Triumphant, she stepped inside, and then burst into tears. Taped across the front of the black metal telephone unit was a piece of cardboard with “OUT OF ORDER” written in chalk. Unable to take any more, Bess gave up the heavy burden in her aching arms to the floor of the redundant telephone booth and sobbed.
‘I think these are yours.’ An attractive, well dressed woman in her early thirties handed Bess a brown leather glove and a white cotton underskirt.
‘Thank you,’ Bess whispered, accepting the articles of clothing. And in the comparative quiet of the telephone box, she told the woman about the theft of her handbag, which meant she had no way of getting to her lodgings, the obnoxious man in the lost property office and the brute that knocked her off her feet. ‘You’ll have to excuse me; I don’t usually give in to tears.’
‘Nor I, but I think I would if everything that has happened to you today had happened to me. But please dry your eyes,’ the woman said, handing Bess a small white handkerchief. ‘I have an idea. My husband will be here soon. Why don’t you come home with us, have something to eat, and when my husband goes to work this evening he will drive you to your lodgings.’
‘I couldn’t,’ Bess said. ‘I don’t-- I mean, you don’t know me. You’re very kind, but you don’t even know my name – I don’t know yours.’
‘That is true, but easily remedied. My name is Natalie Goldman. How do you do?’
‘How do you do, Mrs Goldman?’
‘Please, call me Natalie.’
‘Thank you, Natalie. My name’s Bess, Bess Dudley.’
‘I am pleased to meet you, Bess.’ Natalie Goldman took Bess’s hand, shook it, and laughed kindly. ‘It is a bizarre situation in which we find ourselves, Bess, do you not think?’
Bess looked around at the out-of-order telephone and her old, now broken, suitcase, and then at the sophisticated woman with her smart case covered in stickers from a dozen foreign countries and laughed with her.
‘There is a saying in my country. When two people have laughed together in the face of adversity they will be good friends.’ Sensing that Bess was still unsure, Natalie Goldman opened her handbag and took out her purse. ‘If you would rather not come to our home, let me give you the taxi fare to your lodgings.’
‘I didn’t tell you so you’d give me money-- I don’t want your money.’
‘Then how will you get there?’ Natalie Goldman asked sympathetically.
‘I don’t know,’ Bess sighed, unable to stop her tears.
Natalie Goldman put her arm around Bess’s shoulder. ‘You look all-in, Bess. Please let me help you?’
A sob caught in Bess’s throat. ‘Thank you, Natalie, you’re very kind. I should like very much to come to your home.’
‘And you will be very welcome,’ a tall handsome man said as he arrived at Natalie’s side.
‘Anton!’ Natalie turned at the sound of the man’s voice and threw her arms around his neck. ‘Bess, may I introduce you to my husband, Anton?’
‘I am very pleased to meet you, Anton. Your wife has been very kind to me. I don’t know what I’d have done without her.’
Anton Goldman rolled his eyes good-naturedly, as if to say he was used to hearing people say such things about his wife. ‘And I am pleased to meet you, Bess. We should get going before it rains,’ he said, taking the safety strap from his wife’s suitcase and buckling it round Bess’s before carrying both cases to his car.
Bess and Natalie ran across the road behind Anton and while he put the cases in the boot they jumped into the car – Natalie in the front, next to her husband, and Bess in the back. As Anton steered the car into the traffic heading north, towards Hampstead Heath, it began to rain.
The Goldman’s house was at the end of a narrow but well-lit lane on the south side of the Heath, a stone’s throw from Heath Street, Hampstead’s main shopping area. The journey took an hour and by the time they arrived it was blowing a gale and raining heavily.
‘It’s too windy for the umbrella; we’ll have to run for it.’ Anton leapt out of the car to get the cases from the boot and the women made a dash for the house.
At a downstairs window Bess could see three small faces peering out into the night. By the time she and Natalie had reached the front door the welcoming party had opened it and were tumbling out to greet them.
‘Hello my darlings,’ their mother said. ‘I’ve missed you so much.’ Natalie Goldman wrapped her slender arms round her three children. ‘Come, let us go inside out of the rain.’
The children asked their mother about the train, the boat that had taken her across the sea, and about their grandparents. Then the smaller of the two boys asked his mother if she had brought anything back for him. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘there is something for each of you, but you will have to wait until I unpack. I promise to tell you every detail of my trip tomorrow, but tonight we have a guest. So children, after our guest has freshened up, would you please show her to the back sitting room?’
Natalie took off her coat, helped Bess out of hers, and hung both in the cloakroom next to the front door before showing Bess to a small well-equipped washroom further along the hall. ‘I’ll use the bathroom upstairs, if you can make do with this one, and we’ll meet in the sitting room. Use anything you need, Bess,’ Natalie called.
Bess filled the hand basin with hot water, lathered the bristles of a small nailbrush with rose scented soap and scrubbed the dirt from beneath her fingernails. Once her hands were clean she emptied the basin and refilled it with clean water. Then she washed her face, patted it dry with a soft white towel and looked in the mirror. Rogue curls had escaped from the bun at the nape of her neck and hung at the side of her face like a spaniel’s ears. She didn’t have a comb and she wasn’t about to look in Natalie’s cupboards, so she poked the offending strands of hair back into the bun with her fingers and secured them with a couple of Kirby grips that she found in the pocket of her skirt. Now her reflection showed a clean face and almost tidy hair, so she left the washroom.
Natalie and Anton’s children were sitting at the bottom of the stairs in the neatly furnished entrance hall. ‘If you’d like to come with us,’ their daughter said, jumping up, ‘we’ll show you to the back sitting room. Come on,’ she said to her brothers.
The boys followed closely behind their sister and Bess followed them along a short corridor with a door on either side. The oldest of the boys opened the door on the right, and then stood back to let Bess enter. Once she was inside the children trooped in behind her, followed by their mother.
Except for a gate-legged dining table and six chairs, Bess thought the back sitting room looked more like a front parlour. Thick rugs covered the floor, heavy brocade curtains hung from the window and, on the opposite side of the room, a large settee and two armchairs stood either side of a roaring fire.
Natalie’s daughter showed Bess to the armchair nearest the fire and joined her mother and brothers on the settee.
‘Bess, I would like to introduce you to my children,’ Natalie said when the boys had stopped fidgeting. ‘This is my daughter Rebekah, who is ten years old, and these two young men are my sons – Benjamin, who will soon be nine years old and Samuel, who is seven.’
The younger of the two boys sat up with a start and looked at his mother. ‘I’m seven and a half,’ he said indignantly.
‘Forgive me, Bess. Samuel is seven and a half,’ she corrected, putting her arm around her youngest son’s shoulder and drawing him to her.
Benjamin gave Bess a welcoming smile but Samuel, concentrating on the small semi-circles he was making in the rug with the toe of his right shoe, didn’t look up.
Bess smiled at Benjamin and Samuel, and then at Rebekah. Rebekah had inherited her mother’s bright intelligent eyes and dark hair. Benjamin was from the same mould, tall and good looking with an athletic build. Samuel, on the other hand, was as short as Benjamin was tall and as chubby as his older brother was slim. He wore owlish spectacles that looked as if they wer
e too big for his small face and he scowled - especially when he was being talked about or looked at.
‘Hello,’ Bess said, ‘I’m very pleased to meet you.’
‘And children, this is Miss Dudley.’
Smiling, Rebekah said, ‘Hello,’ while Benjamin, with a smile and Samuel, with a puckered brow said, ‘How do you do?’ as one voice.
‘Boys, would you please go upstairs and find Nanny Friel? Ask her if she would bring in a selection of cold plates with tea. And ask her if she and Nurse Ambler would like to join us here in the sitting room.’
Without hesitating, the boys ran off to relay the message to their nanny while Rebekah sat quietly reading a book.
‘I’m afraid we don’t keep to tradition. Nanny used to despair of us when she first came to live here. The children and I take tea in whichever room is the warmest – often it’s the kitchen – and she just about puts up with that. Today, because we have a guest, she will expect us to observe the correct etiquette. Tea and cold plates in the back-sitting room? Tut, tut! We must prepare ourselves for the frown of disapproval from our darling Nanny,’ Natalie said, laughing.
‘Do you like reading, Rebekah?’ Bess asked when the young girl closed her book.
‘Yes, I like languages too. I’m learning French. My friend at school has a French tutor. Son nom est Monique. Her name is Monique,’ she said with quiet confidence.
‘Well done, darling,’ Natalie said, applauding her daughter.
‘And, because Nanny Friel doesn’t speak English – and talks to us all the time in German – I understand and speak a little German. Daddy speaks German too.’
Natalie laughed. ‘Better than I speak English, Bess.’
Bess smiled, but said nothing; she wasn’t sure she’d be able to keep the surprise out of her voice. Natalie spoke as if she was German, but surely not? She had an accent, but it wasn’t necessarily a German accent. Bess was pondering Natalie’s ancestry when Nanny Friel entered the room carrying a tray of crockery which she plonked down on the sideboard with a clatter, making Bess jump.
‘Dieses ist nicht bequeme, Natalie. No!’ she said, her starched pinafore crackling like autumn leaves as she dragged the oak drop-leaf table from beneath the window and extended it to its full potential.
‘It will be comfortable enough, Nanny, don’t worry,’ Natalie said, smiling at Bess as if to say, I told you so!
‘Wenn Sie so sagen,’ Nanny capitulated, eyeing Bess with suspicion.
‘I don’t think Nanny likes me,’ Bess said when Nanny left the room.
‘Oh, don’t pay any attention. Nanny suspects everyone of being a spy, or worse. She has been with us a long time and we love her very much, don’t we, children?’
‘Nanny was Mamma’s nanny when Mamma was little,’ Rebekah said.
‘But she’s old now,’ Samuel whispered. ‘So we mustn’t make her run around after us. We have to ask Nurse Ambler if we want anything, don’t we, Mamma?’
Natalie shook her head and smiled at her youngest son, but before she could answer him Nanny, followed by Nurse Ambler and Anton, brought in trays of food, which they lined up along the sideboard.
After introducing Bess to Nanny and Nurse, Anton went to the kitchen to fetch more chairs while the two women laid the table.
‘Tea is ready, children,’ Nurse Ambler called.
The three children jumped up and ran to the table where Nanny supervised the seating arrangements. When the children had settled down Nanny beckoned Bess to the table, pointing to a seat at the far end next to Anton and opposite Natalie.
‘Help yourself, Bess, you must be hungry,’ Natalie said.
Bess was hungry; it had been a long time since she had eaten anything. Because she’d gone up to the library at Foxden she had missed lunch. When she’d got home there hadn’t been time to do anything but grab her bags and jump into the waiting taxi. And at Rugby station the train had been about to leave so she didn’t have time to buy a sandwich from the cafeteria.
Anton handed her a dish of cold chicken and another of beef. Bess took a slice of meat from each and returned them to Anton who, before passing them to Natalie, forked another helping of meat onto her plate.
Bess cut into the beef, but before she had time to put her fork to her mouth, Nanny was at her side. ‘Versuchen Sie bitte meinen speziellen Kartoffelsalat.’ No sooner had she finished speaking than she raised her hand to Anton as if to say don’t tell me! ‘Please to eat it, my potato salat. It is food of my home,’ she said, nodding and smiling in spite of the sadness Bess could see in her eyes. ‘There is no one so good,’ she concluded, and spooned a large dollop of creamy potato cubes with chopped onion and gherkin onto Bess’s plate. ‘Eat, bitte!’
Bess forked a portion of potato salad into her mouth. ‘It’s delicious, Nanny. I’ve never tasted anything like it.’
‘Good,’ Nanny said proudly and returned to her seat to eat her own food and watch over her young charges.
When it was time to leave everyone came to the front door to wave Anton and Bess off, including Nanny Friel and Nurse Ambler.
‘Goodbye, Nurse Ambler and thank you,’ Bess said to the children’s nurse. ‘And thank you for the delicious food,’ Bess said to Nanny Friel. ‘Will you send me the recipe for your wonderful potato salad?’
Natalie began to interpret, but stopped when Nanny shook her head. ‘Nein!’ she said ‘It is the secret of my family. You come again here and I make for you.’
‘Thank you. And thank you, Natalie. I don’t know how I shall ever be able to repay you for your kindness,’ Bess said, hugging Natalie Goldman as she would have hugged one of her sisters.
‘I’m sure you would have done the same for me, Bess.’
‘Yes, I would. And if there is ever anything I can do for you or for your family in the future,’ Bess said, ‘you only have to ask.’
Anton Goldman, having said goodbye to his family, had put Bess’s case and satchel on the back seat of his Austin motorcar and was sitting with the engine running.
‘I must go or I’ll make your husband late for work. Thank you again.’
Bess walked down the path to a chorus of goodbyes from the Goldman children, opened the passenger door of their father’s car and lowered herself onto the soft cream leather seat. As Anton reversed the car out of the drive, Bess waved a final farewell.
Anton Goldman drove along the lane, turned into Heath Street, and within minutes the quaint shops and cafés of Hampstead were behind them and they were heading for London’s West End.
‘What a wonderful wife and family you have, Anton,’ Bess said. ‘How kind and generous they are.’
‘I think Natalie saw a kindred spirit in you, Bess.’
‘And I in her. I liked her very much.’
Anton Goldman laughed. ‘Sorry, Bess, I don’t mean to be rude: That my wife liked you does not surprise me. That my children liked you was to be expected – what’s not to like? But that Nanny Friel liked you means you must be a very special person, Miss Dudley.’
‘I don’t know about that, but I liked her too.’ Bess wanted to know more about the elderly German woman, but thought Anton might think she was prying, so she didn’t press him.
She watched the window-wipers as they swept backwards and forwards across the windscreen - swoosh shlap, swoosh shlap. Through the driving rain the streetlights looked as if they were flickering, as if the shilling in the electric meter was about to run out and at any moment the lights would flicker their last and the world would be plunged into darkness. They had travelled through London’s suburbs for half an hour without speaking when Bess broke the silence. ‘Where did you meet Natalie?’
‘In Geneva, at the university. We had three wonderful years together, but once we had our degrees we had to return to our own countries, Natalie to Germany and me to England.’
‘A long distance love affair,’ Bess said. ‘That couldn’t have been easy.’
‘It wasn’t. We visited each other every fe
w months, but it wasn’t enough, so one morning I packed a bag, went to Germany and asked Natalie to marry me.’
Bess laughed. ‘How romantic.’ She looked at Anton, expecting to hear more, but his expression had changed from a smile to a frown. She wondered why. ‘Were you married in Germany?’ she asked after a few minutes.
‘Yes, eventually, but while we were making the arrangements we encountered Nazis.’ Anton cleared his throat. ‘But I’m sure you don’t want to hear about Nazis.’
Bess did want to hear about them, but she didn’t want to upset Anton Goldman. ‘My brother Tom and I talked about the Nazi party and Germany’s chancellor, Adolf Hitler, at New Year,’ she said. ‘Tom thinks if Hitler has his way, there’ll be another war. He says Nazis are bullies, and--’
‘Oh, they’re that alright. The month we were due to be married, fascists, men in brown shirts – so proud of their beliefs that they covered their faces with black scarves – painted swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans on the walls of the synagogue where Natalie’s family worshipped and where we had planned to be married. Then, the day before our wedding, they burned the synagogue to the ground. The Rabbi was inside and died in the fire.
‘My family and many of our friends had travelled from England and Switzerland to be at our wedding, so we had a civil ceremony in a neighbouring town. But the writing was on the wall, literally. I feared for our lives if we stayed in Germany, so I brought Natalie to England – and here we are.’
‘Did Nanny Friel come to England with you?’
‘No, she had retired by then. When Natalie went to university her parents bought Nanny a cottage in the village where her sister lived. She was happy for a couple of years. Then one day Natalie received a letter from her saying that her sister and several friends had gone missing - disappeared.’ Anton paused for a moment, as if to regain his composure. Finally he said, ‘Their bodies were found in nearby woods. They had been shot.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Sorry sounded pathetic, but Bess was so shocked she didn’t know what to say.
Foxden Acres (The Dudley Sisters Quartet Book 1) Page 4