The Travellers

by Ann Swinfen

  He passed the photocopied items across to her. The first was dated December 1940.

  Foreign Occupants of Dunmouth Cottage

  Our reporter has learned that an isolated cottage just outside Dunmouth, formerly owned by the late George Hadham, retired fisherman, is now occupied by two foreign women of unknown nationality.

  ARP warden Albert Gresham reports that on several occasions lights have been seen showing at the cottage, which faces directly on to the North Sea.

  Says Albert, ‘I knocked on the door to tell the women to douse their lights, but they refused to open to door to me and I was obliged to shout through the letterbox.’

  The younger woman has been seen occasionally in the village, and is said to speak with a strong foreign accent. The older woman was spotted when the cottage was first occupied.

  ‘We don’t want foreigners in Dunmouth,’ says Edward Stannard, fisherman. ‘Who knows where they come from?’

  Dunmouth police are understood to have said that they have received no internment order for the women.

  In the margin, someone had scrawled ‘German?’

  ‘Is this handwriting new or old?’ asked Kate, pointing to it.

  ‘Old,’ said Chris. ‘That’s what the story is implying, isn’t it? All that about being foreign, and internment, and showing lights, and not letting the ARP man in – it’s suggesting in so many words that they’re German spies.’

  Kate laid the sheet of paper down on the counter beside the till.

  ‘There were the craziest stories going around during the war,’ said Linda. ‘I remember Dad talking about it. Especially in the coastal towns and villages. Some of the German Jewish refugees had a terrible time; people thought they were Nazis because they were German.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Kate slowly. ‘I remember friends of ours from Kent saying that some people who lived in a converted windmill were suspected of being spies – they “spoke funny”, and it was alleged that the sails of the windmill had been fixed to point the way to London for the German bombers. Of course, the Luftwaffe would hardly have needed a barely visible windmill in order to find London.’

  ‘Were they foreign?’ asked Chris, intrigued.

  Kate laughed. ‘No. They came from Liverpool. To the local people in Kent, I suppose that sounded foreign. Remember, this was more than fifty years ago – no universal TV watching in those days, to familiarise us all with each other’s ways of speaking.’

  ‘Well,’ said Chris, ‘it sounds as though the rumours went on circulating, and had a nasty outcome. I found this in one of the issues for November 1944. The war was nearly over by then. You wouldn’t think people would still have been neurotic about spies. It must refer to the same women, and I haven’t found anything else in between, though I may have missed something.’

  He passed the second sheet to Kate.

  Fatal Accident in Dunmouth

  A woman died yesterday in Charlborough Hospital as the result of pneumonia and head injuries. The woman was admitted two days ago, already suffering from an advanced case of pneumonia, and having received a severe blow to the head, it is believed from a stone being thrown at her.

  The woman’s daughter, who lives with her at a cottage near Dunmouth, alleged that a large stone was thrown at her as she tried to leave the cottage to fetch medical help for her mother. Missing her, the stone struck the older woman on the temple and rendered her unconscious.

  Police say that as it has not been possible to identify the alleged assailants, they will not be making any arrests.

  Beccy was rereading the article over Kate’s shoulder.

  ‘Isn’t that awful? You can see what happened. Those women were attacked, because of the German spy rumour, and the police just weren’t going to bother following it up. And one of them died.’

  There were tears in Beccy’s eyes. The tone of the article was brutally offhand, Kate thought. It was almost as though the reporter had said, under his breath: ‘And good riddance too.’

  ‘I wonder which cottage it means,’ said Linda thoughtfully.

  ‘And what became of the other woman,’ said Beccy. ‘Do you suppose they drove her out, or killed her as well?’

  Kate said nothing. ‘A bad business’ had gone on at the cottage during the war, her father had said, and her mother had somehow been caught up in it.

  She suspected that she knew what had become of the younger woman.

  Chapter 5

  ‘Not a gîte,’ Tom said firmly. ‘If we’re having a holiday, let’s make it a holiday. And as it’s the first one without any of the children, we’ll push the boat out and stay in a decent hotel.’

  Kate had managed at last to pin him down to the second and third weeks in August. She, too, was conscious that this would be their first holiday without the children since Beccy’s birth nineteen years ago. She supposed she ought to feel liberated, but the thought came over her like a cloud that the family was breaking apart. A few years ago it had seemed as though it would go on for ever, the five of them – laughing, bickering, doing things together. Or at least that was how it had been, in the times before Tom had become so obsessed by his job. The change had been so gradual that she could not put a finger on when it had started. Briefly, during the two hours they had spent sailing the dinghy, Kate thought they had recaptured the old intimacy and warmth, but since then the silent space between them had opened up again.

  Once they had been a close family, with a lot of shared interests but enough differences between them that they did not crowd each other too much. Roz was the only one who was musical. Beccy shared her mother’s flair for languages, but was caught up in what the family called her Causes – Friends of the Earth, dolphin sponsorship, campaigns to help the Third World. She planned to use her languages working for an international charity. Stephen had been a late developer, more concerned with football and cricket than with any serious thoughts about his future – until two years ago. Then, on entering the sixth form, he declared that he was dropping his plan to do arts subjects at A Level and switching to physics, maths and chemistry instead. Kate had no idea what had induced this change, but knew it had entailed hours of extra work catching up in subjects he had appeared to have no interest in before.

  With the rational side of her mind she knew all three children were growing up and away from their parents. And of course the shape of the family had been altered as soon as Beccy had gone away to university last autumn. But she had never previously thought how rapidly the changes would come. In little more than two years they would all be away, at least during term time. Already they were focused outward, feeling the pull of the wider world.

  When Tom had specified France for their holiday, she had thought at once of the gîte in Brittany where they had spent five or six happy summers when the children were small. It would probably be booked up, but they might find somewhere else nearby. But when Tom reminded her that this would be their first holiday alone without the children, she felt her heart sinking. Somehow she could not face the places they had known as a family – the crêperies, the ‘spinner of glass’ in Dinan, or the hypermarché just outside Guingamp, which the children always insisted on visiting immediately in order to spend large portions of their holiday money on supplies of delicious and cheap French chocolate.

  Was this what people meant when they spoke of the ‘empty nest’ syndrome? A feeling almost of bereavement as the children departed? Laughing at herself, but ruefully, she went to the travel agent in Charlborough and booked one week in the best hotel in Avignon, followed by one week at what the travel agent recommended as an extremely grand resort on the Mediterranean coast.

  ‘It used to be one of the places most favoured by the British aristocracy before the first world war,’ he explained. ‘There are four luxurious Edwardian hotels, overlooking the sea. They have all been restored within the last five years, retaining the period atmosphere but with modern plumbing and other facilities. They are only available for private clients – no packa
ge tours. The local business consortium there is aiming to keep everything very upmarket and exclusive. And because they haven’t been discovered yet by the Americans or the Japanese the prices are very reasonable for what you get.’

  Kate had blenched a little at these reasonable prices, but Tom had been very definite about the kind of hotel he had in mind and how much he expected to pay, so she docilely made out the cheque for the deposit and arranged to collect the tickets and other documents the following week when she paid the balance.

  Roz was to leave the next day for her music camp, and Stephen the day after for his cycling holiday. Kate found Roz sitting in the middle of her room that evening looking despairingly round at the clothes spread all over her bed and chairs, dangling from hangers hooked over the picture rail and spilling out of her drawers.

  ‘Oh,’ said Kate.

  ‘I can’t get everything into my squashy bag, Mum,’ wailed Roz. ‘That’s all we’re allowed to take, apart from our instruments and music cases. And I don’t know what to take and what to leave behind. I just know I won’t have the right clothes.’ She looked near to tears.

  Kate remembered how vital it was at sixteen to have the right clothes, to fit in with the rest of the crowd. She gave the problem her consideration.

  ‘Well, you’re obviously going to need underwear and night things and sponge bag and make-up,’ she said, swiftly gathering these up and clearing a space for them on the bed. ‘I’ll bet they won’t mind if you take a shoulder bag. Don’t take a handbag, take your big canvas shoulder bag instead. That will hold all of these things, plus some reading matter and a purse and so on.’

  She perched on a corner of Roz’s desk and considered the problem of outer clothes. She had no more idea than Roz what the required dress would be.

  ‘Jeans and T-shirts,’ she muttered, ‘and a sweatshirt or jersey if it turns cold. There’s a concert on the last night, isn’t there?’

  ‘Yes. In Aberystwyth.’

  ‘Better take your black skirt and white blouse, then.’

  Kate considered. Roz’s bag would certainly not hold everything she had spread out.

  ‘Why not plan on mix and match co-ordinates? You know – all those articles in women’s magazines advising you “how to travel light and still ring the changes!” You’ve got a lot of things with green in them. Let’s lay out those and see what outfits you could make up.’

  Privately Kate suspected that the jeans and the concert clothes were the only things Roz would wear for the entire time, but her daughter greeted the idea with a cry of delight.

  ‘That’s brilliant, Mum! Here, give us those red trousers. I won’t need those.’

  She began folding clothes and stuffing them back into drawers.

  ‘Hey, would you like to hear my new CD?’

  ‘Mmm. Been spending your money before you go away?’

  ‘It was a bargain classic – they’re reissuing old recordings from the pre-war years of some of the famous musicians back then. They have some process for taking out the scratches and background noise and cleaning up the recording for the CD. Sandy did explain it. He’s into all that stuff, but I wasn’t really listening.’

  Roz slid the disk into the CD player, unplugged the earphones and plugged in the loudspeakers.

  ‘I think it’s pretty fabulous, particularly when you think it was recorded in 1923. And it only cost £6.99.’

  ‘I suppose they don’t have to pay large royalties – or any – on a recording as old as that. What is it?’

  ‘Violin music, of course. Starts with the Mendelssohn.’

  Roz pressed the play button and the fiery, passionate music filled the room. Kate felt humbled, as she always did, that a composer so young could have achieved so much. It made her feel inadequate, with a wasted life behind her. She paused in her packing of Roz’s bag. The violin had a supreme tone, and the player had power and tenderness and lyric intensity. The Mendelssohn concerto was followed by the Bruch, with its soaring lyrical passages. Kate sat quietly on Roz’s bed listening, her hands clasped loosely around her drawn-up knees and her eyes half closed. Before the next piece began, she pressed the pause button.

  ‘That is simply wonderful. Who is it?’

  ‘I hadn’t heard of her before, though the programme notes say she was very famous for a time, a child prodigy like Yehudi Menuhin. And it’s rather sad. That was a Guarneri she was playing – one of the best. Apparently it was lost or destroyed in the war.’

  ‘But who was she? Such power – I didn’t realise it was a woman.’

  Roz stuck out her lip. ‘Women can be powerful players too, Mum.’

  ‘Yes, I do realise, darling. But there can’t have been many then.’

  ‘She was a Hungarian. Part-gypsy, apparently. Perhaps that’s where the power and the...wildness comes from.’

  Roz pressed the button to spring out the deck and handed the little silver disk to her mother.

  ‘She was called Eva Tabor.’

  * * *

  The following day after Roz had left, Stephen mooched gloomily around the house. Kate suspected that he had slightly lost his nerve over the cycling holiday in France, but restrained herself from saying anything. In the middle of the afternoon he slouched into the kitchen, where she was stirring a pan on the stove.

  ‘Making dinner already? Isn’t it a bit early?’

  ‘No, I’m baking a double batch of flapjack. Half of it is for you to take with you. It keeps for ever, and it will stop you starving if you find yourselves a long way from cafés and civilisation.’

  ‘Brilliant! Of course, we’re meant to be cooking for ourselves. Mick’s bringing a camping stove and some pans. But I’m not much good at cooking.’

  ‘So I’ve noticed. Pass me over those two greased baking sheets, will you?’

  She began to scrape the mixture into the tins, pressing it into the corners and levelling the surface with the back of her wooden spoon. As she leaned down to put them in the oven, Stephen seized the saucepan and began scraping up the bits and licking them off the spoon. Kate hid her smile as she washed her sticky hands and put the kettle on.

  ‘Tea?’

  ‘Mmm, yes please.’ Stephen peered at the pan, then abandoned it in the sink.

  ‘Water in it. To soak. First lesson in cooking.’

  Stephen ran the tap, and with his back to her said, ‘Remember old Benjy? He was mad on flapjack. Used to steal it off the table if we left any lying around.’

  Benjy had been Toby’s predecessor, a mongrel of very mixed ancestry, who had died seven years before.

  ‘Poor old Benjy! He was always hungry. It was probably a memory from his deprived puppyhood, before the animal shelter took him in. What made you think of him?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Flapjack always reminds me of him. But then, he was sort of my dog, wasn’t he? I kind of miss him.’

  Kate was startled by this. It was true that Benjy had attached himself particularly to Stephen, as Toby had attached himself to her, but she hadn’t suspected that Stephen was still missing his dog.

  ‘You could always have had another dog, you know.’

  ‘In our house in London? You’ve got to be joking, Mum. And now it’s too late. I couldn’t have a dog at university, could I?’

  ‘No, I’m sure they wouldn’t allow one in the halls of residence.’

  Kate lifted the kettle and began making the tea, then checked on the flapjack in the oven. It was easy to overcook it.

  ‘I suppose if you rented a private flat after first year you might be able to have a dog, though most landlords ban pets. And you’d have to keep going back between lectures to take him for a walk.’

  ‘Oh, I know it isn’t really on.’ Stephen slumped into a chair and cradled his mug of tea. ‘Actually, I’m not particularly looking forward to university.’

  Kate poured her own tea, then lifted the flapjack out of the oven and checked the clock. It needed to cool for five minutes before being scored across. She sat
down opposite him.

  ‘University can be a bit intimidating before you start,’ she said, recalling her own mixture of elation and dread. ‘But you do have the freshers’ week, which we never had. That gives you time to find your way around before you have to start the term properly.’

  Stephen raised a face taut with worry.

  ‘I don’t think I’m good enough. What if my A-Level grades aren’t high enough? What if I can’t cope with the work when I get there?’

  ‘I’m sure you’re good enough, and you’ll probably find everyone else feels the same way. Just concentrate on doing your best without overdoing things, and I’m sure you’ll be fine.’

  She reached across and squeezed his hand.

  ‘Remember, it doesn’t matter a hoot in the long run. Look at Linda. She never went to university when she was young, then had a wonderful time going when she was older. Keep it at the back of your mind that this isn’t your one and only chance. But give it your best for a year anyway.’

  He smiled at her, a little shamefaced.

  ‘Thanks, Mum. I just don’t want to let you both down.’

  ‘Of course you won’t.’

  She got up and began to score the warm flapjack into squares.

  ‘Hey, can we have some now – out of the family half, I mean, not out of mine?’

  She laughed.

  ‘Get a plate, then.’

  * * *

  The next day, after Stephen had departed with Mick and his cousin – the bicycles slung about with bulging panniers and carriers – the house seemed worryingly empty. It was no emptier than when Stephen and Roz were at school and Beccy away, but the very walls seemed to hold the knowledge they would not return in the evening. There was a hollowness to the sound of Kate’s feet on the floorboards, and when she flung open the window in the bedroom the sound echoed as if the house were unfurnished. Toby followed her everywhere, as though he felt the difference too.