Summerland

by Lucy Adlington

  I breathed in big gulps of the freshest air ever tasted. The last time I was in the country it had been somewhere in Poland, scorching hot and so dry we drank out of puddles until these dried up. We’d been hidden in a sty, fighting bad-tempered pigs for a share of the slops. They were bacon by Christmas; we somehow stayed alive.

  Now I walked alone in the English countryside, holding my case, humming a few bars of music over and over to calm my mind. My hands, gloveless, were so cold I could barely feel the suitcase handle in one hand or my knife in the other. Would I need it? I’d soon find out.

  Ahead, in a dip among wet fields and beyond gates of black curling metal, was Summerland Hall – a place of fairy tales told in dawn light, in the last moments before doors were locked on me and I was left to sleep, while humans outside began their day. A house of wonders. A refuge.

  I’d expected lights, warmth, glitter, not this picture of abandonment. Row upon row of blank windows, with ivy growing from ground to chimney-pots, as if trying to pull the house apart, brick by brick. In the middle of the roof was a clock tower. The hands on the clock were stuck on twelve.

  To the left of the house a cold black lake spread towards bristling trees. There was a terrace with an ornamental pond. It was studded with a silent fountain and the cracked glass of a conservatory. To the right, a high brick arch and more brick buildings, all matted with dark leaves.

  The gates were half open. An invitation or a trap? I crossed the gravelled forecourt to the house. Every step I took sounded as loud as an orchestra playing chords out of tune.

  Stone stairs, mottled with moss, lured me to a huge front door. I reached for the lion’s head knocker. It was heavier than expected …

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  That surely woke the ghosts … Yes, here they came, the Summerland spectres, drifting to the downstairs windows. Young men mostly. I saw the fluff of hopeful moustaches and cropped, combed hair. A hint of uniforms. War-dead.

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  Would no one living answer?

  The sound echoed and the ghosts rippled. Silence. Then I nearly leaped out of my skin when a very unghostly set of knuckles rapped on glass. A white face with red cheeks was at the window by the door.

  ‘There’s nobody home!’ came a muffled voice. ‘Who are you anyway? Well? Cat got your tongue?’

  Why would a cat have my tongue? I stuck it out to show that no such mutilation had occurred.

  The woman stared.

  ‘Just my luck, an escaped lunatic. You’d better come in. I don’t want to be cleaning your drowned corpse off the steps in the morning. No, not this door. It doesn’t open. Go round.’ She pointed to the right side of the house and mouthed the words again: ‘Go. Round.’

  Through the arch was a garage, protected by a big rusty padlock. There were collapsing sheds and shadows. Wet cobbles made me slip, brambles tore at my bare legs. A light shone out.

  ‘This way, hurry up …’

  I fell up a doorstep. My suitcase handle snapped and the case dropped to the floor.

  ‘That’s one way to make an entrance!’

  Strong hands had me upright and propelled me across stone flagstones to a chair. I found myself sitting at a wooden table, scrubbed bone-white clean. The table was by a great black oven range, blissfully warm. All around were high shelves stacked with pans and kitchen bits. Up above, snow-white laundry hung from a wooden winter-hedge. In the middle of it all, the woman. She had brown hair skewered into a knot at the nape of her neck, a cardigan with sleeves pushed up to show powerful arms and a starch-stiff apron almost down to her slippers.

  ‘Dripping all over my floor,’ she muttered as she threw me a towel. ‘Give me your coat and we’ll set it to dry. Fine. Keep it on and catch a fever, no skin off my nose. You will take your shoes off, mind. My kitchen, my rules.’

  I bent and tugged at the laces, transferring the knife into my sock. As soon as my shoes were off, the woman grabbed them. She stuffed each shoe with newspaper and put them in front of the range. If I had to run, I’d need to lunge for my shoes before I made it to the door. So I might as well dry my coat as well. It had precious things hidden inside the lining. I handed it over to the woman.

  She watched me squeeze rain from my braids.

  ‘I saw you had a tongue. Can you use it? Can you talk?’

  Speak to no one. Tell them nothing. These were my instructions, drummed in week after week, year after year. Talking didn’t come easily. Carefully I sounded out some English words.

  The woman frowned. ‘Speak up! I’ve heard gnats shout louder.’

  Slowly my hand inched down one leg to the knife again. ‘You are … Barbara Summer?’

  There. I’d said it. I’d named her, the woman I’d come all this way to find. The one who maybe needed a knife in her heart. It was her fault there was only one grey glove.

  To be fair, this woman didn’t look like a wicked witch. In fact, she laughed.

  ‘Lady Summer? Get away! I’m Sophie Rover – Summerland’s housekeeper, cook and general dogsbody. No more, no less. Lady Summer indeed! Her Ladyship and maid are away till tomorrow, and just as well. Neither of them would take kindly to beggars knocking on the front door. Me, I’ve been in the army. I’ve seen a bit more of life, so I know when someone needs a good cup of tea and a sit-down.’

  As she talked she put the kettle on to boil, set a chopping board on the table, took a loaf of bread from a white enamel tin and fetched a knife from a drawer. I left my knife where it was. Sophie Rover’s was much bigger.

  She cut two thick slices of bread and set it to toast on the range. Next she lifted the lid on a glistening golden-yellow block. Real butter. Not pale margarine, not white lard, not dark oil. Real butter on white bread.

  ‘Hot buttered toast and a brew!’ said Mrs Rover. ‘Nothing quite like it for setting you right. And you look proper famished. I’m used to feeding a hundred fellas at a time, back in my army days. Getting some colour in your cheeks will be a doddle. Now, here’s your tea – extra sugar – and here’s your toast. Ask no questions how come we’ve got more butter than the piddly ration amount. You make short work of that, then we’ll get down to brass tacks: what’s your name, where are you from, and what bad luck brings you here to Summerland?’

  Porridge with Jam

  I told her nothing but my name. My business was with Barbara Summer.

  Mrs Rover didn’t push for more. She bustled about tidying up in the kitchen while I wolfed down the toast and gulped my mug of tea. Mama had warned me that English people liked brown water with milk in. It was strange but warming and sweet. I liked it.

  What now? Spend the night in one of those outbuildings and wait for Lady Summer to return? I reached for my coat.

  ‘Leave that. I’d not put a cat out on a night as wet as this, not even a silent cat like you. Vera Baggs – that’s my lady’s maid – she won’t approve of me letting you stay, and that’s reason enough for me, unless you’ve got anywhere else to go?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Thought not. Bring your case and follow me.’

  She led the way through a series of workrooms, up two twisting flights of bare stone steps and along a narrow corridor lined with closed doors and shuttered windows. There was one bare bulb hanging from a cracked ceiling. We were in the attic.

  ‘The lavvy’s down that end. You know – toilet?’

  I blushed and nodded that I understood.

  ‘The flush is a bit temperamental. Give it a good yank.’

  Yank? ‘An American?’

  ‘No! A pull.’ She mimed jerking a rope. ‘Here’s your room. Old servants’ quarters. As you’ve probably noticed, much of the house is under dust covers – not in use. We had bomber crews stationed here during the war. Nice lads, most of them. A bit wild at times, from what I’ve heard, and didn’t leave the place fit for habitation, that’s for sure. We’ve only just started opening up rooms again and getting stuff out of storage. Honestly, there’s enough posh
crockery and knick-knacks and sticks of furniture crammed in the attic to fill a jumble sale. All of it to be dusted off and put out on display again. Now Lady Summer has finally come back to live here, things are getting back to normal, even if His Lordship isn’t … Well. Never mind about him.’

  I looked at her. What was normal? I did have some memories – or were they dreams? – of being somewhere called home. We didn’t have to hide. We lit candles on the Sabbath and only put clothes in wardrobes, and sang really loudly whenever we felt like it. Mama always said I learned music before words and walking.

  ‘Here, give me a hand with the sheets …’

  At the Berlin Red Cross centre we’d been trained in housework basics, so I knew how to make a beds even if I hadn’t slept in one half my life. Girls coming to England as refugees were supposed to find a job as a domestic help, a factory worker or a field labourer. There was a factory near Summerland. The policeman Ribble had mentioned it. It was called Gant’s and it made gloves. The gloves they made had labels inside with the name spelled out in beautiful blue scrolling letters.

  Gant’s Gloves, England.

  My glove was a Gant’s glove, in soft dove grey.

  ‘Back in a jiffy …’ said Mrs Rover.

  When she was gone, I sat on the bed for a moment and closed my eyes. A whole room all to myself!. It was very plain, with a narrow bed, a chest of drawers and …

  Mrs Rover came back just as I was shoving the wardrobe out the bedroom door.

  ‘What on earth are you doing?’ she shouted.

  ‘Keine Garderobe!’ I said through clenched teeth. The damn thing was too heavy to shift quickly. The door kept swinging open.

  ‘You can’t just go moving furniture about! Stop that right now!’

  ‘No wardrobe!’ I repeated, in English this time.

  ‘Fine. No ruddy wardrobe. Here …’ Her beefy arms practically lifted the wardrobe off the ground. Together we got it out of the bedroom, into the corridor. I shut and latched the wardrobe door but did not lock it. If Mrs Rover hadn’t been watching I would’ve taken the key and thrown it into the lake. I didn’t need a reminder that I’d spent years of my life living in a box where I couldn’t stretch taller than the coat hangers or wider than the span of the wood. Even now, out in the wide world, my body remembered how cramped and crazy it had been, how I’d felt I’d burst out of my skin and out of my mind if I had to keep still in there one minute longer. Only at night could I creep out. Mama had taught me squats and press-ups and bicep curls – she’d learned gymnastics at her posh school – so I’d have some muscles at least, when I next needed them.

  ‘You’re stronger than you look,’ said Mrs Rover thoughtfully. ‘An oddball too, no mistake, but I’ll say no more about furniture removals. Here – a fresh towel. If you need anything, my rooms are just off the kitchen, though I warn you, I can sleep through a bomb raid, sirens and all, so knock hard at the door.’ She paused. ‘You’re not fanciful, are you? Some sensitive souls – not me – some fusspots, namely Vera Baggs – they reckon old Ursula the chambermaid haunts the top floor. Drowned herself in the lake, they say, after the Great War, in 1918. Unrequited passion or some such nonsense. No man’s worth it. I’m married – I should know.’

  I took the towel. ‘Goodnight, Mrs Rover.’

  ‘Goodnight, Brigitta.’

  ‘Mrs Rover …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  She gave me a long, long look, then nodded. ‘You’re welcome.’

  Mrs Rover was right about the lavvy. After paying a call I found the lavatory pull was at the end of a long chain that set off a great thundering orchestra of clanking pipes. In the Trautwein apartment I hadn’t been able use the toilet during the day, even if the Trauts were out, in case they came back early, or a neighbour called. I held it in as best I could until they were asleep. The evening they got the news their son was dead, they didn’t go to sleep, and it was beyond horrible to have to go in a tin in the wardrobe and hope they wouldn’t smell it. I hated them more than ever that night, as they sobbed and said their son had died a hero’s death for Hitler. What about me? Their son at least had had a chance at life. He’d been a pilot. Probably crashed in one of the planes made at his papa’s factory.

  How I’d wanted to burst out of the wardrobe that night to surprise the Trauts – to see their faces when they realised they’d been eating, breathing and snoring with a Jew child hidden among their save-for-Sunday clothes. Better still, I would have marched over to their piano and damn well played something LOUD to let music drown out their blubbering grief. I didn’t of course. Even living in a wardrobe is better than being dead.

  It took me a moment to realise I had an audience while in the Summerland toilet. A girl had wafted through the door and was sitting on an upturned bucket, a mop in her hand. She was a faint ghost, barely visible. As time passes, ghosts lose whatever tethers they have to life. Only recent ghosts look close to solid.

  ‘Are you Ursula who drowned in the lake? Were you watching me pee?’

  Ursula picked up her mop and went through the motions of wiping the floor.

  I stepped round her. Walking through a ghost’s nothingness is very unpleasant.

  The plumbing noise had brought a whole cloud of spectres up to the attic floor. They were mostly pale young men in faded uniforms. More war-dead. Probably the airmen Sophie Rover had talked about. These were more like boys than men. British and Polish, I thought, from the uniforms. Lots of Poles escaped to England so they could join the Allies against Hitler. England had been their refuge. These had obviously died a long way from home. They jostled for a view of me. One guy with a football under his arm jerked his head to me, as if inviting me for a kickaround.

  ‘Maybe tomorrow night,’ I whispered with a yawn. The strangeness of the day was catching up with me. I’d crossed a sea since breakfast and travelled miles in an unknown land to get to this house of shadows and secrets.

  I trailed my fingertips along the wall back to my room. Summerland was real, not just the stuff of stories and promises. A safe place, my mama had said. I’ll find you, my papa had called out.

  Using my coat as a pillow, I curled up under the bed, not on top of it. I slept with my one grey glove curled in the palm of my hand.

  Waking. Complete confusion. Where was I? Who was I? Was it day? I had no idea of time. The wristwatch I’d stolen from a dead man in Berlin had, in turn, been taken from me by a Russian soldier who already boasted five watches going up his arm. When I crawled out from under the bed I saw the sun was shining. For years daylight had been the danger time when I had to stay out of sight. It was still a novelty to open curtains and see blue sky.

  The bedroom window looked down on a jumble of slate roofs, an overgrown vegetable garden, a chicken hut and a row of washing. The red-check tablecloth pegged on the line was a bit of everyday magic – a sign that things were normal. No war here. I’d been right to come. There was a song Mama used to sing: ‘It’s a Lovely Day Tomorrow’.

  I dusted myself off a bit and headed for the kitchen, suitcase packed and tucked under one arm. I paused on the landing. There was an archway onto another corridor, this one grander than the attic hallway. All the doors were closed. Along the walls were framed paintings, some draped in white sheets. There was a small table set with a bowl of bright fruit – oranges. I walked softly towards them. Slowly a sheet slipped from the nearest picture. A murky portrait: grim man, grimmer woman and good-looking boy. Judging by their modern clothes, I guessed that had to be the recent Summer family. I studied their faces. Father, mother, son, all together. A bit like my family before the war, except we lived in cramped lodgings and knew how to smile.

  If things had been different …

  Things were what they were. I reached out for the oranges instead, remembering a long-ago smell of dimpled peel. These oranges were fake. Cold, hard glass.

  If I’d known what was waiting in the kitchen I’d’ve been out of the house like
a shot.

  ‘Ah,’ said the policeman.

  This wasn’t fair! Police generally came at night. At 3 a.m. or just before dawn. Heavy boots on the stairs. A pounding at the door. Shouting, punching, handcuffs. Gunshots. Here was one in daylight.

  ‘Morning!’ said Mrs Rover. ‘I’ve kept some porridge hot. You’ve already met Constable Ribble, haven’t you?’

  I calculated the odds of getting past him to the back door then into the woods beyond the lake, where he couldn’t follow by bicycle.

  Mrs Rover pressed me into a chair and held me there. ‘Here you go – proper Scottish oats soaked in lovely creamy milk.’

  The policeman was opposite me. He leaned forward with a frown so severe it made my heart race. ‘Downright criminal, I call it. I won’t let you get away with it!’

  I waited for the truncheon blows and the handcuffs.

  ‘Get away with what?’ asked Mrs Rover.

  He nodded at my bowl. ‘Eating porridge without a swirl of jam in the middle. Haven’t you any jam?’

  ‘You know better than to ask a question like that, cheeky blighter.’ Off she went to a larder, still talking. ‘When I was in the army I’d be boiling up jam by the barrowful. So much jam, it used to explode all over the ceiling at times. Raspberry, plum, damson, I’ve jammed them all. Try this, Brigitta. Strawberry. The last batch made before they dug up the fruit patch for an air-raid shelter. Master Joseph used to love it …’ Her face darkened. ‘Poor lad.’

  ‘Poor fellow,’ echoed the constable.

  Master Joseph … would that be Lady Summer’s son? The one from the portrait?

  Keeping a close eye on the policeman, I dipped my spoon in the jam jar and drew out a blob of lovely, rich red stickiness.

  ‘Go on. Drop it in the middle and make a spiral. It’ll go pink.’

  Under orders, I did just that. I took a mouthful. Jam! An explosion of sweetness! I’d forgotten there could be such treats.

  ‘Good, isn’t it?’ Mrs Rover passed a teaspoon to Ribble so he could dip into the jar. ‘Can’t imagine there’s a lot of jam in that Auswitsh place, or wherever you’ve been, Brigitta. Stick around and I’ll make my famous jam roly-poly. I served that to the chaps evacuated from Dunkirk. On their last legs, they were. My puddings didn’t half make them up and ready to fight the Jerries again. No offence,’ she added quickly.