‘I had a new girl’s name each time we moved. It was safer. I had to learn new languages. Mama taught me everything. She had a good education – you know that is true.’
Lady Summer was staring at me as if I’d performed a magic trick, when really I hadn’t changed at all.
‘Where were you?’ she asked. ‘In Germany or Austria?’
‘We went everywhere looking for a safe place.’ I’d forgotten our exact route across Europe, or it had all been flooded out by the fear.
The fear.
The fear.
You never lose it.
‘Did you know?’ Lady Summer turned on her son. He had come to stand near me. Not too near. I was too skittish to touch and I had that knife ready.
‘No, not a bit. Not till last night.’
‘You didn’t know she was a … boy?’
He went red. ‘No. I didn’t think about it. I just saw her – him – dancing on the terrace the night I came back to Summerland. That was all it took. She – he – looked so free. We talked. We argued. We … The rest doesn’t matter. The point is, I took girls on dates before and it was just nothing. Fun. They never got to me like he did. I didn’t love them. I love him. I don’t care about the rest, do you understand? I don’t care.’
It was so dark my reflection almost disappeared. Eventually Lady Summer let out a long breath and stepped into the room. ‘This is all very strange. Incredible! I … I am sorry to hear of your experiences, David. You must believe me. I had no idea –’
‘I don’t believe you! Get away from me!’ I wrapped my arms around my chest, as if this would somehow contain all the anger I felt. ‘Don’t you understand? You could have saved us! We could have come here to be safe. Instead my mama is dead! I came here to find memories of her … To tell you. I hated you. To kill you. I don’t know! To find my papa.’
‘Yann Golanski is alive?’
Yann. Oh yes, that was his name. I’d forgotten. It was so long ago, buried under all the lies that had to follow. His face, his voice, were lost. I saw him as a big shadow against the sun, one day in the park when we’d taken my toy boat. I saw him as a giant who sang when we played piano. I last saw him when he was dragged away from us, shouting, I will find you.
My voice cracked. ‘You knew my papa?’
‘I knew of him. Hélène wrote about nothing else in her letters. How wonderful he was, how happy they were. It was wrong. He was poor. She was forgetting her music.’
‘No! She never forgot her music. That is what she taught me. She kept me alive in every way. She was with me until the end. Even after the end. She pulled me from Die Trümmer, from the rubble. She was there. I heard her …’
Hold my hand, she’d whispered. Don’t let go. I took her hand. She pulled me out. I was left holding her glove. Just one grey glove, stained with dust and blood. She was dead. I knew that, I saw the wreckage of her body, but she wasn’t dead to me.
Softly I put words to what had happened in the end. ‘I had to bury my own mother,’ I whispered. ‘I came to Summerland because I had nowhere else to go. I thought perhaps Papa would find me …’
Lady Summer drew herself tall. ‘There’s something I don’t understand about all this. I received no communication about sponsorship from Hélène, or from your father.’
‘Liar! They wrote, I know they wrote! They told me we would come and be safe!’
‘David, drop the knife – please.’ Joe inched closer.
I held the blade out. It flashed in the mirror. ‘She’s lying! She didn’t want us in her big house. She didn’t care!’
He edged closer. ‘You can put the knife down. You’re safe now. I promise.’
The knife fell as he reached me, the point stuck through a swirl of carpet, into Summerland floorboards. He held me. Tears flowed out. ‘Boys don’t cry,’ I sobbed.
‘Idiot. Boys cry their hearts out in private, muffled under a pillow usually, when punching someone isn’t an option.’ He pulled me closer so my face nestled in his shoulder. I think he was crying too, because my dress was wet under his cheek. He kissed my hair. I lifted my face and he kissed that too. Finally he passed me a handkerchief and swallowed his own emotions down, saying, ‘I am British, you know! Public displays of affection are a big no-no for the upper classes. Especially with an audience.’ He waved vaguely at his mother, whose disapproval was matched only by her upper-class self-control. ‘Can we go somewhere warmer to figure the rest of this out?’
Constable Ribble left by the front door, along a narrow alley through the snow: Mr Varley had been busy shovelling. The angel shapes and ambush mounds along the alley showed that little Varleys had been out to play too.
Lady Summer ushered us into the drawing room, where a small fire was lit. Vera Baggs was persuaded to unlock her bedroom door to join us. She bustled in, and stopped dead.
‘Hasn’t she been arrested yet? Constable Ribble is most remiss in his duties! Leaving innocent women and cripples defenceless against knife-wielding foreigners. Er, foreigners with short hair and trousers … Brigitta, what new disgrace is this?’
Lady Summer had insisted on Joe fetching me trousers, shirt and pullover to wear. ‘No boy is to be dressed as a girl in my house!’ she sniffed. I thought it was funny how a simple bit of cloth and stitching could take on so much meaning, as if putting on trousers made me male or wearing a dress made me female. It wasn’t so funny trying to figure out menswear. The trousers chafed and the tie was fiddly. Had it all been normal when I dressed like this before? I couldn’t remember. Standing in Summerland as a boy was strange and wonderful.
Miss Baggs simply would not believe I could be David Golanski. ‘There’s no likeness,’ she gabbled when she’d heard the basic facts. ‘Poor dear Hélène, a tragedy. Of course we can’t know it’s true. So many lies. He could be any boy off the street, looking to trick us. Looking for gullible rich people …’ Her eyes slid to Joe.
He snorted. ‘Rich? That’s a joke. This place is worth more as firewood these days than as a family home.’
Lady Summer was browsing photographs. ‘Here is one from our school days – the three of us.’
My mama, as a girl. No early grey hairs, no calluses, no frown lines. She smiled up at me from the picture. I smiled back.
‘Ridiculous!’ sniffed Miss Baggs. ‘She’s an imposter. She can’t prove a thing.’
‘I can prove I’m a boy,’ I said dangerously.
She recoiled. ‘I am not accustomed to being spoken to in such a way! My lady, you refused to meet the Golanski fellow when Hélène first took up with him. He wasn’t our sort – you said so yourself. He was no gentleman. You should be glad I took it on myself to turn down their importunate requests.’
My brain scrambled to translate her words. I was getting flashes of memory. Vera Baggs sorting through the post … Vera Baggs jealously wanting Barbara Summer all to herself. ‘Did you … Did you have letters from my mama?’
She twitched. ‘There’s no crime in reading a friend’s correspondence, and I often help my lady with her mail.’ She turned to Lady Summer. ‘Yes, Hélène dramatised her situation. They were in no real danger; they wouldn’t really murder Jews – I wrote and told her so. How was I to know Herr Hitler was so nasty? What does it matter? They were only Jews after all, and this one survived, this David, as she calls herself now.’
She waited for approval.
Lady Summer had hold of Joe’s arm to steady herself.
He was the first to speak. ‘Good God,’ he said. ‘So it was you who turned them down when they asked for sponsorship, Baggs. I knew my mother would never do such a thing.’
‘Don’t you dare judge me! I was right. Give foreigners an inch and they’ll take the whole country. Slippery, every last one of them. I was quite right to send that man packing when he called, with some flim-flam story about looking for his family. You’d have done the same, my lady. You can thank me that I dealt with it so discreetly.’
Lady Summer finally found her v
oice. ‘Yann Golanski came here?’
‘Can you believe the presumption? Earlier this year, in some trumped-up army captain’s uniform.’
‘This … This is monstrous!’
‘Agreed, my lady, and I told him as much. It was lucky you were out. No, we haven’t had news about Hélène or any son, I said. And don’t you come bothering us again. Shall I telephone for the constable to return? He can escort this imposter from the premises.’
‘Telephone for a taxi cab by all means Vera, if one can make it here through the snow. You should be packed by the time it arrives. Do not expect a reference for your next position. Go. Now.’ Lady Summer’s tone was sharper than any knife.
I let the poison flow away. The thing I held onto was as joyous as a perfect chord on the piano. My papa had looked for me … he looked for me! The realisation played as a melody in my heart.
Lady Summer turned to me now, saying she wished I had explained who I was when I first arrived. As if I could have trusted that it would be safe to do so after so many traumatic years of hiding. She asked why I hadn’t looked for Papa myself. I told her about the letters I had sent. The calls to Directory Enquiries. The hope that he’d find me first.
‘You silly fool! All this could have been solved with a simple telephone call. I have contacts at the ministries, and not just with the imbecile tasked with removing those toilets.’
Within seconds her cut-glass voice was on the line to London. Joe and I listened in. He brushed the back of my hand with his. Every cell in my body hummed. Minutes passed. Lady Summer tapped a red fingernail against the telephone. Finally – ‘Captain Yann Golanski? Yes, that’s the man. You have his office and number?… Excellent.’ She snapped her fingers for a pencil and paper, which Joe quickly passed her. She redialled the operator and asked to be connected.
I thought I might be sick. It was like in a wardrobe, hearing footsteps coming closer, not knowing when the door opened if it would be a friend or an enemy who found me.
Lady Summer set the telephone receiver back in its cradle.
‘Captain Yann Golanski isn’t in his office today, because it’s New Year. We’ll try again tomorrow.’
Tomorrow was too late. I knew it – just knew it.
We ate tea together in the dining room. It didn’t seem right, being promoted from staff to family friend. We were all uncomfortable at first. Lady Summer’s eyes scoured me, looking for her friend Hélène in my every move, my every molecule. At times Joe couldn’t even look at me, and when he did his gaze was intense.
Mrs Rover broke the tension when she set down a magnificent dish, steam rising from a hole in the pastry. ‘Rabbit pie! Heaven knows how Rom Varley flushed rabbits out in this snow. Come on, it’s good to eat after a shock.’
Mrs Rover and I had a talk in the kitchen afterwards – just the basics. She took it all in her stride. ‘When you’ve been in the army, nothing surprises you. I knew Bossy Baggs was a proper piece of work. Not helping your mum and dad come over here was downright wicked. The way I see it, there’s room for everyone in this country if we all budge up a bit. You made a very convincing girl, I’ll give you that.’
I jumped at the word girl, remembering things were different now. I still had the urge to straighten my braids and pull an invisible skirt over my knees. Had I been a girl, just by living as one? Was I an official boy now, just because I had trousers? My body had never changed, except to fill out and get older. That line of thinking took me to memories of my body next to Joe’s, and that was too electric to dwell on for long, not while Mrs Rover was staring at me.
‘Being male will take a bit of practice,’ she said. ‘Spread your legs out when you sit and slouch more, that’s it. Obviously you’ve to respect women as the wiser sex now you’re just a boy. Now, go practise walking with your hands in your pockets and whistling. I want to sit alone and savour the thought of Baggs being booted out on her bum – no more than she deserves.’
I sat at the piano and I couldn’t rouse a single note. My fingers wouldn’t move.
Without speaking, Joe came to sit on the piano stool behind me, his legs around me, his chest to my spine and his face turned, nestling into the back of my neck. His arm came around my body until his hand rested on top of mine.
‘Play for me,’ he whispered. When I didn’t move his lips pressed softly against my skin. ‘Play for me, please.’
I picked something I’d heard Connie sing, and my mama before her. It was low and melancholy. A bluesy number that told of aching loneliness.
Sometimes … I feel … like a motherless child … a long, long way from home.
Joe was kissing my neck, my throat, the line of my chin … I twisted to let his mouth find mine and dared to thread my arm under his to pull him closer. We couldn’t get close enough. I had to unbutton my collar, it was choking me. He kissed where the collar had rubbed. His lips took away the pain of the noose. I heard my name reverberate along a pulse line.
I must have been crying again. ‘It’s OK, I’m right here,’ Joe whispered. ‘I won’t leave you.’
‘It’s not OK.’ My words were muffled. My face was buried against his sweater. Just for a moment. Just for a minute while I got calm again. Finally I could speak without my voice shaking or breaking.
‘I have to go. I have to go now.’
The rabbit had to run again.
Sloe Gin
‘Absolutely not!’ Joe said. ‘Not without me.’
‘I’m going to London.’
‘I know. I’m going with you.’
I tried to talk him out of it. He was stubborn, and a bit irresistible.
It was only as we crept out of the house with a small bag each that it hit me – what it meant to leave Summerland. My refuge for a while. My taste of England. Kindness. Music. Love. I looked back at the house as we trudged up the snowy avenue. It was still, white and beautiful. Only one window was lit; the rest were dark and crowded with ghostly faces watching me go.
It was hard for Joe too. He was weary after only a few minutes’ walking. ‘I’ve been stuck inside too long, hiding. Feeling sorry for myself and wishing things could all go back to how they used to be.’
‘Your mother called you king of the world.’
‘Well, captain of the school cricket team, yes, which pretty much felt like the same thing at the time. I wonder if … Shh. What’s that? Who’s there?’
Two bundled-up figures were crossing the bridge from the village. I pulled my scarf up and my cap low.
One of them waved. ‘Joseph, is that you? It’s me, Colin, and Angela Goose. We’re heading up to Summerland.’
Angela interrupted. ‘Is Brigitta back? Is she all right? We heard she was all right. Tell us she’s all right. I have to talk to her –’
‘You can’t,’ said Joe harshly.
‘But I feel so bad. There were things we did … things we said …’
‘You tried to hang her!’
‘It was all … I don’t know …’
‘We thought she was a Nazi spy!’ said Colin. ‘How do you even know she’s not?’
I said, ‘We haven’t got time for this,’ and punched Colin hard in the face. I lost the moral high ground, he lost his footing and went over in the snow. This time it was all blood and no blackberries staining him.
Angela stared. ‘Brigitta? Why are you dressed like that? I didn’t recognise you. Listen, I’m sorry about what happened in the Bomb House. I’m probably going to give up earthly pleasures and become a nun in a hair-shirt or something in penance, but I really, really am so sorry.’
‘Good. Come on, Joe – the train!’
The London train called at Summer station at ten past the hour. It would be tight.
As we went through the village I said goodbye to the pond and telephone box and the shop and the pub. Smothered in snow, it all looked so safe and cosy. We didn’t dare run in case anyone spotted us. Joe kept checking his watch.
I’d told him what little I knew from seeing t
he film clip at the cinema – that my father was a lawyer at the Nuremberg trials in Germany. That if he’d been in England – and how my heart sang to know he had – then it wouldn’t be for long. There were new trials due to start in Hamburg … I had to get to him before he left.
Catch the train, get to London, trace the address Lady Summer had gleaned, find my father. That was our plan.
‘Trains to London? You’ll be lucky!’ said the stationmaster when we rapped on the door of his office. He was huddled over a tiny pile of coal in a grate. ‘Signals are down up the line, if you get what I mean. Ice – snow – I don’t know.’
We stood on the station platform watching snow settle on the tracks heading south. I was thinking of the trains that had crossed Europe, taking people to be murdered. We’d seen a line of cattle trucks once, making slow and stately progress along the rails. There were no windows, just a slit, crossed with barbed wire, and dirty fingers pushed out to touch the air.
I took out the grey glove that Joe had retrieved before we left. My only memento of Mama. When they arrested Papa he had been holding my mama’s hand. She was wearing her favourite gloves, from Gant’s in England. As Papa was pulled away, he tore one glove from her fingers. Mama kept the other one tucked in her blouse, next to her heart. She said we’d all be together after the war; that the two gloves would make a pair again.
We left the station. A cold wind blew across from nearby East Summer airbase. Joe looked haunted by memories.
‘Old Rory grazes his cattle on the airfield over summer,’ he said. ‘And you go dancing in the aircraft hangars. It’s all changed, as if it was for nothing. The war’s gone, people move on.’ He clutched his empty sleeve. ‘Let’s go back home and try again tomorrow.’
I saw my papa getting swallowed up in the ghosts and ruins of Europe before I even got to meet him. ‘It will be too late tomorrow.’
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