Live the Dream

by Claire Lorrimer

  He picked up the snapshot Una had enclosed from the table where he had placed it and wondered at the little girl’s resemblance now to her mother. The only time he had seen her, he had seen at once that she looked like him. He smiled, happy about the transformation and proud of her prettiness.

  After reading it once more, he carefully put the letter and photograph in the breast pocket of his jacket and tried to regain the interest he’d had in the papers his father had given him to pass the time and, more importantly, to bring him up to date with their family business. As soon as he was back on his two feet he would be initiated into the tasks of export manager, a job that had lapsed during the war when ninety-five per cent of the firm’s output had gone to Germany.

  However, he could not concentrate and finally he put the folders back on the table and took up the book he was reading. It was an English novel by Graham Greene called The Ministry of Fear, a thriller taking place in London during the Blitz, which had so far kept him enthralled.

  Meanwhile, his mother was busy in the kitchen, not cooking which she enjoyed doing every morning, but writing the promised letter to Gerda while the news was fresh in her mind.

  Dearest Gerda,

  You were quite right: the letter Kristoffer expected did arrive from England this morning, three days after the celebrations. I am so sorry to have to tell you that things have changed. As I promised before you left, I tried to persuade Kristoffer to forget the Englishwoman and make a new start to his life with you, but he continues to live in the past and tells me he will never marry anyone if he can’t marry her.

  We have to accept, Gerda, dear, that there is no hope. The sister writes that the husband is waiting to hear if the English doctors can remove the shrapnel which is lodged too close to his brain for safety. If the husband should not survive such an operation, his widow would be free to marry again.

  I am so sorry, Gerda, to have to write and tell you this news. You must try now to forget about a future with Kristoffer and please try to have a happy time with your new Swedish friend, Birgit. Do you converse in Norwegian or Swedish? I hope your skiing holiday was fun and I wait to hear if the terrain was very different from our mountain slopes here.

  All my love and very best wishes for 1946, dearest child, and you have my word, I will continue to do what I can to knock some sense into my senseless son.

  Helena Holberg

  Fru Holberg drew a deep sigh as she took her mixing bowl off the shelf, then flour, eggs and sour cream from the larder cupboard and began to prepare fløtelapper, which would be eaten with her homemade, delicious fruit sauce, at their evening meal. Kristoffer was her only child and throughout the war, knowing how dangerous were his activities, she had lived in fear of his death. Since his and Gerda’s childhood, she had nursed the idea that they would eventually marry and give her the grandchildren she wanted. For a while, when they were teenagers, it had looked as if that might come about. Then had come the fateful year in Germany before the war and he had fallen in love with the English girl with the funny name, Dilys. It had not bothered her too much at first, certain as she was that when the war separated them he would quickly forget her, but she had not known then, any more than he did, about the child. His daughter. It was only when he returned from England in 1943 that she had learned of the child’s existence and it was then that she – and, of course, poor Gerda – had begun to lose hope.

  Fru Holberg recalled the tears Gerda had shed at the time and how sensibly she had dealt with the news, vowing not to waste her life hoping for the impossible and deciding to spend a year in the United States. As she continued to beat the flour and eggs it never once crossed her mind that her letter and the news it contained, now awaiting on the hall table to be posted to America, would have such a devastating effect upon the girl she had hoped would be her daughter-in-law.

  Ten days later, when Gerda read the contents, every muscle in her body froze and her eyes narrowed. No hope, Tante Helena had written. There was no such thing as no hope. In this instance, as far as she was concerned, there had to be hope. Somehow she must find a way of removing the English girl from Kristoffer’s life. There had to be a way and she would think of it.

  TWENTY-TWO

  In two months’ time it would be Tina’s sixth birthday, Dilys reminded herself as she dried the last of the lunch dishes. She must start thinking of something really nice to do by way of a party for her. She sighed, wishing that dear old Mrs White was still with her, not just to help with tiresome domestic chores but because she always made splendid birthday cakes for Tina. James’ faithful servant had been forced to retire at the end of the war due to severe rheumatism.

  Stacking the clean plates on the dresser, she wondered what it would be like owning a dishwasher. She had seen one in an American film but as far as she knew no one as yet had one in England. Although the war had ended when Japan had surrendered last September, shortages of nearly everything still continued.

  Through the kitchen window, Dilys could see James wandering round the garden, a garden devoid of all but a few flowers as she was still growing vegetables, a necessity during the war. She also still had her chickens. She could see James staring down into the enclosure where a broody hen was sitting on a clutch of eggs, listening to hear if the chicks had hatched. Ginger, the cat, was winding itself between his legs.

  Dilys paused, her eyes momentarily stinging with tears of pity as she watched him. He looked so completely normal: so like the James she had kissed goodbye when he had departed after his embarkation leave four-and-a-half years ago. He was thinner, of course, which was only to be expected after two years as a prisoner of war, but unless he was drawn into a conversation, people were unaware of his damaged brain. The English doctor in the prisoner-of-war camp at Elsterhorst had concealed the fact from their captors, fearing what might happen to James if his mental state was known.

  Physically, he had no visible scars, his only wound being on his head where a piece of shrapnel was lodged in his brain. The result of that injury was an almost total loss of memory. He only recalled his former work as a vet. His personal habits were unchanged, and he seemed most at ease when he was smoking his pipe. He greeted people who came to the house for one reason or another as if they were clients and seemed confused if they did not have an animal with them requiring his treatment. His good manners were the same as they had always been – automatic.

  When James had first been repatriated after the Russians liberated his prison camp, he had been sent to one of the big London hospitals where his condition had been assessed. During those weeks when Dilys had visited him every Sunday, he had behaved towards her not as a husband but as her employer, wanting to know if Mrs Anstruther’s Labrador’s broken leg had healed; if the young Peter’s rabbit had recovered its appetite. She had not always taken Tina with her on those visits, and her daughter had spent Sundays with her grandparents at Hannington Hall. Tina loved going there and both her grandparents now doted on her, her origins conveniently forgotten.

  As she told Una on one of her twin’s frequent visits, she had little time to dwell on the past, halcyon days with Kristoffer. Her visits to James, looking after Tina and her teaching job at the prep school sufficed to make life a tolerable routine which kept her busy but reasonably content, she said. The only nagging worry was when James was sent home after the brain specialist said an operation was far too dangerous for him. He’d explained it would be safer to leave the shrapnel where it was as it might never move. At the same time, he warned her that should it do so, it would almost certainly cause James’ death.

  At first, Dilys had feared she would have to give up her job at the school. She loved working with the small boys, thinking up ways to make their lessons interesting so they were fun as well as instructive. Tina was accepted by the boys as one of them but still maintained her femininity, loving pretty dresses and fairy stories and even dolls, although these were never taken to school to be ridiculed by her masculine classmates.

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bsp; Dilys’ worry that she would have to give up her job to take care of James was quickly solved by Una. She suggested that Dilys employ someone such as an au pair to live in and help with the extra work and cooking needed by James’ return home and, more importantly, to keep an eye on him when she was at the school. It was not as if he required nursing. If the weather was fine, he would wander outdoors to look at the animals, the cat, Tina’s rabbit, the chickens and the tortoise. When he examined or stroked them his face would lose its strained look, and Dilys realized he was reliving his former life as a vet. His manner towards her was polite, grateful and friendly but never intimate. Once, when she had gone to his bedroom to make sure he had everything he needed for the night, she had bent and kissed his forehead and his reaction was one of surprise, as if he was not quite sure who she was and what his response should be. He’d finally said, ‘Thank you!’ and she had decided not to confuse him again.

  Tina’s reaction to James’ homecoming was, Una declared, entirely understandable. The child had no memory of him and referred to him frequently as the ‘Wounded-Man-who-lives-with-us’. She knew he was someone she was supposed to call ‘Daddy’, but she seldom did so. At times, if she had nothing else she wanted to do, she would join him in the garden and then he would begin giving her instructions about the animals’ welfare. He never remembered her name. She learned quickly that he seemed not to object when she chatted to him but that she must not expect a reply unless it was how many pills she must give a sick animal or what to feed her rabbits.

  The first months James had been home from hospital had been difficult. He would wander off without saying where he was going and, for all Dilys knew, might go out of the garden on to the road. It was like having Tina as a toddler again. During those busy days she had no time to think of the past, of Kristoffer and what he might be doing with his life. When she was drifting into sleep she would allow herself to remember those five days when the two of them had been briefly reunited, but to her disappointment she never dreamed of him.

  Dilys was finding her new au pair, a Swedish girl called Birgit, a huge asset. She was always smiling, always willing to help with cooking as well as housework and got on splendidly with Tina. She was happy to read her stories or play games with her. Her manner with James was unobtrusive and she had even been able to persuade him, on one or two occasions, to join her and Tina on walks to the village. She sat with them after Tina had been put to bed, and although she found it difficult to hold a coherent conversation with James, Birgit would chatter happily to Dilys about her life in Sweden in her broken English. How much of her conversation James understood remained a mystery as he invariably sat in silence smoking his pipe, his face impassive as he listened to her.

  It was not exactly an exciting life, Dilys admitted to Una when she came to stay on one of her weekends – certainly not compared to the life Una now led in London. Jerzy had applied for British citizenship and Sir Godfrey had found him a job helping to sort out the post-war lives of the many Polish men who had come to England to fight but were now unable to return to their own families and homes. Stalin had cleverly manipulated the formation of a provisional government in Warsaw and Jerzy was far too anglicized to wish to live under Communist rule. He was grateful to Sir Godfrey for supporting his application for citizenship.

  It was a bright spring day in April when Una arrived unexpectedly with the news that she and Jerzy had fixed a day for their wedding. As his family were unable to leave Poland, the ceremony was not going to be at the fashionable church of St Margaret’s in Westminster, which their mother favoured, but at the Wren church St James’ in Piccadilly. It was a smaller church at which some of his and Una’s former RAF and Polish air force colleagues could be present and it was conveniently near the RAF Club for the reception. Tina, she announced to the child’s delight, would be her only bridesmaid and Dilys her matron of honour.

  Tina was wildly excited when her aunt told her she could wear her princess dress, a full-skirted, frilled pink satin garment Dilys had made for her out of an old taffeta petticoat which had once been the underskirt of one of her mother’s old ball gowns.

  ‘I’ve chosen a pale cream brocade wedding dress from Norma Cave!’ Una announced to Dilys with a secret smile at her twin. The shop, well known to Una and other society friends who were desperate for something ‘new’ to wear, had resorted to buying expensive second-hand couture clothes being sold by the rich women whose wardrobes were still full of fashionable dresses which had been made for them before the war. All but the most basic of materials were still unavailable and the stigma of wearing second-hand clothes had conveniently disappeared.

  ‘I don’t imagine James would want to come to the wedding,’ Una said, glancing at the silent man seated by fireside.

  Dilys shook her head. ‘I think he’s getting worse!’ she said softly. ‘Two nights ago he suddenly got out of bed, dressed himself and went downstairs. Fortunately Birgit heard him and found him in the drive heading for the road. He had no idea where he was going and let her lead him back to bed. He also keeps trying to open the door to the surgery which we locked after he was called up all those years ago. As a matter of fact, that particular incident gave Birgit and me the idea of opening it up, putting everything that might be useful to another vet in storage somewhere and using it as a playroom for Tina when she brings friends home. As you know, I’m planning a birthday party for her here the first week in May. What with work and James and everything, she doesn’t have many treats so I want to arrange something special.’

  Listening to Dilys’ simple plans for her daughter, it crossed Una’s mind how totally different her twin’s life was from her own. With her flat in London and her engagement to Jerzy, there was seldom a night when she was not out enjoying herself. Despite the continued austerity as the country tried to recover from five years of bitter war, London was doing its utmost to regain its former reputation as an exciting capital city and theatres, cinemas and restaurants were busy once more.

  Whenever she came to see Dilys, it left her feeling guilty that her twin should be leading such a dull, barren life without fun, without love or sex. She knew Kristoffer was still as devoted to Dilys as she was to him and it seemed tragic they could not be together. Dilys, of course, had refused to listen when she, Una, had speculated as to what might happen were James to get worse and be put in a secure hospital. Even if James’ deterioration were to happen, she knew her twin would never desert him, the man who had once come to her rescue when she’d been about to lose her baby.

  Last month, she had written again to Kristoffer. Although it was understood at the end of the couple’s stolen week’s ‘honeymoon’, that she would only write to him once a year at Christmas with news of Dilys and the child, his letter of thanks for last December’s letter had sounded so desperate, so despairing of the future, that she had written again, although she had been unable to offer him even a glimmer of hope.

  It was a constant worry to Una that there was so little she could do to better her beloved twin’s life. At least, she consoled herself, Dilys’ life had been greatly improved by the advent of the Swedish au pair. Birgit was not just a ‘mother’s help’ as were most au pairs, but had become a friend and companion to Dilys as well as being James’ and Tina’s carer when she was needed.

  Before she departed back to London, Una helped Dilys plan Tina’s birthday party. It was the first time the child had celebrated the occasion with a party, but now, with Birgit’s help, Dilys was organizing it for eight small boys from Tina’s class at school. It was Birgit’s idea that the party should be held in the old surgery. The reception room was large enough for the energetic youngsters to enjoy party games and, devoid of furniture, it needed only Birgit’s dusting and polishing to be ideal for the party.

  Together with Birgit, Dilys made a list of games to play and Birgit volunteered to make the birthday cake. They would decorate the room to look like a smuggler’s cave with a treasure chest of fake silver coins. Meanw
hile, Una telephoned to say that she and Jerzy would visit that day and Jerzy would dress up as a pirate, this because Tina insisted her party should be a boy’s affair, not a girly one.

  As usual, Birgit was as enthusiastic a planner as Dilys, all the preparations being undertaken after Tina had gone to bed. Both she and Dilys had saved their sugar ration so Birgit could make a heap of circular peppermint creams which she meticulously covered with silver paper to make them look like pirates’ stolen silver coins. She said she would wire up an eerie, green light, saying that the smuggler’s cave would look more realistic if the curtains were drawn and there was only a dim, green glow when the children first went into the room. Birgit’s enthusiasm was infectious and Dilys was only too happy to leave her to prepare the room.

  She was almost as excited as Tina when the day of the party finally arrived. Tina opted to travel with the eight small boys she had invited to her party who were to follow Dilys home from school in the headmaster’s old, pre-war Bentley shooting-brake normally used to take the older boys to cricket and football matches. As soon as afternoon games were over, the sports mistress who had volunteered to act as chauffeur bundled all the children into the vehicle and followed Dilys down the drive.

  Keeping her eye on the shooting-brake behind her, Dilys let her mind wander over all the preparations she and Birgit had made and reassured herself that nothing had been forgotten. Her thoughts then turned to Kristoffer as they so often did on special occasions involving Tina, and she thought how sad it was that he could not be with them. Her happiness at such times was always tinged with a sense of loss for what might have been had Kristoffer’s letter to her all those years before the war not been lost.

  A quick glance in her mirror reassured her that the Bentley was not far behind as she drove through the village. Then, as she neared her home, her thoughts went to James and how he would react to the sudden appearance of eight noisy little boys. It was a really good idea of Birgit to reopen the surgery for the party venue where they would all be happily confined and not getting under his feet.