A HANDFUL OF STARS An enthralling story of poverty, passion and survival: one of the Tyneside Sagas

by Trotter, Janet MacLeod

  ‘Just a thought,’ Max shrugged.

  As he left, Patience said suddenly, ‘He had a nice singing voice.’ Max stopped and looked at her. ‘I remember him singing while he was shaving — it carried all over the house.’

  One spring evening, while Clara, Patience and Paolo were sharing a meal with the Lewises, Max appeared in a state of excitement. He waved a leaflet at them.

  ‘What is this?’ Marta cried. ‘Another of your meetings that Reenie and Clara must attend, Max?’

  ‘No, no,’ he said urgently, making straight for Clara. ‘It’s for a concert in Blyth; a Communist fundraiser to bring refugees over from Austria.’

  ‘Das ist gut’, Oscar said in approval. ‘We can advertise it in the shop.’

  ‘Too late for that, I’m afraid — it’s tonight,’ Max said sheepishly. ‘Someone brought it in days ago, but it must have got hidden under a pile of papers.’

  ‘Why am I not surprised?’ Clara teased.

  Max held her look. His blue eyes shone with excitement behind their spectacles.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked, heart thudding.

  ‘The male voice choir performing — it lists their names,’ Max said. ‘One of the tenors.’ He thrust the leaflet at her, pointing. ‘Mr L. Brodsky.’

  Her mouth dropped open. Max nodded frantically. Reenie jumped up to look.

  ‘Oh, Clara!’ she gasped. ‘You have to go.’

  Clara looked at Patience in fright. She nodded in encouragement.

  ‘Come on,’ cried Max, ‘I’ll drive you there!’

  ***

  Reenie went with them, driving up the Northumberland coast to the busy port of Blyth. It was over forty minutes, with Max getting lost twice, before they found the hall. The concert was nearly halfway through. They squeezed in at the back of the packed rows. A colliery band was playing on stage. Two men got up and insisted Clara and Reenie took their seats.

  Clara’s heart raced and her palms sweated. What on earth was she going to say to this man if she managed to speak to him? Try as she might, she could not think of him as her own flesh and blood. Harry Magee was the man she saw when she thought of her father. This man could never take his place.

  Just before the choir came on, Reenie reached out and pressed her hand in hers. The men filed on, most dressed sombrely in suits, one or two of the younger ones in shirtsleeves and waistcoats. Clara scanned the rows but could not pick out Brodsky. The man she had seen nearly ten years ago had been shabbily clothed, unshaven and emaciated. These men looked vigorous and smartly turned out.

  They began by singing rousing north country songs, then a medley of more popular ones. Clara let herself be carried away by the music. It was an age since she had enjoyed such an outing and she had forgotten how uplifting music could be. She promised herself she would save up and take Paolo and Terese to a musical show or film soon.

  ‘Which one do you think he is?’ Reenie whispered. Clara was jolted back to their reason for being there.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, feeling foolish.

  Just then, the conductor announced that two singers would perform a folk song in their native language, Russian. The men stepped forward and Clara knew at once that the smaller, leaner one was Brodsky. His hair was turning grey, but the jutting jaw and large dark-ringed eyes were the same. When he broke into strong, rhythmic singing, Clara caught her breath at the sound. His voice reverberated around the hall, belying his stooped, fragile frame. It rose and fell like the rushing of the mighty river of which he sang, while the bass singer sounded like the rumble of a deep waterfall. It made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

  At the finish, the audience clapped enthusiastically and Brodsky’s face briefly lit up in a smile. Clara felt a kick of recognition. She found it hard to breathe. How could she know that smile? She glanced at Reenie. Her friend’s eyes were glittering with tears. Clara looked away quickly for fear her own emotion might overwhelm her.

  When it was all over, Max touched her shoulder. ‘I’ll enquire round the back if you like.’ Clara nodded.

  Reenie stayed with her while the audience filed out, chucking extra money for the refugees into buckets as they went. She was amazed by the generosity of men dressed in threadbare jackets, their families in hand-me-downs. They handed over what they could not afford — what she and Vinnie had thought nothing of spending at the cinema on a dull afternoon.

  The hall emptied and they waited. Max finally reappeared.

  ‘There’s a room behind the stage,’ he said with a kind smile. ‘Your father’s waiting for you.’

  Clara felt a jerk of panic and grabbed Reenie’s hand. ‘You’ll come with me?’

  ‘No,’ Max said, ‘it’s best if you see him alone. He’s quite overwhelmed.’ He led Clara backstage and gently pushed her towards a door left half ajar. He nodded for her to go in. ‘Reenie and I will be outside waiting. Take as long as you need.’

  On trembling legs, Clara entered the room and closed the door behind her. It appeared to be a meeting room. Brodsky stood behind a table, clasping his hands in front of him. They stood staring at each other, speechless.

  ‘Your singing,’ Clara managed at last, ‘it was beautiful.’ With alarm, she saw his eyes fill up with tears. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you by coming here,’ she said hastily. ‘This was Max’s idea.’

  He shook his head. She saw his throat constricting as if he was trying to swallow down his words. Was he angry at being found? She felt an urge to explain.

  ‘I’ve only recently discovered about you — about my natural mother. Mam — Patience — had to tell me in the end — to save me from someone who dominated me.’

  ‘Your husband?’ he said abruptly, his voice deep and croaky.

  Clara flinched. ‘You know who he is?’

  ‘Vinnie Craven.’ Leon nodded. ‘I worked for him. He is a cruel man. He take away my job because I am Jewish, and told me to go far away. If not he will kill me.’

  Clara stepped towards him. ‘But you didn’t. Why did you stay?’

  Leon gazed at her with his fierce blue-grey eyes. ‘To be near you,’ he said.

  Clara felt her throat flood with tears.

  Leon went on, ‘I could see I was too late to take you back — Patience and Harry they had brought you up well — made you happy. But I could not turn my back on you again. I followed you from a distance. I have a scrapbook of newspaper cuttings — your wedding, your articles, your baby daughter.’

  Clara’s heart squeezed. ‘You must have been so ashamed of what I became,’ she whispered, head drooping.

  Leon said quietly, ‘I was sad you marry that man, but I think maybe you do not know what he is like. But then I see you marching with the fascists — I read what you write against people like me — then I nearly go away for ever. I think my daughter is lost to me.’

  ‘I was,’ Clara admitted painfully, ‘I was lost in a dark place.’

  ‘That is when I come to Blyth,’ Leon went on. ‘I looked for a boat to work my passage back to the Soviet Union. Then I hear you have baby daughter and I think how I left you as baby — and I think of my Leah—’ He broke off. ‘I get job as school caretaker. If I cannot be a father to my own child, I can be a father to others.’

  Clara gasped and looked up at him. ‘That is how I feel about Paolo — my Spanish boy.’

  Leon looked at her quizzically.

  ‘He’s a refugee — I took him in a year ago. It’s the reason I left Vinnie, ’cos he was trying to send Paolo away. And I couldn’t bear the thought,’ Clara said, fighting back tears, ‘not after losing Sarah.’

  ‘Sarah?’ Leon asked in shock. ‘Your daughter is dead?’

  ‘No, but I did a terrible thing.’ Clara caught a sob in her throat. ‘I gave her away — put her in an institution. She cannot speak or walk. Vinnie says she’s a mental defective. There’s not one day I haven’t felt guilty about it.’

  She looked pleadingly at Leon. He stepped swiftly round the table an
d came to her. There was a moment of hesitation and then their hands went out to each other.

  ‘My poor Clara!’ he cried as he enfolded her in his wiry arms.

  Clara clung to him, surprised at how comforting it was. He smelt of cheap soap and mothballs. But it was the kindness of his touch and the compassion in his eyes that soothed her aching heart.

  ‘I’ve done so many wrong things as Vinnie’s wife,’ she confessed, ‘but I can’t just blame him. For a time I wanted those things too — material things, social standing, power over others.’

  Leon drew back a fraction. With his warm hands on her shoulders, he gazed at her troubled face.

  ‘What is it you want now, Clara?’ he asked gently.

  Tears welled in her eyes as the truth suddenly struck her. ‘I have what I want,’ she managed. ‘Patience and Paolo living with me — my work and my old friends back — to be free of Vinnie. And,’ she swallowed, ‘I’ve found you. I want to get to know my father better.’

  His eyes brimmed with tears. He cried out something in Russian and hugged her to him. Together they clutched each other and wept.

  When he could speak again, Leon said huskily, ‘Your mother and I — we escaped from Tsarist regime to England to start new life. We are not looking for the moon. Leah, she say all we want is a handful of stars — a little bit of luck. She say you will be that first star.’

  Clara looked at him pityingly. ‘But you’ve had nothing but bad luck.’

  ‘No,’ Leon said with a tender smile, ‘your mama was right. Tonight, I am given this gift — the brightest of the stars. You, Clara, have come back to me.’

  Chapter 41

  It was the start of regular contact with Leon. Each week, Clara would travel to Blyth to see her father, or he would get the train to Newcastle to visit her. Bit by bit, she learned of his former life as an idealistic revolutionary in Russia with a passion for singing, who had turned his back on his Orthodox upbringing and eloped with fellow student Leah Aronavitch. They were going to change the world and put an end to persecution. He had his father’s trade as clock-mender to fall back on when, escaping a pogrom in 1913, they reached the safety of Tyneside.

  Forced back to Russia in 1914, Leon was imprisoned and harshly treated. Saved by the Revolution but with his health further weakened, he tried to make a new life in the Soviet Union. Yet the thought of never seeing Clara again, or knowing what had become of her, brought him back to England.

  Each visit to Clara’s, Leon enjoyed the company of Reenie and her parents more and more. Oscar delighted in debating politics with a fellow comrade. Clara had never seen Reenie’s quiet father so animated. Paolo loved Leon, who showed him how to play chess and whistle with his fingers and told him stories at bedtime. He was soon calling him Grandpa.

  Patience found it the hardest to adjust to Leon’s reappearance. Clara knew her mother still felt deeply guilty over denying Leon his daughter back, yet also resented the way Clara delighted in his company.

  ‘It’s not a matter of loving either one or the other,’ Clara tried to explain. ‘I’ll always be closest to you, Mam. How could it be otherwise?’

  In the end, it was Leon’s own compassionate nature and quiet stubbornness to endure that won Patience over. She realised that he made Clara happy and was so different from Harry as to make comparisons futile.

  In May, Clara asked Leon if he would go with her to Gilead. It would be Sarah’s fourth birthday. Max drove them out there with Paolo and Patience. Marta had baked a birthday cake and Patience had made a family of rag dolls.

  It rained, so they wheeled Sarah into one of the glasshouses and spread out the birthday tea. Over the noise of the drumming rain, Paolo entertained the excited girl with whistling and Clara’s conjuring trick with a penny. He and Patience drew pictures in a pad and coloured them in, showing them to Sarah. Leon sang while Clara cuddled and talked to her daughter.

  Towards the end of the visit, Sarah began to jerk and scream. Clara looked at her in consternation. ‘Perhaps it’s time we took her back.’

  Paolo scrutinised the girl, then picked up the drawing pad. He drew a series of pictures, the way Clara had done when first trying to teach him English. A cake, a person, a bed, a car, a bird, a cup.

  Sarah jerked urgently. Paolo held the pad close and Clara took hold of the girl’s hand. ‘Which one, pet?’

  She guided Sarah’s finger across the page. At cup, Sarah gave a high-pitched scream. Clara exchanged looks with Patience.

  ‘She’s thirsty,’ Paolo said at once, dropping the pad and grabbing Sarah’s beaker. He held the straw to her lips and she sucked hard. Afterwards, she gave a squeal of triumph and threw back her head in a gurgle of laughter.

  Clara looked at Paolo in awe. ‘She understands.’

  ‘Why-aye!’ Paolo grinned. ‘Course she does. She’s not daft.’

  Clara gulped back tears. She grabbed Paolo into a hug with Sarah and kissed them both. ‘You clever lad,’ she cried. ‘And you clever little lass!’

  On the way home, Leon broke the subdued silence. The matron had been disbelieving about Sarah’s ability to recognise pictures.

  ‘Why don’t you bring her home with you?’ he suggested. ‘For good.’

  ‘How could we possibly cope with her?’ Clara said miserably. ‘I’m at work till all hours and Mam’s helping Marta. She’s enough on her plate looking after Paolo.’

  ‘I could look after Sarah,’ Leon said with quiet determination.

  Clara looked at him, startled. ‘You? But you’d have to give up your caretaking job, which you love—’

  ‘And we’d need a bigger flat — a ground-floor one for a wheelchair,’ Patience pointed out. ‘How could we afford that?’

  ‘I could mend clocks again,’ Leon said stoutly. ‘Sarah would learn so much quicker being with her family. I could give her exercises like the nurses do.’

  ‘I know you’re trying to be kind,’ Patience said a little dismissively, ‘but you’re not trained to look after a handicapped child.’

  He looked at their dubious faces. ‘I will learn,’ he said simply. ‘She is my granddaughter.’

  A couple of weeks passed with nothing more said, but the idea grew in Clara’s mind until she could think of nothing else. She talked it over with Reenie.

  ‘I’d be happy to help Leon with Sarah when I can,’ her friend offered. ‘Between us all, I’m sure we could manage.’

  Clara gave her a grateful hug. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you Lewises.’ She smiled.

  But Patience was still cautious. ‘It’s not Leon coming to live here that bothers me — it’s what Vinnie will have to say about you taking Sarah.’

  ‘What’s Vinnie got to do with it?’ Clara was impatient.

  ‘He’s still the girl’s father,’ Patience answered. ‘He signed her over to the hospital. Won’t he have to give his permission for her to be let out?’

  Vinnie had had so little to do with Sarah that it had not occurred to Clara that he could stop her taking back their daughter. It would be just the sort of thing he would do to prove he still had control over her life. Clara fretted over what to do. In the end, she thought there was nothing for it but to go to Vinnie and plead for Sarah’s release.

  Then, as she was plucking up courage to go and confront him, she got an urgent telephone call at the Tyne Times.

  Miss Holt told Clara, ‘The line was bad, but the gentleman was very agitated. Foreign sounding. Mr Brodsky. Gave an address in Blyth — asked you to go there at once. I said I couldn’t promise.’

  ‘Is he all right?’ Clara asked in alarm.

  The secretary held out the piece of paper on which she had taken down the address. ‘Didn’t sound it. Is he a friend of yours?’

  Clara dropped everything and rushed to the station. An hour later she was in Blyth searching for the hall near the docks where, in March, she had first heard Leon sing. When she got there, it was full of frantic activity. A soup kitchen had been set up and was
doling out food to rows of people. Elsewhere, fresh clothes and blankets were being handed out.

  Clara stopped one of the helpers. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘New arrivals from Austria. Mostly Jews,’ the woman told her. ‘Escaped with nothing but the clothes they’re standing up in. Some of the stories make your hair stand on end.’ She looked Clara up and down. ‘You a journalist or something?’

  ‘Yes, I am,’ Clara said hastily. ‘I need to speak to Leon Brodsky. Where can I find him?’

  ‘Oh, Leon’s gone off to the hospital,’ she replied. ‘Poor man collapsed—’

  Clara turned and dashed from the hall. She begged a lift from a passing grocery van which dropped her at the hospital gates. Sprinting into the building she asked breathlessly for help.

  ‘My father,’ she panted, ‘he’s been brought in. Mr Brodsky. I must see him.’ Clara was filled with a sudden terror of Leon’s dying before she could see him again. She had known him for such a short time. Now all her dreams were collapsing about her as panic set in.

  ‘There’s no Brodsky.’ The woman shook her head.

  ‘There must be!’

  Suddenly a voice called from along the corridor. ‘Clara!’ She spun round to see Leon making towards her. Clara dashed to meet him.

  ‘Papa!’ she cried, flinging out her arms. ‘I thought you were dying. A woman at the hall said you’d collapsed.’

  He seized her, exultant at hearing the endearment. It was the first time Clara had called him that. ‘I’m fine, I’m fine,’ he assured her.

  ‘Then what is this all about?’ Clara asked, pulling away in bewilderment.

  He took her hands. ‘I bring in one of the refugees. He is very very weak. A bit — how you say? — delirious.’ Leon’s eyes were bright with emotion. ‘But the extraordinary thing — he keep saying your name.’

  ‘My name?’ Clara was baffled. ‘How could he possibly—’

  ‘No one knows who he is,’ Leon said, steering Clara back along the corridor. ‘He’s not Austrian — possibly German.’