Song of the Skylark

by Erica James

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  February 1947, Skylark Cottage, Shillingbury

  Skylark Cottage,

  Shillingbury,

  Suffolk.

  15th February 1947

  Dear Betty,

  Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU! I can’t tell you what joy your food hamper brought us when we opened it – you are an angel to think of us! I’m ashamed to say we have already gorged ourselves thoroughly on the tins of ham and salmon, and the cake and chocolate. It was like Christmas all over again!

  More seriously, I’m sad to say the stirrings of unrest are gaining momentum here. The general feeling is that we have lived with rationing quite long enough, that we should not be expected to continue making sacrifices during peacetime. It was easier somehow to bear the lack of food and hardship during the war years because we had a just cause to get behind. Now we just want to feel that the war was worth it, that we can get back to living normal lives again and can go to the shops and come home with a basket full of delicious things to eat. Hunger and deprivation is a terrible thing and I wonder if this will be what breaks our spirit – something even Hitler was unable to do.

  We’re now enduring a transport strike, which is preventing food reaching the shops and to make matters worse, with sub-zero temperatures and snow blizzards sweeping across the country, there are fuel shortages which means thousands of factory workers can’t get to work, which in turn means for long periods of time we’re without heat or light – we’ve run out of logs for the fire and are down to our last sack of coal and I have no idea when we will see the coalman next. At night we go to bed wearing as many clothes as during the day, if not more, and are scarcely able to move beneath the weight of blankets and eiderdowns. With ice on the inside of the windows, I’ve had Nicholas sleep with me, cuddling him close to ensure he stays warm. Thomas and Walter have also shared a bed to keep warm.

  I confess that there are times when I come close to losing my adopted stiff upper lip and succumb to the desire to weep at the unrelenting gloom. But what good would that do? I have the boys to fight for.

  Talking of the boys, specifically Thomas and Walter, my worst fears may well come true, that I shall soon have to part with them. For now I’ll say no more, in case putting it down on paper makes it a reality.

  And now that I’ve thoroughly depressed you with such a tale of woe and misery, I must end before I depress myself further!

  Thank you again for the hamper, you brightened our day wonderfully.

  With all my love and endless thanks,

  Clarissa

  PS I can’t remember if I mentioned in my last letter that Henry Willet wanted to buy Shillingbury Grange from me. In case I didn’t, I’d better start the story at the beginning. When the war came to an end, The Grange was no longer required by the RAF and was officially given back to me. It was in a terrible state of repair, and since I had no desire to live in the house, even though I could well afford to return it to its former glory, I decided to sell it. Of course, with so little money around these days, few people were interested in taking on such a costly proposition, but then along came Henry who said he’d always admired the house and offered what he said was his best price. I accepted his low offer, despite objections from my solicitor in London, but frankly I just wanted to be rid of the problem, so really I have only myself to blame. However, I heard a few days ago that Henry has now sold The Grange to a builder for nearly double what he paid me. This man plans to build about a dozen houses on the land after bulldozing The Grange to the ground. Jimmy swears blind that Henry must have been in cahoots with somebody in the planning department to pull off a stunt like this, but to be honest, I don’t care. If this was Henry’s way of getting back at me, then so be it.

  PPS Apologies for the ridiculously long PS!

  Harbour View,

  Falmouth,

  Cornwall.

  26th April 1947

  Dear Clarissa,

  I write with the sad news that William’s father passed away in February. As you know, he had been ill for some time and in many ways his death was a blessing.

  I’m afraid that one way or another I have not been the best of mother-in-laws to you, or a good grandmother to Nicholas. I blame myself entirely, especially when you have been so good as to keep me up to date with my grandson’s progress. I should have made more of an effort to visit you, but the war made everything so much harder, and then my husband was ill and confined to bed and all my time revolved around him.

  Last month I moved down here to Falmouth, having made the decision to be near a dear friend who also recently lost her husband. I would be happy to have you and Nicholas to stay when I have got myself straightened out, although I do appreciate it would be a very long journey for you to undertake with a young child.

  Please continue to write as often as you can.

  Yours affectionately,

  Audrey Dallimore

  Skylark Cottage,

  Shillingbury,

  Suffolk.

  30th August 1947

  Dear Eva and Rudy,

  Thank you for your letter and assurances that you will take the very best care of Thomas and Walter. As you must have come to realise from my previous correspondence with you, Thomas and Walter are as precious to me as my own son is, and parting with them is going to be an enormous wrench. I’m still not convinced that it’s the right thing them to leave here, but I know I have no choice in the matter, that it would be wrong to stand in their way.

  There will always be a home for them here, should they have a change of heart.

  Kind regards,

  Clarissa

  Four months after Clarissa wrote that brief but difficult letter to Eva and Rudy Neumann, the day had come for Thomas and Walter to leave Skylark Cottage.

  They were now sixteen and fourteen years of age and since the end of the war, when the world discovered just what evil atrocities the Nazis had carried out in the concentration camps, Thomas and Walter had grown up fast. Knowing that their mother died within six months of being taken to the camp in Dachau, and that their father was later moved from Dachau and taken to Auschwitz, where he perished in the gas chambers, had brought about a swift end to their childhood. When they read of the Nazi war criminals who had been tried and found guilty at Nuremberg and subsequently executed, Thomas had spoken with a wisdom that had chilled Clarissa. ‘Those men died believing they had done nothing wrong,’ he said. ‘There will be others who believe the same. It won’t stop. Not ever.’

  Then shortly before Christmas last year a letter had arrived from Palestine. It was from a woman called Eva Neumann who claimed to be Thomas and Walter’s distant cousin. She had survived Auschwitz and was now living on a kibbutz on the outskirts of Jerusalem with her husband Rudy. After contacting the International Red Cross and those who had organised the Kindertransport, she had eventually tracked down Thomas and Walter, and as their only surviving relative she believed it her duty to offer them a home with what she referred to as their real family.

  Clarissa’s first response had been to throw the letter into the fire and pretend she had never received it. How dare this woman say where Thomas and Walter should live! Shillingbury was their home. This was where they were loved and cared for. How could this stranger even contemplate two young boys going to live in a country that was rife with conflict, where people were regularly being killed?

  But Thomas had seen the letter with its Palestine stamp and postmark, and besides, Clarissa knew she had no right to keep something so important from him and his brother. Their reaction to the letter had been mixed. Walter had been adamant that he wasn’t ever leaving Skylark Cottage, but Thomas had not been so ready to dismiss the contents of the letter; he was curious to know more. It was a stab to Clarissa’s heart when he asked if he could write to Eva Neumann himself.

  In the wee
ks and months that followed, during which time Thomas corresponded regularly with Eva and Rudy Neumann, Clarissa felt powerless to curb the zeal of what was plainly a growing conviction within him that England was no longer his home: Palestine was.

  Reports in the newspapers of Arabs and Jews killing each other appeared to hold no fear for Thomas, and in July, when the refugee ship Exodus 1947, carrying 4,500 Jewish refugees was thwarted from entering Palestine, Clarissa had hoped Thomas might review the situation, that he might see how dangerous it could be for him and his brother to make the journey, but perversely it made him all the more determined to go. ‘We’re going so that our parents did not lose their lives for nothing,’ he declared.

  He had suddenly become very much more politically and socially aware, eager too to embrace what he now saw as his true identity – he was Jewish and proud of it. He wanted to explore that identity and discover what it meant in its true context, and in his eyes there was only one way to do that.

  Even when Clarissa reminded him of his dream to go to art school in London, he parried with Eva and Rudy Neumann’s promises of him being able to study in Jerusalem. He then decided that art no longer interested him; he wanted to study politics and Hebrew.

  Though it pained her to do so, Clarissa had to accept that Thomas was set on a course of action from which he would not be budged. Furthermore, he was a boy on the verge of manhood with a cause firmly fixed in his mind; it was a cause that terrified her.

  Now here they were, on a bitterly cold December morning preparing for the separation that Clarissa had dreaded. At her side stood Mrs Cook with a handkerchief thrust to her eyes.

  ‘I can’t bear it,’ the poor woman said. ‘Skylark Cottage just won’t be the same without those boys. It’s not right them going. Not right at all. Why do they want to go? I don’t understand how they could do this, and after everything you’ve done.’

  Overhearing this as he came down the stairs, a rucksack slung over his shoulder and a case in his hand, Thomas put his luggage down and gave Mrs Cook a hug. ‘But think how much less work you’ll have to do without us around.’

  She dabbed furiously at her eyes. ‘I’ve never complained about how much I do round here. Never.’

  ‘Yes you have,’ said Thomas gently, ‘you’ve always complained at us for eating you out of house and home, and how we use all the hot water and make more mess in the bathroom than a pair of water hogs.’

  ‘I might well have said something along those lines,’ she replied with a sniff, ‘but it doesn’t mean I won’t miss you.’

  ‘And we’ll miss you, Mrs Cook,’ he said kindly. ‘But it’s time we found our own way now.’

  Walter was next to come downstairs. There was less resolve in his manner, but he was devoted to his brother and would follow him anywhere. Trailing behind him, as if he were going too, was Nicholas carrying a small bag of toys with the head of his teddy bear poking out. It was enough to set Mrs Cook off again with a fresh burst of tears.

  With a confused Nicholas looking on, Clarissa suggested it was time they set off. She was now the owner of a smart little Austin Seven and with the luggage stowed in the boot, Clarissa sat behind the steering wheel with a heavy heart. She was driving them to London, where Thomas and Walter would then take the train down to Southampton before boarding a ship bound for Haifa.

  The final goodbye on the platform was too much for Clarissa. She clung to Walter as though through the sheer force of her love for him she might be able to persuade him not to go. She knew she was being unreasonable, but the agony of letting them go was just too awful.

  Such a loving and gentle boy, Walter had tears in his eyes when she reluctantly released him. Thomas stepped forward and placed his hands on Clarissa’s shoulders – he was so much taller than her now. ‘We will never forget all the love and kindness you’ve shown us,’ he said, ‘nobody could have done more. I hope that one day you will be proud of Walter and me, that you will realise this is something we had to do.’

  His words, so formal and final, drilled straight through to her heart. ‘I’ll always be proud of you,’ she said. ‘Always.’

  The three of them stood facing each other on the crowded platform in excruciating awkwardness. It was almost a relief when the guard’s whistle blew and suddenly they were caught up in the commotion of people rushing to get on the train. Standing back, Clarissa watched the boys follow suit. The whistle was blown again and in a great cloud of steam, the train surged forward and began to pull away. Leaning out of the carriage window, Walter called to her. ‘I’ll write to you,’ he shouted, ‘every week. I won’t forget you, Clarissa! I promise!’ His words breached the last of her reserves and she started to run after the train, her hand raised, her eyes blurry with tears.

  When the train was moving too fast for her to keep up, she reluctantly watched it disappear into the distance. For the longest time she stood perfectly still, rooted to the spot, unable to move, unable to think.

  ‘Clarissa, is that you? Why, yes it is!’

  She turned to see none other than Polly Sinclair staring back at her. It was ages since they’d last seen each other, or had even been in touch, but the sight of Polly now was so welcome that Clarissa practically threw herself into her arms.

  ‘Oh, my poor darling, whatever is the matter?’

  Clarissa tried to explain, but hysterical sobs prevented her from uttering anything remotely coherent. Polly’s solution was to take command and drive Clarissa home with her.

  ‘What you need, my dear girl, is a large gin and it,’ she said, bundling her into the front of her car as Clarissa continued to sob, ‘and only once you’ve drunk it will I allow you to explain why you’re so upset. Not a word until then!’

  Cosseted in a sagging but immensely comfortable armchair, and soaking up the warmth of the fire burning brightly in the grate, Clarissa drank what she was given, and when her glass was empty she told Polly about Thomas and Walter.

  ‘I warned you this might happen,’ Polly said. ‘It’s an all-too-familiar story, but these children have to live their lives the way they want to. As much as they sometimes come to love the host families who have given them a home, they know it’s not their true home and will perhaps spend the rest of their lives searching for what, for many, may well be elusive.’

  ‘But I thought I’d done that,’ said Clarissa, ‘I thought I’d given them a sense of permanence, a place where they knew they were loved and were secure.’

  ‘And so you did,’ said Polly. ‘Nobody could have given those boys more love and stability than you gave Thomas and Walter, other than their own mother and father, but you were only ever meant to be a temporary mother to them. You knew that right at the start.’

  Her hackles up, Clarissa wanted to accuse Polly of not understanding. You’ve never had children in your life, she wanted to say, you don’t know the emotional pull they have on you. But she didn’t. ‘I know all that in my head,’ she said calmly, ‘but my heart says otherwise. And the worst of it is, I know what Thomas plans to do. He wants a cause to fight for and he’ll do whatever it takes to do that in Palestine, or the State of Israel as it will soon be called. He’ll get himself killed; I just know it. And poor Walter will follow him only too willingly. It breaks my heart.’

  ‘You don’t know any of that for sure,’ Polly said firmly. ‘For now it sounds like Thomas wants to prove himself; all boys do at that age.’

  ‘But I feel as if I’ve failed not just him and Walter, but their parents. They effectively entrusted their sons into my care and look what’s happened.’

  Polly rose from her chair, took Clarissa’s empty glass and refilled it with yet more gin and vermouth. ‘Clarissa, my darling,’ she said, handing the glass back to her, ‘you have two choices: you can either keep on berating yourself like this and go mad into the bargain, or you can square your shoulders and hope with all your being that Thomas and Walter
will be all right. Those are your options, and I would advocate the latter - if not for your own sake, for the sake of your son, Nicholas.’

  At the mention of Nicholas, Clarissa sat up straight. ‘Oh good lord, what was I thinking? I need to get home! I shouldn’t be sitting here, drinking gin with you! Poor Nicholas and Mrs Cook will be wondering what’s happened to me. I must get back to the station where I left my car.’ She was up on her feet, all her anxiety now focused on her son.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, calm down,’ Polly ordered. ‘You’re not going anywhere with the amount of gin I’ve poured into you. You must ring Mrs Cook and tell her you’re staying the night here with me. And later, over supper, we must decide what you’re going to do with the rest of your life.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You need a job, my girl.’

  ‘But I have one, I’m Nicholas’s mother and—’

  ‘I’m well aware of that,’ Polly interrupted her, ‘but you need more than motherhood to one small boy to keep you sane. An occupation will provide you with a fresh perspective.’

  Once again Clarissa felt her hackles rise. ‘What precisely do you propose?’ she asked with a hint of sarcasm.

  ‘Later,’ Polly said. ‘For now, ring Mrs Cook, then you can come into the kitchen and peel some potatoes for supper.’

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Lizzie’s first thought when she woke the next morning was of Mrs Dallimore, in particular the contrast between the frail old lady she had come to know, and the one she wished she had known – the young and extraordinarily selfless woman who had devoted herself to others, but who had suffered heartache after heartache. It made Lizzie want to vow she would never again whinge about anything bad that happened to her. Yet human nature being what it was, she would very likely break the promise before the day was over.

  But whatever else she failed to do, she fully intended to keep the promise she’d made to Mrs Dallimore, that she wouldn’t tell anyone about her so-called visits from her old friends. If it was all right for a child to have an imaginary friend, she reasoned, why couldn’t a sweet old lady who was as harmless as a daisy be left to enjoy the same flight of fancy? As rational as the argument was, Lizzie knew that for most people it was missing the point. Even so, her lips would remain sealed.