Mr Weiss,’ she said. ‘I’m glad you’ve come down here. Away from all that bombing. You’ll have a nice rest. Lovely walks, nearly as good as Yorkshire.’ We laughed and she twinkled, cuddling the baby to her as she led the way into the house. ‘Now come on in, everyone. Mrs Penney is in the kitchen and she’s made a grand supper.’

  After we’d eaten and everyone had settled down, I went into the children’s room to kiss them goodnight. Alice was there, putting clothes away, and she gave me a hug. ‘I’m so glad you’re home safe and sound, Miss Seffy. I did worry.’

  ‘I’m not going away again,’ I said. ‘I’ve given up my job. I’m going to be a full-time mother.’

  ‘I’ll believe that when I see it,’ she said, laughing. Then, giving me an old-fashioned look, she said, ‘Did you see Mr Amyas?’

  I sighed. ‘I did. But I don’t want to talk about him.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Leave it, Alice. But I did see Mr Charlie and I’ve made up my mind. It’s him.’

  She nodded. ‘I like him,’ she said. ‘He’ll never let you down, that one. But . . .’

  ‘But what?’

  She turned her back on me, tucking in the sheets on Marisol’s bed and adjusting the cover on the cot where we’d put Max.

  ‘What?’ I repeated.

  ‘But Mr Amyas is who you dream of. He’s part of you.’

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Cornwall, 1940

  IT WAS A lovely summer, that one of 1940, while London was ablaze and our young pilots daily faced the savagery of the Luftwaffe. In Cornwall we were away from the bombing but the war did affect us, with some shortages of food and fuel and sad stories of the young men from the village who were dying on land and sea.

  ‘The Trevissick boy is lost,’ Mrs Penney told me one morning, while she was cooking breakfast. ‘He was a stoker on a merchant ship and them blasted Germans torpedoed him. Annie Trevissick got the telegram yesterday. She’s got another boy in the Royal Navy and is in a state. I took her a bit of bacon and a few tatties last night. It’d make a supper, I thought.’

  ‘That was kind of you,’ I said. ‘Are the Trevissicks the family who live in the cottages by the harbour? Near you? I think I remember one of their boys. He was a bit younger than me.’

  ‘That’s them.’ She put scrambled eggs in a warming dish and stirred the pan of porridge. Alice would be bringing the children down any minute for their breakfast. ‘Now, what shall I do for Miss Xanthe?’

  ‘She’ll eat some egg, I think,’ I said. ‘And perhaps bread and butter.’ I paused. ‘Have we got any butter?’

  ‘Yes, and don’t ask me how I got it. There’s quite a bit in the village. We all got some.’

  It was the black market, of course, and I shouldn’t have had anything to do with it, but I didn’t care. ‘I’ll give you some money, later,’ was all I said.

  Xanthe had been at the house for nearly two weeks now. She’d loved all the attention and had wanted to keep the nurse who’d looked after her on the journey, but, to my relief, the woman wasn’t prepared to stay ‘in this out of the way place’, as she called it, and took the next train back to London.

  Mr Penney had put a single bed in Xanthe’s room, so that we could wheel it out on to the veranda and let her get the benefit of the fresh sea air. She hated it, though, preferring to stay in her bedroom, idly flicking through magazines and smoking non-stop.

  ‘Should I take her cigarettes away?’ I’d asked Dr Jago.

  ‘I don’t think there’s any point.’ He shook his head. ‘I’ve had a letter from St Thomas’ in London and, well, you know what they said. I knew it last week, when she first came here and I listened to her chest. Good God, it’s terrible.’ My face must have fallen, because he took my hand. ‘I’m sorry, Seffy. There’s nothing anyone can do, so let her smoke and drink, whatever she wants. We can make her comfortable, that’s all.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ I sighed. ‘I do understand, but some days she doesn’t seem too bad, in fact she looks quite pretty again.’

  ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘It’s often the way with consumption. The fever-pink cheeks are charming and make the eyes look brighter. Your sister’s is a classic case, but, sadly, all you can do now is love her and care for her.’ He paused for a moment, then asked, ‘Is Lady Blake coming over to see her? If she wants to, it will need to be soon.’

  I shook my head. I’d had a letter from Mother, who clearly had no intention of braving the Atlantic, particularly since the Queen Mary had been requisitioned as a troopship. She’d added, ‘Seeing as your father left you all the money, I do hope that you’ll employ the best doctors.’ I looked up at Jago and gave a brief smile. ‘She won’t be coming.’

  We were in the hall and Alice was coming down the stairs with the little ones. Marisol, as ever, was being independent and walking by herself. Even at that young age she showed her cha
racter. Max sat happily on Alice’s arm, revelling in the attention. As Alice said, nobody could have wished for an easier baby.

  ‘My eye, those children are thriving.’ Dr Jago smiled. ‘Even that little boy looks well. I was quite concerned when I first saw him, what is it, two weeks ago? I feared he might be sick, like his mother.’ He patted Alice’s arm. ‘Miss Weaver, I swear you’re a miracle-worker.’

  ‘Get away with you, Doctor,’ she grinned. ‘But I will say that the little one has come on quite grand. He was nothing but a soup chicken when I first got hold of him.’

  Jacob, with Willi pattering ahead of him, walked into the hall. They brought in drifts of ozone and smelled of the sea. The two of them went on the beach every morning, initially for walking, but Jacob had quickly developed an interest in the rock pools and marine botany and daily brought in various seaweeds to look them up in the books in Father’s study.

  ‘Doggie!’ shouted Marisol with glee, and scampered towards poor Willi who, without waiting for his master, took off up the stairs. Even his mild temperament couldn’t cope with a chaotic stroking from an enthusiastic toddler.

  ‘She’s a little monkey, this one,’ Alice smiled proudly and, taking Marisol’s hand, she walked the children to the kitchen.

  ‘Chess on Saturday evening?’ asked Dr Jago, as he took his hat from the stand and picked up his bag.

  ‘Yes,’ said Jacob eagerly. ‘If this silly old man won’t be too much trouble.’

  ‘Of course not. I’ll enjoy the competition. My wife doesn’t play and always does the church flowers on Saturday evening. She’ll leave us a bite to eat, though.’ He went to the door and called, ‘Bye, all.’

  In the time since we’d been down here, Jacob had struck up a friendship with Dr Jago, based on their shared love of Mozart and chess. I was pleased for him; his troubles seemed to have lessened, and even Kitty was happier. She swam in the sea and walked into the village, where she watched the fishermen bringing in the catch and chatted to the teenage girl who worked in the village shop. No one seemed to mind that she was German and I suspected that Mrs Penny had put the word around that she was a refugee. Carol, the girl from the shop, had taken her to the pictures in Truro, going to the first house and coming home on the bus.

  ‘We saw Rebecca,’ Kitty said excitedly. ‘It was wonderful. And it is from a book. I will buy it when we get back to London.’

  ‘You don’t need to wait,’ I smiled. ‘I brought a copy down here a couple of years ago. Go and look in the bookcase in the study. I’m sure it will be there.’

  I spent my time with the children and sat with Xanthe. Mostly she stayed in bed, resting, as ordered by the doctors. She had little energy anyway and was eager to scramble back between the sheets after washing or having her bed made. I bought her magazines showing the latest fashions, which she examined closely, flicking through the pages in her most irritating way. She was, of course, discontented.

  ‘I want to go back to London,’ she said crossly. ‘So that my friends can come and visit me. It’s so boring here, with screaming children and those two people you’ve brought along. Who are they, anyway?’

  ‘They’re my friends. They have the flat opposite mine.’

  ‘They’re foreign.’

  ‘Yes. You should like them. They’re from Berlin.’

  She turned her head, a spark of interest lighting her eye. ‘Berlin? What are they doing here?’

  ‘They’re refugees.’

  She thought about it for a minute and then scowled. ‘Don’t tell me that they’re Jews. Wolf said you had friends who were Jews.’

  ‘They are,’ I said, almost happy to make her angry. ‘Jacob has been in England for many years, but Kitty only came last year. Her mother has disappeared. Probably taken to one of the camps.’

  ‘What camps?’

  ‘Oh, Xanthe,’ I said, exasperated with her. ‘How can you not know? Jews are being persecuted in Germany. They’re put in camps or killed. It’s dreadful.’

  ‘Well.’ She threw her magazine on the floor and screwed up her face into the pout I remembered from years ago, when she couldn’t win an argument. ‘Wolf says they cause all the trouble. If they go to prison, it’s their own fault.’

  ‘Surely,’ I said angrily, ‘you can’t believe that. It’s monstrously unfair.’

  ‘But of course I do.’ She sounded almost bewildered by my ignorance. ‘Everyone does. All my friends in Germany and here. Mummy thinks it. She told me. The Jews are not really human. They need to be put down.’

  I stood up. I was shaking with anger and in another heartbeat I would have hit her. ‘I’ll get you a cup of tea,’ I said, trying to keep the rising fury out of my voice. ‘I won’t be a minute.’

  ‘I don’t want tea,’ she called, as I went on to the landing. ‘For God’s sake get me a gin.’

  I stood for a minute outside her room, trying to calm down. I was desperately sorry that she was ill and I had resolved to care for her, but every single thing she said made me want to strangle her. How had she become such an unpleasant person? Was she like this when we were children and had hateful views even then? I didn’t remember it that way, but then, I didn’t remember her thinking at all. She’d been a terribly spoilt child – not very bright but devastatingly pretty. I remember Mother being so proud of her, pushing her to the front when we met people, and now, when I thought about it, I remembered that Mummy had a photograph of Xanthe on her dressing table. Not one of me. Nor of my father. Just Xanthe.

  ‘The truth is, Persephone Blake,’ I said out loud to the empty landing. ‘You’re angry because you’re jealous. And always have been.’

  ‘Now, that is something I do not believe.’ Jacob was coming up the stairs, a book on marine botany tucked under his arm.

  I blushed. ‘You caught me talking to myself.’

  He smiled. ‘We all do it.’ He gave me a sympathetic look. ‘Has something upset you?’

  I jerked my head towards Xanthe’s room. ‘It’s her. She’s so . . . unspeakably horrid at times.’

  He shrugged. ‘The poor girl is very sick. She cannot be expected to guard her tongue.’

  ‘Oh God, Jacob,’ I sighed. ‘You don’t understand. She says terrible, anti-Semitic things and I think of you and Kitty and poor Sarah. I remember my friends, Dieter and Rachel, in Berlin and all the terrifying stories that Charlie collected.’ I put my hand to my mouth to stop myself from swearing, I was so incensed. ‘How can she speak like that? I truly think she must be mad. And now, I have to do her bidding. Get her a drink and go back into her room as if nothing has happened.’

  He was thoughtful for a moment, then he put his book down on the lamp table beside Xanthe’s door. ‘Get the drink. I’ll take it in to her.’

  ‘No!’ I was shocked. ‘She’ll be hateful to you.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. If she wants to say these things, it’s better she says them to my face. Go, I’ll wait here.’

  When he went in with the drink, I stood outside her door, ready to rescue him, and heard her say in a horrified voice, ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I’ve brought your drink. Pink gin, I believe.’ Jacob sounded very calm.

  ‘Leave it and go,’ Xanthe snapped. ‘I won’t have you in my room.’

  ‘All right,’ said Jacob, mildly. ‘But first, I’ll pick up this magazine, which has dropped on the floor.’ There was the noise of paper rustling and then Jacob said, ‘Ach, this sable coat in the photograph here. It is of inferior quality.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Poor quality. This company. They do not buy well.’

  ‘How d’you know?’ I could hear that Xanthe was intrigued.

  ‘How do I know?’ asked Jacob. ‘You ask how do I know, young lady. I tell you. Because dealing in furs is my business. Haven’t I bought sable from all over Russia? This,’ I heard the sound of a hand slapped against paper, ‘is schlock. Rubbish.’

  ‘I’m going to buy a sable coat, when I get better.’ Xanthe was qui
eter.

  ‘So,’ said Jacob, ‘go to a good shop. Buy the best. Here, your drink.’ He walked out of her room and gave me a wink as he went downstairs.

  Astonished, I followed him and, leaving him in Father’s study, went out and down the steps to the beach. Alice and Kitty were there with the children. Kitty was holding a sleeping Max, while Alice danced Marisol through the little waves on the shoreline.

  ‘Max, he is a good baby,’ said Kitty, smiling down at the little boy’s face.

  ‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘Surprisingly good, considering the circumstances . . .’

  ‘The circumstances of his birth?’ Kitty looked up at me. ‘Or that his mother is so . . . I shouldn’t say this, Seffy, but I will. His mother is so bad.’

  I sighed. ‘Xanthe is not a nice person,’ I agreed. ‘And she has some evil views, but . . .’ I looked at Max, who opened his eyes and smiled up at Kitty, ‘it’s not his fault.’

  ‘No,’ she said and bent her head to give him a kiss. ‘I love him and Marisol.’ Then she asked, ‘Is his father a good man?’

  I shook my head. ‘No. I’m afraid not. If anything, he’s worse than Xanthe and we mustn’t let him take Max away.’

  ‘Oh!’ Kitty looked at me. ‘Does he want to take him?’

  ‘Yes, he does. But he’s a Nazi officer and there is no way he can get to England, so Max is safe with us.’

  Kitty looked both horrified and relieved, then, after a moment, she put Max in my arms. ‘I’m going for a swim,’ she said, ‘and then, after lunch, Carol, from the shop, and me are going into Truro on the bus. You don’t mind, do you?’

  ‘Of course not,’ I smiled. ‘Go and enjoy yourself.’

  I watched her in the calm, blue water. She was getting to be a strong swimmer, trying new strokes and yearning to be proficient enough to swim across the bay, like I did. Her time in Cornwall had done her good, and Jacob also. ‘Stay longer,’ I’d said to them one day. ‘You don’t need to go back to London and suffer in the bombing. Besides, I love having you here. We’re like a family.’