by Peter Hey
‘A film star?’ Jane looked puzzled.
‘Yes. You wouldn’t think it to look at me now, but I married a film star. No-one here believes me when I tell them.’
‘Are you sure, Mrs Smith? It’s just that I’ve been researching your family, looking at births, marriages and deaths, and I don’t remember finding anything about a film star.’
‘Perhaps I am getting confused. Everyone said he looked like film star, that was it. I was a goner from the first time I saw him. My sisters never liked him. I thought they were just jealous, but they were right. Maybe they were jealous, too. They’re all dead now. I feel it in these old bones of mine. Still, I’ll be joining them very soon. Those doctors said as much. Well they didn’t say it, but I’m not stupid. I know what ”let nature take its toll” means. About time, too. Do you believe in life after death, dear?’
‘I don’t know. Probably not,’ replied Jane.
‘When you get to my age you think about it a lot. I think about little else, if I’m honest. I’ve convinced myself there’s nothing awaiting us. I say convinced, but it’s more wishful thinking than certainty. I really hope there's nothing. It would be… easier. I can’t face them. Maybe my brother, Kenny. He died at sea before I messed everything up. He still loves me. He’ll forgive me.’
Mary Smith suddenly clapped her hands together and sat up in her chair. ‘My dear, I’m so sorry! I’m getting really maudlin in my old age. A pretty young girl like you doesn’t want to hear me wittering on about death and the afterlife. It’s not something you’ll have to think about for a long, long time. What did you come here to talk about?’
‘Your family, Mrs Smith, and your relationship with them. I’m here on behalf your sister Anne’s daughter. She’s called Margaret.’
‘Little Annie. She was the clever one. Got into grammar school. My mum and dad were so proud of her. She got her brains from my dad, but he had to go down the pit as soon as he was old enough. Always struggled with that rotten leg of his. A very timid man, my dad. My mum reckoned it was because he was bullied as a boy. He had these three cousins… No, they were actually his nephews, but the same age as him. Nasty piece of work they were. Died in the war, all three of them. I don’t think my dad was sorry, though he’d never say so.’
Jane found herself distracted onto a storyline she no longer thought significant. ‘Was that the First World War?’
‘Yes, dear. Kenny, my brother, died in the second one.’
‘Was their surname Oakley?’
Mary paused whilst she searched back through nine decades of memories. Experience told her to give up after a few seconds. ‘Names, dear. I told you I’m not good at names. And we didn’t have anything to do with that side of the family when I was growing up.’
Jane persisted. ‘Did anyone ever blame your dad for not fighting in the war, the First World War?’
‘How could they? Anyone could see he wasn’t fit. My poor dad!’’
Mary seemed on the verge of getting upset and Jane steered the conversation back to the relationship she’d actually come to discuss. ‘I’m sorry. It doesn’t matter. Please tell me some more about your sister Annie.’
Jane saw Mary’s expression calm, but somehow it was a look of resignation rather than fond reminiscence.
‘Ah,’ sighed Mary, ‘our little Annie. Wore glasses, of course. Clever people do, don’t they? She married a sergeant-major. Well, he had been a sergeant-major. Much older than her, bald and barrel-chested. One of those men with ramrod up his… Well, that’s what he used to say. They didn’t get on. He absolutely hated him. Him and his Military Medal. That silly lump of metal caused it all in the end. Him bragging about it. Well, he always thought he was bragging about it, even when he never mentioned it. Something about the look on his face, the way he carried himself. It made him so jealous.’ Mary Smith shook her head slowly as she remembered ancient conflicts.
Jane probed as softly as she could. ‘Why did you fall out? You and Annie and your other sisters, what went wrong?’
‘He had a wicked temper when he was drunk. It wasn’t so much the rage; it was that he lost control. He’d always shout the odds, say anything, upset anyone, to come out on top. I came to realise, eventually, that he was a very insecure man. He looked like a film star, but it wasn’t enough. They say film stars can be very insecure, don’t they? He had to show off. On the rare occasions we had any money, he’d buy something flashy to say, “Look at me, I’m special.” Silly things, from a little biro pen, when they were a novelty and no-one else had one, to big cars we couldn’t afford to run. When he lost them, his looks I mean, it broke him. And it broke his spell over me, but by then it was too late.’
‘What exactly did he do, when he was drunk?’ pressed Jane.
‘He did terrible things. I didn’t know the full of it until much, much later. If the sergeant-major had’ve known what he’d really done, he wouldn’t have kept quiet. It was only Annie begging him that stopped him going straight to the authorities. “It’s my wedding day,” she said. “The war’s over,” she said. “He’s all talk, he’s making it up,” she said. “She’s my sister,” she said. By the time I found out, what he’d really done, he told me I was in too deep, that I was an accomplice. He said he’d make sure that I’d hang along with him. We’d dangle and kick side by side, if I ever told a soul.’
Mary paused only briefly before continuing. ‘And here I am, telling you. Perhaps it is time for my final confession. But you can’t absolve me of my sins, can you, my dear? Still, I guess they’re not going to hang me now, are they?’ She chuckled mirthlessly and answered her own question. ‘Don’t worry. I know they haven’t hung anyone since before you were born. And I guess I’m already in a prison of sorts, a prison called decrepit old age, and on death row, at that. There's nothing they can do to me now. And there’s certainly nothing he can do to me anymore. Not unless he’s waiting for me. On the other side, I mean. You don’t believe in life after death, do you dear?’
Jane shook her head. ‘The man we’re talking about, it’s your second husband, James Smith, isn’t it?’
‘He was such a good-looking man. You’d have fallen for him too, and I’m sure you’re not a silly girl like I was. I sometimes think Annie was in love with him. That’s why she stood up for him. But maybe that’s me being silly again. Maybe it was simply that she loved me, her big, silly sister. She thought she was protecting me, when all along she was condemning me. Call me Mary, dear. Why not? We’re friends now aren’t we?’
‘Alright, thank you, Mary. So what did James do that was so terrible?’
‘He liked boys as well as girls, of course. Lots of film stars do, don’t they?’
‘Is that what caused the rift in your family?’
‘No, they never knew about that. I didn’t find out for years – he was very good at covering his tracks – and I wasn’t about to broadcast it to the world.’
‘But you thought it was terrible?’ persisted Jane.
Mary Smith shook her head, her eyes staring at a blank wall as if it were a window on the past. ‘He ruined those children. Well, he ruined one of them and drove the other away. Maybe that’s my biggest regret. He treated little Ernie so badly, beating him, calling him “ugly, pasty bastard” all the time. “Ugly, pasty, little bastard”.’ Tears formed in her eyes as she repeated the phrase. ‘Yet Ernie hero-worshipped him. He became the same sort of man, but without the looks. Without the luck, too. Ended up in prison, of course. And then, he did the same to my grandson, Dean. Dean’s mother ran off when he was only young. I tried my best with him, but the influence was too strong. And I was too weak. Nature or nurture, that’s what they say, isn’t it?’
‘Mary, what about your daughter, Lois? The little girl you had with your first husband, the American airman, Woody?’
‘Nature or nurture,’ reiterated Mary thoughtfully. ‘I never actually loved Woody. He wasn’t good looking at all. Pale, very small, quite effeminate really. But he was twice
the man James was, I can see that now. I only married him because I was pregnant. Woody adored her when she was born. She was such a beautiful girl. And then, that terrible thing happened. I became a widow with a small child. James said he loved me, but he only married me so he could run away and hide. He treated Lois so much better than Ernie. He was always buying her presents and pretty dresses, but she eventually saw him for what he was and she ran away from him. I tried to keep in touch, but he found out. He frightened me when he was angry, so I chose the easy way out. And I chose the film star. Again. Silly, silly girl. She’s dead too, isn't she, my little Lois?’
‘I’m sorry, yes.’ said Jane quietly. ‘But I think you know she had a son, Christopher. He’s a very handsome man, too. His health isn’t great, but—'
‘You won’t tell them, dear?’ Mary suddenly sounded frightened. ‘Where I am, I mean. I can’t face them, you know. I can talk to you, you’re… Forgive me, you’re no-one. But I can’t face my family. Not after all this time. They’ll see what a shameful, weak, silly woman I was and they’ll be right. I just want to die peacefully and hope the lights just go out and stay out. I can’t do anything for them, not now. I’ve got nothing and it’s too late. Please don’t tell them.’
‘If you don’t want me to say where you are, I won’t,’ promised Jane. ‘But one thing you can do for them is to tell me your story, answer their questions. You didn’t fall out with your family because of the way James treated your children. I know he had strong political views. Was that what caused the trouble?’
Mary’s mind was still focussed elsewhere. ‘I don’t want them coming to my funeral, either. I don’t want everyone milling around talking about me, saying nice, respectful things and thinking something completely different. No more lies. I’d like you to come, dear, but not my family, not the ones I’ve wronged. I just want to be burnt and my ashes scattered and forgotten. I burnt him, you know. He always wanted to be buried with a fancy gravestone in black marble, but I burnt him…’
Mary went quiet. Jane spent a few seconds gathering her thoughts and then gently resumed her questioning.
‘Mary, you said something earlier about hanging. Was that just an expression, or did you really mean it? What did James do that could possibly merit hanging?’
‘They hanged Lord Haw-Haw, didn’t they?’
‘Lord Haw-Haw?’ Jane’s brow furrowed as she struggled to place the aristocrat with the familiar but strangely comical name.
‘Yes. You remember, dear. He was on the wireless during the war. “Germany calling, Germany calling.” Despite the plummy accent, he wasn’t even British. He was Irish or American, or something, but we still hanged him for treason. James was so upset. They’d been friends, you see, before the war.’
‘Yes, of course, I remember now.’ Jane’s eyes opened with illumination. ‘William Joyce, nicknamed Lord Haw-Haw when he broadcast Nazi propaganda from Berlin. And James was a friend of his?’
‘Well, he said they were friends. I think they met once. Lord Haw-Haw was a lot older than he was. He visited him in hospital after he’d been beaten up by those filthy Bolshies.’
‘Bolshies? You mean Bolsheviks, as in communists? James was beaten up by communists?’ Jane remembered Chris Aimson saying his grandfather had lost the sight in one eye after a fight with anti-fascists, but hadn’t appreciated the revolutionary polarisation of the time.
‘Beaten very, very badly. It changed him, I think. Lord Haw-Haw was one of the top British fascists before the war and had a terrible scar on his face where he’d been slashed with a razor by a communist gang. James felt it was bond between them. They both hated, hated Bolshies. And Jews, of course.’
‘Why was James beaten up by these Bolshies?’
‘He was only a teenager. It was 1935 or maybe 1936. He wasn’t old enough to be a Blackshirt. He was a cadet. They wore grey shirts – he told me how his ended up blood red. He was selling party newspapers on a street corner in the East End. That’s where he came from. His father had been gassed in the First World War. They were promised a home fit for heroes and what they got was poverty and the Depression. I know fascism seems wicked now, but the government, democracy itself, didn’t seem able to cope and Mosley promised change, a new order. Anyway, there he was, my James, on that street corner. I think he had one Blackshirt steward with him. They were jumped by four or five of them and beaten so, so badly. He was only a boy but they hit him on the head with an iron bar.’
‘That was when he lost the sight in his right eye?’
Mary nodded. ‘And he was forever plagued by terrible headaches and dizzy spells. He hated them for the rest of his life, Bolshies. I think Haw-Haw hated Jews the most and went straight over to the Nazis. Mosley just wanted to avoid war and preached that we strike a peace deal with Hitler. They interned him and most of the British fascists, but James was too young, too unimportant to be of interest.’
Mary paused and seemed lost in her thoughts. There was a look of concern on her face as if she was questioning her memories, or perhaps it was her judgement in revealing them that she doubted. Jane was about to speak when the older woman resumed her story unprompted.
‘He kept his head down until Hitler declared war on Russia and then he felt he had to do something, something to help in the fight against communism. It got worse when America joined in and loaded the odds. I didn’t know what he was up to at the time, dear, honestly I didn’t. I didn’t know he was a fifth columnist until much, much later.’
Solution
Jane tried to get Mary to focus on James Smith’s wartime activities, but the old lady increasingly jumped around the decades as individual thoughts came to her. Jane was forced to take scribbled notes in an effort to keep track. The story seemed to be that one of his pre-war acquaintances had put him in touch with a Nazi spy who’d been parachuted into England and was building up a network of fascist sympathisers to gather information on allied invasion plans. At that time James was already hanging around American air bases, buying and selling black-market goods. Unfortunately, some of what Mary said was contradictory and she seemed more interested in talking about his later life, their troubled marriage and the impact it had on their children. Mary described how they’d been forced to move away from Dowley and James had dragged his family from place to place, as he strove to avoid the consequences of various dodgy money-making schemes catching up with him. Eventually they’d returned to Dowley, but only when Mary’s family had dispersed to more prosperous parts of the country.
Gradually it became clear Mary had exhausted herself and her confusion was returning. Clouds drifted over the seemingly clear blue sky of her deep-seated memories, and she once again became insistent that her husband had been a film star and that she’d seen one of his black-and-white films on television only days previously. The South African care assistant came in to say that Mary’s lunch was ready, and Jane thought it best to leave.
Now back home in Nottingham, Jane tried to process Mary’s account of family estrangement and weigh it in the balance of likelihood and doubt.
It did seem very probable there had been a fight at Mary’s sister’s wedding. For Mary and her husband to be effectively purged from the family, the cause had to be extreme. But James simply expressing pro-Nazi views to a decorated war hero could easily have been sufficient, given that it was so soon after a terrible conflict in which so many people lost so much.
Jane had enough to go back to the Stothards and claim she’d solved the family mystery and completed her work on the case. It would beg the question, however, of whether Mary’s wilder claims were true. Could James Smith really have been a fifth columnist, a spy feeding information on US air force movements back to the Germans? Margaret and Julian Stothard would surely want to know. Jane needed to know too.
Dismissal
Hi Jane
Thanks for the update. I appreciate you’ve only given me the abridged version, but it’s quite a story. I particularly liked the bit about meeting Lord
Haw-Haw. If I were a sceptic, I’d say someone was just pulling famous names from a hat. Or had watched too many spy films. Sorry if I sound a little grumpy, I’ve been awake for 48 hours (bastard insomnia – moan, moan, moan). Anyway, the rational answer to your question is a simple no. James Smith was not spying for the Germans. He couldn’t have been because no-one was.
Check out ‘Double Cross’ using the URLs below and you’ll see what I mean.
Glad to hear you’re feeling well,
Tommy x
Double Cross
Jane followed Tommy’s links to various web pages which described the Double Cross system run by British intelligence in World War II. She realised it was history she’d heard of before and felt stupid that she’d fired off an email without doing some simple research herself. But whilst the basic premise of Double Cross was coming back to her, she’d never fully appreciated the totality of its reach.
Just south of Nottingham was a heritage railway where volunteers ran steam locomotives on tracks abandoned by British Rail long before it, too, was lost to denationalisation. Jane and Dave had visited the line to attend a beer festival, which was spread across the various stations such that different selections of ales could be reached by climbing onto a passing train. At least one of those stations was forever stuck in 1940 with displays of wartime paraphernalia, including, most memorably, a baby doll in a pram gas mask. Thinking back now, Jane could also visualise the backdrop of a weathered propaganda poster proclaiming that ‘Careless talk costs lives’. People were warned that Britain was awash with cunning and virtually undetectable spies funnelling secrets to their German masters. Newspapers and novels fed the paranoia. Watch what you said in front of the man who looked like an incorruptible bank manager with his pinstripe suit and impeccable accent. He could have polished his vowels in Munich and learnt his politics at Nuremberg. The myth had persisted in many people’s minds, despite contradictory wartime files gradually being declassified over the years.