The German Boy

by Tricia Wastvedt

  Most of all, Mr Mole liked to walk with Mrs Oliver on his arm, Mrs Oliver who was now his wife.

  Elisabeth wondered if the thrill of a troublesome daughter’s double success – worthy employment and also removal to Bavaria – or the shock of a good daughter’s dismissal and shame, or the collision of the two things in a month, had tipped her mother off balance and into Mr Mole’s embrace. Whatever the reason for the change of heart, Mrs Oliver had surrendered and Mr Mole was touchingly elated.

  The ceremony was simple. Elisabeth was a witness and so was Mr Mole’s second cousin, Mr Baer. There was no Karen now whose eyes she must avoid, and so no risk of giggling when either of the gentlemen’s names was spoken.

  After the ceremony, the four of them, Mr and Mrs Oliver, Mr Baer and Elisabeth, had a lunch at the Trafalgar Hotel in Greenwich in a sunny Georgian room overlooking the mud banks of the Thames.

  ‘Please call me Herbert, Elisabeth my dear. We’re family now,’ said Mr Mole.

  Elisabeth was annoyed although why she didn’t know.

  Mr Mole, Herbert, brought a piano to the house in Catford, and also kindly warmth. He kept the fires fed and the doors closed. He played his piano cheerily and sometimes managed to coax shy Mrs Mole to sing.

  Elisabeth liked him more than she thought she would. He was courteous but not colourless or dull. He was uncluttered in his mind, steady of heart and clear of purpose. He had set his cap at prickly Mrs Oliver and was certain of his judgement; beneath the spines was the woman he would love.

  But happy Mrs Mole could not quite usurp grieving Mrs Oliver and Elisabeth still felt the cold front when they were alone without the warmth of Mr Mole. Elisabeth was the reminder and the residue of the desolate past and also, now, a failure in her own right.

  She had thought she would never live at home again and now here she was, without work, without Karen, and in the company of two newly-weds. The days were busy with keeping out of the way, and empty except for writing letters of application which were rarely answered. Her references were not good.

  Mr Mole, Herbert, tried to soften her disappointment when there was nothing in the post. ‘They don’t hurry themselves these days, my dear, not even when they should.’

  So she was surprised to receive two items in one delivery. The first was a postcard of the Eiffel Tower, addressed in Karen’s wild sprawling script: This is where I am!!! love K xxx.

  The second was on lilac headed paper and from Mrs Ingrid Schroëder: would Miss Oliver consider the position of nanny to Tobias, aged seven? And also would she agree to live in rooms at their house in Richmond? There would be no other duties but she might be needed day or night as Toby was frequently poorly.

  There would be no uniform and Miss Oliver would take her meals as family unless she had a preference for eating downstairs. The household was informal. Also she – Ingrid – and her husband, Mr Bruno Schroëder, often travelled with the older children and foreign air did not suit little Toby’s health. At those times Miss Oliver would have sole charge of him.

  Mrs Schroëder’s handwriting was plain, and tilted downwards on the thick laid paper. Elisabeth had not left a card with Mrs Brion so how had Mrs Schroëder found her? Then she remembered that Mrs Brion had generously asked her driver to take Elisabeth all the way home to Catford on the day in April when she had visited.

  The memory of that afternoon was vague. She could recall only an impression of Mrs Schroëder and all she knew of Toby was his white-blond head. How odd that Mrs Schroëder remembered her at all.

  The letter continued:

  Would you perhaps be interested in this arrangement? My husband would be reassured to have Toby in the care of a proper nurse and, for myself, I admit to finding most nannies fearfully dull; the afternoon in April when I met you at my sister’s house was very lively.

  I have made up my mind so there’s no need for us to meet again unless you would like to view the house. It is ordinary, nine bedrooms and gardens on the river. You have a pretty little sitting room for your private use on the south side of the house, which sadly does not have a river view, but I’m sure we can alter our arrangements if you especially enjoy waterscapes with coots.

  Americans and various people often stay. Do you object to peacocks? We have no religion. We celebrate Thanksgiving but do not serve poultry or pork then or at any time of year. Neither do we eat sea creatures with shells. Toby has a pony and a telescope. Is that sufficient information?

  We are in Italy in August and September, and Tobias will remain in England, so I should be extremely grateful if you would be here at your soonest ever convenience. You might let me know when you plan to come and I shall send a car.

  Yours, in anticipation,

  Ingrid Schroëder

  Elisabeth looked up from the letter to see her mother and Mr Mole watching from across the breakfast table. ‘I have a job,’ she said. ‘In Richmond.’

  ‘Congratulations, my dear Elisabeth, at last someone has some sense.’ Mr Mole put his hand over hers. His eyes were watery with gladness, and he turned to Mrs Mole. ‘We’ll miss her, will we not, dearest?’

  ‘Richmond isn’t far,’ her mother said.

  • • •

  The Schroëders were modern parents. There was no routine for the older children, who stayed up late and were completely at ease in adult company. Bruno Junior, Annabelle and Bonnie May were not under Elisabeth’s supervision and barely spoke to her.

  The house in Richmond-upon-Thames was always full of visitors: artists and actors who were friends of Mrs Schroëder, and manufacturers and businessmen with their wives who were friends of Mr Schroëder.

  The wives ascertained within minutes that Elisabeth was the nanny, and although they might forgive Bruno’s eccentric wife for this odd arrangement of staff mingling with the dinner guests, they did not forgive Elisabeth. They ignored her. The husbands flirted and seemed to find her a charming oddity of Schroëder’s London home.

  Elisabeth sat at the dining table each evening and listened to conversations that gusted through her head like air through an empty room. She realized she knew nothing about art or business, or politics or the world in general.

  She learned to identify which guests were artists and to sit with them at table so as not to annoy the businessmen’s wives. Artists included writers and musicians but were mostly painters. She also learned what was boring or bourgeois and never to admit to liking it. She must like jazz and drinking, and she should not like money or manners. She should despise pretentiousness in all its forms and this included most artists up to now and also their art, but not Art, which was the greatest thing.

  Understanding business was more difficult in that it seemed bound up with politics and weather. The President of France could dictate the price of coal in Britain, and apparently the Socialists in Germany and a hurricane in the Caribbean could determine how many people bought washing machines. She wondered how Mr and Mrs Mole in Catford were affected.

  The Schroëders and their friends were not taken in by gossip in the newspapers and were above the petty worries of most ordinary people who thought no further than their own front door. Elisabeth was grateful for the luck which had brought her to this sophisticated household; a thread from Rachel to Mrs Brion to Mrs Schroëder (with a brief detour to the nurses’ dormitory and Mr Caffin’s flat in Pimlico) had led her to this fortunate life.

  The holiday in Kent might have been an unwelcome interruption but Elisabeth was glad to be leaving the Schroëders’ house for a while. Something had happened and the hurt of it lingered. It concerned a young man who had come to dinner.

  She knew he noticed her when he came into the room. He was thin and tall with wide-open eyes and a kind of prettiness that wasn’t girlish, more like a starving angel. Elisabeth tried not to stare.

  He was training as an illustrator at the Chelsea Art School and his name was River. He made woodcut prints and also little watercolours which were of no significance, he said, just pictures to go with
other people’s words. He sat next to her at dinner.

  He sweated and quivered like a racehorse but his presence at her side was a barricade against the onslaught of conversation; there was a debate on the Society’s exhibition and crossfire concerning the dollar’s stability abroad.

  Suddenly he said, ‘You’re very patient, Elisabeth.’ She started and spilled wine on to her halibut. She had been wondering when he would speak to her. ‘It must be annoying to see through all this.’ He spoke so quietly she thought she must have misunderstood.

  ‘All of what?’ she said.

  ‘Our insistence on dignifying our little scrawlings. And their stupidity’ – here he nodded towards Mr Schroëder and his friends – ‘in thinking money will keep them safe.’ Close to, she saw he had a scar through his eyebrow and another on his chin. ‘We should have learned, but we still believe the war was no fault of ours. There’ll be another in a year, or ten, or twenty. We’ll be too busy with ourselves again to see it coming.’

  ‘I’m sure that won’t happen.’ She leaned away. She had wanted him to speak to her but now he was too close.

  ‘We so-called artists talk as if we do something necessary when the world is already perfect and complete. How foolish we must seem to you.’

  ‘How do you know I’m not an artist?’ she asked a little sharply. She thought she looked very much like the other women at this end of the table.

  ‘Oh, you’re not,’ he said. ‘Eyes like yours could not be deceived – and they must be if you were one of us.’

  He must be teasing. ‘Mr Freud would say that what we see is shaped by what we are,’ she countered happily. It was nice to have something to say at last. She had learned to make statements rather than ask questions, as was the custom in these exchanges.

  ‘Ah, yes, the Viennese witch doctor. He’s not the fool he’s made out to be,’ River said. ‘And neither are you.’

  Was this a compliment? ‘I’m not sure I understand you,’ Elisabeth said. She was pleased with the playfulness in her voice but something inside was teetering on an edge.

  He paused a moment. ‘There is nothing to understand other than what you are,’ he said. ‘People like us will make you forget even that, Elisabeth. You should not be here.’ And he turned away.

  Pixie Fairhaven’s voice shrilled from across the table. ‘I see you flirting, Mr River, with that dear sweet girl and now she’s gone quite scarlet.’

  His voice: ‘River, Miss Fairhaven, not Mr River. If Elisabeth is too warm, it is not on my account.’

  Pixie: ‘She’s delicate, Mr River. She is not equal to the likes of you.’

  River: ‘Indeed. That is her charm, and my loss, Miss Fairhaven.’

  Pixie squawked delightedly and Elisabeth heard the conversations around the table sailing on. She stared down at her hands holding her knife and fork, at the tortoiseshell and ivory bracelets hanging from her wrists which Ingrid Schroëder had given her. She had been sure the young man liked her but it seemed he didn’t. The humiliation was deep, but deeper still was her dismay in realizing that she did not like him. She had hoped so much she would.

  There must be another man who could make the air feel heavy on her skin when he was near, and light settle in her hair after he gave her tea, and time hang on a silver thread because he almost touched her.

  Elisabeth had told herself a thousand times that there was nothing special about Michael Ross and the snowy afternoon in Fitzroy Street. He did not like her then and he would not ever like her.

  He had seen in her – as Mr River had seen – the tedium and ignorance of the house in Catford, the brown paintwork, the chrysanthemums and crocheted antimacassars. Michael had been kind and then was bored with her. That was all.

  ‘Elisabeth? Elisabeth!’ shrilled Pixie. ‘Pay Mr River no heed! He is teasing you, don’t you see? Elisabeth? Come back to us! I declare, she’s in a dream!’

  ‘No,’ Elisabeth said. ‘I’m here.’ She was sitting in the candlelight of Mrs Schroëder’s dining room, the crystal goblets, red and gold with wine, sparkled on the damask tablecloth amongst tureens and platters. People were laughing and gesticulating, or leaning together comfortably and talking. She felt the confidence, the sharpness of their minds and the ease of these people who had money.

  If he could see her now, Michael would know he had been mistaken; she was not naive or silly or ignorant. And the young man at her side was mistaken too: she was not forgetting, but finding who she was.

  Bruno Schroëder stood up to propose a toast: ‘To the President and to His Majesty the King. To freedom and to friendship!’

  The gentleman on Elisabeth’s other side struck his glass with a spoon and proposed a toast – ‘To the busting up of sophistication in all its forms’ – at which the artists crashed their wine glasses recklessly.

  But isn’t sophistication good? Elisabeth thought as she raised her glass.

  Francesca Brion smiled across the table.

  14

  The barrier was open for the Folkestone train and George Mander boarded and closed the door. The quiet inside the corridor was like the furthest edge of home: the din and the bitter exhalations of the engines were shut out and the next air he breathed would carry the grassy, watery scent of Kent. There would be birdsong and bleating sheep.

  He slid open the door to a compartment and lifted his hat to a young woman sitting by the window with a child asleep on the seat beside her. She had bright auburn hair and the style of clothing some women liked these days – unmatched and colourful, and gracefully shapeless. Her buttoned shoes were blue, her stockings were pale yellow and her ankles were pretty. He chose the corner by the corridor.

  The prospect of a peaceful journey home was some consolation for the wasted day and night in London. He had wanted to travel home yesterday because his mother was ill and he didn’t like to be away, but they had kept him waiting for a decision on the loan he had asked for at the bank.

  Two months ago he’d laid off the last worker who did not have a family to support. This pattern maker and son of an ironmaster had more skill than all the rich men round last night’s dinner table put together. The young foundryman had refused to shake Mander’s hand, and two days later he sent back in an envelope the three extra pound notes put in with his final wages. He was going to his sister in Liverpool, he said; he did not want charity.

  The war was long over but the poison of it was still destroying things. These days men were being killed with shame instead of bayonets and gas.

  Unless there was a miracle, it was only a matter of time before the foundry would be forced to close; for ten years it had been sinking and for four of those the books had shown a loss. Like many others, the business was being wrecked by foreign imports.

  Mander felt the train move and hadn’t been aware that he had closed his eyes. Last night he had been invited to a club with men he used to call his friends. The brandy had made his head sore and the odour of cigars hung on his suit and in his hair. Last night even his hair seemed proof of his failure. At almost forty he was grey but no balder than when he was a boy of twelve. Coll Grogan, a weedy weeping boy from his dormitory at school and now a cloth importer, had tugged at Mander’s hair and asked him if he’d shot it or caught it in a trap. There had been honks of drunken laughter. Every man round the table, bankers, traders, property developers, every man was balding. It seemed to Mander that he should have lost his hair to make his profit.

  He would lose the foundry, that was almost certain. His father and his grandfather had worked to build it and he was watching it decline. When he left university, it had seemed too brutal and ungrateful to tell his father he had no interest in making gates and railings, or fire grates or parts for machines. He knew he’d have to wait a while, then ask to learn some other line of work. He wanted to travel. A year later the war began and the small decisions a young man could make about his life were gone.

  He did not enlist although he wanted to. He was needed at the foundry and thi
s excused him active service, for which his parents were thankful. It was the beginning of a path that led nowhere. He lived at home, worked at the foundry, was introduced to his father’s club in London, his father’s bank, his father’s friends. He lost touch with the Kentish boys he knew. Most of them were dead.

  He met women from time to time: Constance at the British Library, he lunched with when he was up in town; Lilly Stephens, a divorcée who occasionally invited him to join a theatre party; Dorothy, a widow and the daughter of his mother’s friend. Dorothy was not expecting love, she told him bleakly, she wanted only kindness and companionship. He – the fool he was, he thought – still believed he might find more.

  The years disappeared behind him, the business slowed gently to a halt. Although he understood logically that the foundry’s decline was not his fault, he had always known somehow that it would fail when it passed to him.

  His mother had no idea how bad things were and he hoped he’d never need to tell her. Her interest in the present had died years ago and now she lived in tangled memories. She’d forgotten her dead daughter born two years after him, and her brother who had died at Sebastopol, and the husband who had grown tired of her.

  The parcel on the luggage rack was a gift for her. It was Touring Scotland, a new board game he’d bought from Hamleys in Regent Street. Agnes would be eighty-two next week and the only thing she ever asked for were games with dice.

  The train rocked and his mind drifted as it often did to uneasy thoughts of the freedom he would have when she died. He would sell the house and what was left of the foundry, and travel where no one would know him and there’d be nothing pressing him.

  He thought of his tenant, Eddie Saunders, a man who had lost a wife and child. Saunders’s life was herding cows, mending fences, shearing sheep, and Mander envied him. Despite his tragedy, Saunders seemed to have found contentment. Mander did not regret giving the land to Eddie Saunders – it was the only truly impulsive thing he’d ever done – but wondered why he’d never thought to use the land himself.