Magnolia Square

by Margaret Pemberton

  As she walked from the bottom corner of the Square to the more salubrious top right-hand corner, she reflected on the oddness of what she was about to do. All through the early part of the war years she had regarded Carl Voigt as an enemy. He was an Aryan German. She was Jewish. Only over a very long period of time had she begun to accept that he was no different a neighbour than Daniel Collins or Charlie Robson. And now she was going to him for help. Help that she doubted anyone else would know how to go about giving.

  ‘Kate’s out,’ he said politely as he opened the door to her. ‘She and Leon have taken the children swimming.’

  Christina pushed a fall of silky dark hair away from her face. ‘It wasn’t Kate I wanted to see, Mr Voigt,’ she said, her inner tension showing in her voice. ‘It was yourself.’

  Carl suppressed a stab of apprehension. There had been a time in his life when Christina, by drawing attention to his nationality, had caused him a lot of distress. Hoping fiercely that she wasn’t about to do so again, he said reluctantly, ‘Then you’d better come in, Christina. Would you like a cup of tea? I was just about to make one.’

  Half an hour later, as they sat on straight-backed chairs at opposite sides of the kitchen table, there was no sign of apprehension in his eyes, only compassion.

  ‘The Red Cross would be the first organization to approach,’ he said, taking off his rimless spectacles and rubbing the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. ‘Even if they can’t help you themselves, they will be able to put you in touch with other refugee and aid organizations.’ He laid his glasses on the table and clasped his hands, wondering how best to say what must be said. In the end he said simply, ‘You mustn’t have too much hope, my dear. Millions have died in Germany over the last ten years. And if your grandmother or your mother had survived, it would surely have occurred to them that you might have found refuge in England with your grandmother’s old friend. And now that war in Europe is over, contacting Mrs Singer would be easy. She and the Jenningses have lived at number eighteen since the 1914–18 war. There could be no question of mail being wrongly redirected.’

  Christina remained silent. It was what Kate had said to her. It was what everyone would say to her.

  Carl regarded her with an anguished feeling of helplessness. He knew the irrational burden of guilt she was bearing, a guilt that came of knowing that all her family were almost certainly dead. He, too, was bearing a burden of irrational guilt. Though he was a pacifist and hadn’t set foot in his homeland for over thirty years, he felt guilt by proxy for the monstrous crimes perpetrated there. And if he could help just one Jewish family to be reunited, it was a guilt that might, in a very small way, be eased.

  ‘Write down the names of your mother and grandmother,’ he said decisively, ‘their birth dates, their last known address. I’ll start making enquiries tomorrow.’

  Christina gave a small gasp, almost crying with relief. If Carl Voigt was prepared to help her, then it meant her quest wasn’t entirely without hope. ‘Thank you,’ she said unsteadily.

  Carl smiled. With his thinning hair and rimless spectacles, he wasn’t a good-looking man, but his diffident manner possessed its own kind of charm, and Christina was suddenly aware of just why a shy, middle-aged woman like Ellen Pierce was so attracted to him.

  ‘Nichts zu danken,’ he said, rising to his feet to make a fresh pot of tea. ‘Don’t mention it.’

  For the first time ever she didn’t flinch at being so forcibly reminded of his nationality. It was, after all, her nationality also. ‘Meine Mutter ist am ersten Mai 1900 in Heidelberg geboren,’ she said, reaching in her handbag for pen and paper, and speaking German for the first time in nearly ten years. ‘Und meine Grossmutter am siebten Oktober 1870 in Bermondsey.’

  When Kate and Leon and the children burst into the house an hour or so later, they were brought up short in shock at hearing an animated conversation in German taking place in the kitchen.

  ‘I didn’t know your father ever lapsed into German,’ Leon said in startled surprise, Luke straddling his shoulders and clutching at his still damp, crinkly hair.

  ‘Grandpa calls me mein Häschen,’ Matthew said informatively as they hung their coats and jackets up in the hall. ‘It means my little rabbit. And he calls Daisy mein Schätzchen which means—’

  ‘It means my little treasure,’ Daisy said, smiling winningly up at Leon. She, not Matthew, remembered him from a time even before Luke had been born. A time when he had returned to Magnolia Square on leave, bringing her oranges when oranges were a nearly unobtainable treat. At seven years old, she was old enough to realize that Leon was not her real daddy, just as Kate was not her real mummy, but that only made both of them more special to her.

  ‘Can we go swimming next week as well, Daddy-Leon?’ Matthew asked, trying to bring the focus of attention back to himself. ‘Will you teach me to doggy-paddle and dive and—’

  ‘It must be Christina he’s talking to,’ Kate said as Leon swung a squealing Luke down to terra firma. ‘I think it might be as well if you took the children straight up to bed. I’ll bring a tray of cocoa and sandwiches up.’

  Leon raised his eyebrows slightly. Kate was indicating that whatever conversation was taking place in the kitchen, it was of a private nature and she didn’t want the children interrupting it.

  ‘All right,’ he said obligingly, wondering what on earth the subject under discussion could be. ‘Come on, troops. We’re going to make ourselves scarce for a little while. Whose bedroom am I going to tell a bedtime story in?’

  ‘Mine! Mine!’ Matthew shouted eagerly, too delighted at the prospect of being told a bedtime story by his new daddy to protest at being taken to bed the minute they had returned home.

  ‘It isn’t your bedroom,’ Daisy chided, taking hold of Luke’s hand to help him up the stairs. ‘It’s your bedroom and Luke’s. You share it.’

  If his new daddy hadn’t been there, Matthew would have put his tongue out at her. As it was, he said magnanimously, ‘I know we share it. We share it ’cos we’re a family. But I can still call it mine. Calling it mine doesn’t mean not sharing, does it, Daddy-Leon?’

  Kate grinned and left Leon to it. Walking into the kitchen, she put the carrier-bag with their damp towels and wet swimming costumes down by the copper and said cheerily, ‘We’ve had a wonderful time. I’d no idea Rose was such a good little swimmer. She and Daisy were like a pair of eels.’

  ‘It was Carrie who taught her,’ Christina said, pushing her chair away from the table and standing up. ‘Danny can’t swim. Is Leon going to teach him?’

  Kate’s eyebrows shot high. ‘I didn’t realize he couldn’t swim!’ she said in astonishment. ‘I thought that by remaining in the shallow end and playing with Matthew and Luke he was simply being unselfish.’

  A smile touched Christina’s mouth. It was typical of Danny that he hadn’t admitted to an inability to swim. ‘Don’t let him know that I told you,’ she said, slipping her shoulder-bag strap over her arm. ‘You know Danny. He’s got a lot of pride where things like that are concerned.’

  ‘Then he shouldn’t have.’ Kate poured milk for the children’s cocoa into a pan. ‘Leon would be only too happy to teach him. They could go on their own, without the children. And maybe Danny could teach Leon something in return.’

  Christina felt a rush of warmth towards both Kate and her father. It was typical of Kate to try and think of a way Leon could help Danny learn to swim without Danny feeling either foolish or beholden. And Carl Voigt’s acceptance that her mother and grandmother could very well still be alive, and his commitment to uncovering whatever information he could, had taken an intolerable burden from her shoulders. She no longer felt isolated and alone. Carl Voigt understood her grief and her guilt and her hope. She had someone now she could talk to, someone who understood the sense of alienation that often overwhelmed her. Someone who, after over thirty years of living in Britain, had admitted he, too, often felt similarly alienated.

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bsp; ‘I must be going,’ she said to them both. ‘I didn’t tell anyone I was leaving the house, and if they discover I’m not in they’ll begin worrying.’

  Kate turned the gas flame low beneath the pan of milk. ‘I’ll see you to the door,’ she said as thumps and bumps shaking the ceiling above them indicated that a pillow-fight, not a story-telling session, was taking place.

  At the front door, Christina paused for a moment. ‘Your father has promised to help me, Kate,’ she said confidingly. ‘He’s going to contact the Red Cross for me.’

  Kate slipped her arm through Christina’s and gave it an affectionate squeeze. ‘I knew he would. And you can tell Jack that Dad will be very, very painstaking and thorough.’

  ‘Jack?’ An odd expression flashed through Christina’s amethyst eyes.

  Kate stared at her, oblivious of Charlie’s cheery wave as he took Queenie for a walk in the direction of the Heath. ‘You have written and told Jack you think your mother and grandmother could still be alive, haven’t you?’ she asked, hardly able to believe her sudden suspicion that Christina had done no such thing. ‘He does know you’re going to search for them, doesn’t he?’

  Christina hesitated for a second. It was late evening now and in the deepening dusk her skin looked as pale as alabaster. ‘No,’ she said reluctantly. ‘No. I haven’t told Jack. Not yet.’ And before Kate could make an astonished response she turned on her heel, running lightly down the shallow flight of broad stone steps that led to the front path and the gate.

  As she continued to hurry down to the bottom end of the Square, Kate stared after her, her eyes wide. What sort of a relationship did Christina and Jack have when Christina didn’t divulge to him her fears and griefs and hopes?

  ‘Cooee!’ a familiar voice called out from the opposite direction. ‘What are you doin’, standin’ starin’ into space? Waitin’ for Christmas?’ Mavis was obviously returning from the same kind of expedition Charlie had been embarking on, for her grandmother’s whippet was panting breathlessly at her heels.

  ‘I was just having a quiet think,’ she replied truthfully, not wanting to draw Mavis’s attention to Christina’s receding figure. She looked down at the panting dog. ‘Where on earth have you been walking Bonzo? He looks all in.’

  ‘Over to the village,’ Mavis replied, coming to a halt at Kate’s gateway, much to Bonzo’s vast relief. ‘’E’s my only excuse for gettin’ out of an evenin’. If I go dahn The Swan, that little bleeder Billy lets on to my mum and then there’s all ’ell to pay. At least this way I can call in The Princess of Wales for ’alf an hour or so without there bein’ a ruckus.’

  Kate was quite accustomed to Mavis’s colourful way of referring to her eldest child, and didn’t even blink. What did make her blink, however, was the realization that Mavis took even the briefest notice of Miriam’s disapproval. For a moment she thought Mavis was teasing her and then Mavis said wearily, ‘What trouble Mum thinks I can get up to ’avin’ a drink in The Swan I can’t imagine, but she’s got it fixed in ’er ’ead that Ted will go ’aywire when ’e comes ’ome if ’e thinks I’ve been what she calls gallivantin’.’ She gave an unladylike snort of derision. ‘As if anyone could gallivant in The Swan! Lord, but life’s borin’ now there’s no more air-raids or rocket attacks! I don’t ’alf miss the excitement, don’t you?’ And with a grin and a friendly wink she continued on her way, her teeteringly high heels tapping out ringingly on the pavement, her leopard-printed cotton skirt and scarlet chiffon blouse garishly exotic in the blue-spangled dusk.

  Kate stepped back into her hallway and shut her front door. All through the height of the Blitz Mavis had been in the ATS, riding Ted’s motor bike on life and death errands through shattered and blazing streets. She was now working as a bus conductress, and it was no wonder she found the peace boring. And Jack Robson, who had served in the Commandos all through the war, would no doubt find it boring also.

  ‘Why are you looking so worried, sweetheart?’ Leon asked a few minutes later when she put a tray bearing mugs of milky cocoa and Marmite sandwiches down on Matthew and Luke’s bedside table, and then sat down next to him and Daisy on the edge of the bed. ‘Has Christina got problems?’

  ‘Yes,’ Kate said unhappily, slipping her hand into his, ‘and I rather think that in the near future she’s going to have even more.’

  Chapter Six

  ‘You’re just in time for a cup of char,’ Miriam called out from the kitchen as Christina stepped inside the cluttered hall. ‘I’m just puttin’ the kettle on.’

  ‘You needn’t make a cup for me,’ Christina called back, negotiating a lawn-mower that for some inexplicable reason had been left in the hallway, and wondering for the umpteenth time why it was the British couldn’t survive so much as an hour without a cup of hot, strong, tea. ‘I’ve already had two cups at the Voigts’.’

  ‘Then you were bloomin’ quick about it,’ Albert retorted cheerily from the depths of his armchair, ‘Carrie’s only bin back ten minutes and she an’ Kate an’ Danny an’ the kids all came ’ome from the swimmin’ baths together.’

  Christina walked into a sitting-room almost as cluttered as the hallway. Albert was reading the paper, the sleeves of his collarless shirt rolled high. Danny was trying to tune the wireless into some light music, his coppery-red hair still wet from the duckings he had received at the swimming baths. Leah was finishing off Miriam’s pile of darning.

  ‘Did the children enjoy themselves?’ she asked, not wanting to disclose that it had been Kate’s father she had been talking to and drinking tea with, not Kate.

  ‘They nearly bloomin’ drowned me,’ Danny said, successfully tuning the wireless into some dance music. ‘That little Daisy swims like a fish.’

  ‘And so does our Rose,’ Albert chipped in, not wanting his granddaughter to be put in the shade by her friend. ‘Pru Sharkey used to be like greased lightnin’ in the water,’ he added, dropping his newspaper to the floor where Bonzo immediately sat on it. ‘I remember her mother tellin’ me ’ow she won medal after medal when she was at school.’

  Everyone looked at him in astonishment. ‘Pru Sharkey?’ Danny said, perched on the arm of a battered sofa and swinging his foot up and down to the strains of Reginald King and his orchestra. ‘I wouldn’t ’ave thought Pru would ’ave been allowed to go swimmin’. I would ’ave thought old man Sharkey would ’ave ’it the roof at the thought of ’er in a swimmin’ costume.’

  Miriam came into the room, a pint pot of tea in one hand for Albert, a mug of tea in the other for her mother. ‘’E did,’ she said expressively, handing Albert his tea. ‘An’ if it wasn’t for the ’eadmaster, the poor little mare would ’ave ’ad to give it up.’

  Even Christina was intrigued. Wilfred Sharkey saw himself as an authority figure who bowed to no-one except, very reluctantly, Bob Giles. ‘What did the headmaster do?’ she asked moving a half-knitted pullover to one side in order to sit down on the littered sofa.

  ‘’E told Wilfred he was out of order,’ Miriam said, handing the mug of tea to Leah and plumping herself down next to Christina. ‘’E said Pru’s athletic ability was a God-given talent an’ that it would be a sin if she wasn’t allowed to express it, an’ that if Wilfred was ’alf the Christian he professed to be ’e’d encourage ’er, not put obstacles in ’er path. An’ then he said that if Wilfred persisted in refusin’ to allow ’er to swim, ’e’d tell the Vicar.’

  Danny laughed so hard he nearly fell off the arm of the sofa. Albert chuckled into his pint of tea. Leah said in high admiration, ‘That headmaster was a clever man, bubbeleh. He knew Wilfred’s Achilles’ heel, all right.’

  ‘I don’t know about Wilfred’s Achilles’ ’eel,’ Miriam said, eyeing the large pile of finished darning. ‘I think Albert must ’ave dodgy ’eels the way ’e goes through ’is socks!’

  That night, in bed in the room she shared with Rose, Christina lay awake for a long time. It was always the same whenever she stepped over the threshold of the house t
hat had become her home. There would be good-natured bantering. Endless mugs of tea. Lots of gossip and laughter. And when Jack was demobbed she would be packing her bags and moving out, leaving all the noise and clutter and camaraderie behind her in order to build a home of her own.

  She lay on her back, her hands clasped behind her head. Where would that home be? Would it be at number twelve, with Charlie? She liked her father-in-law. Despite his dubious criminal past, it was impossible not to like him. But Charlie was engaged to Harriet Godfrey and she couldn’t envisage herself sharing a home with Harriet and she certainly couldn’t envisage Jack doing so.

  In the darkness Rose stirred, murmuring in her sleep. She looked across at her lovingly. She had already been living at number eighteen when Rose had been born, and she would miss Rose and Rose would miss her. But she would have Jack. Her stomach muscles tightened in a fierce, chaotic tumble of emotions. Why had he still not written to her with news of when he hoped to be home? Was it because, with the war still continuing in the Far East, home leave for Commando units was still not on the cards? And did that mean that Mavis had been imaginatively inventive when she had said Jack had written to her with the news that he hoped to be home soon? Or had she simply mistaken whatever it was he had written to her?

  She turned over on her side, trying to control the surge of jealousy that threatened to bring her almost to tears. Why, when she loved Jack so much, did she find it so difficult to confide in him? Why hadn’t she told him of the guilt and grief that still wracked her where her family were concerned? Was it because she instinctively felt that a man who lived for the moment, as Jack so spectacularly did, wouldn’t understand? That he would think her inability to free herself from the tragedies of her past was morbid and pointless?

  She dug her fingers into the soft down of her pillow. ‘Come home soon, Jack!’ she whispered fiercely, tears scalding her cheeks. ‘Come home soon and let everything be all right between us!’