He was woken by a thud that was a half-dream of his briefcase falling from the rack. He opened his eyes and the young woman in the carriage was bending down to pick up a picture book.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Toby’s book – I dropped it.’
It was the first time he’d looked at her face. She had grey eyes and freckles, and looked barely old enough to have a child of six or seven. She could not be more than twenty. ‘I’m so sorry we disturbed you,’ she said. The child was awake, leaning into her.
When they changed for the branch line, there were no porters around and he carried her travelling bag from one train to the other. She followed behind him, holding the boy’s hand.
At Hythe there was someone waiting for her. He heard her call out, ‘Rachel!’ and a young dark-haired woman hugged her and kissed the little boy. He heard the women talking and laughing as he walked to the exit.
The few passengers for the halt at Hythe were dispersing. It was a soft, misty day and cold for August. The sands would be empty and the funfairs and the tea shops would be full. It was not quite twelve thirty but he wouldn’t go to the foundry; he must go home because the housekeeper had agreed to stay the night in case, as had happened, he did not get back from London. She would want the rest of the day off in recompense. The afternoon and evening in the house with his mother stretched ahead of him.
He had left his bicycle propped against the railings. He couldn’t bring himself to use the car when he was laying off his men. The saddle of the bicycle was wet: he wiped it with his handkerchief and strapped his briefcase to the back, but it slipped off before he’d got the buckles fastened and his paperwork scattered in the sopping nettles by the path. He cursed himself for being clumsy and for having scruples about the car.
The young woman and her friend were the last to come out of the station and the small boy, Toby, stared at him down on his knees gathering up sheets of paper. They walked past, the women still talking, out of the station courtyard to the lane to Hythe.
Mander was irritated by the staring child and the two young women chattering. He was tired of the Romney Marsh. If he could have stayed in London he would have spent the morning in a coffee house reading the newspapers, having lunch, looking at an exhibition and browsing some bookshops for the afternoon.
Then the feelings vanished as suddenly as they had come. He wished he had said goodbye to Toby and his mother to acknowledge the small encounter on the train so they might remember him, although she might have been alarmed and it was probably better that he hadn’t.
This was how it was these days: he avoided doing anything that might risk embarrassment. He hated the careless slights that people seemed constantly to inflict on one another. He was less and less in company, but more and more he couldn’t bear to be alone, as if his skin was too thin for the turbulence of people but also too thin to keep him warm alone. He would not have said that he was lonely but he supposed, perhaps, he was.
• • •
Mr and Mrs Schroëder and the other children were leaving for the Fairhavens’ villa in Amalfi.
‘I hope you shan’t be bored when you’ve only got me,’ Toby said to Elisabeth. She had packed crayons and a box of paints in his trunk, but she hoped she could persuade him to play outside when they were on holiday in Kent. Rachel had said in her letter: The Dymchurch sands are full of little kiddies from London. You should see them: bandy ones, coughing ones, skinny ones, lame ones, all scampering and hopping about with buckets and spades even when it’s perishing. Little Toby will soon have roses in his cheeks.
‘I must stay in the shade, Elisabeth,’ Toby told her. ‘I should be kept cool with calamine or rosewater. Sunlight inflames my skin and so does the wind.’
‘Kent is wonderfully cloudy and you can walk behind me when there’s a breeze,’ Elisabeth told him.
Mr Schroëder arranged to have the pony taken down in the hope that Toby could be persuaded to ride. The pony would be stabled in Saltwood with a blacksmith who used to be the farrier for the Schroëders’ carriage horses before they were replaced by motorcars.
‘Fenn will ride over with the pony and he’ll find a nice gentle mount for you. Just call or send a lad,’ Mr Schroëder told Elisabeth. She didn’t say that ‘calling’ meant a letter or a bus ride. Nanna Lydia and Vera Ross’s bungalow did not have a telephone nor did they have a ‘lad’ to take messages. And how Elisabeth would get up on to a horse’s back was a mystery.
Ingrid Schroëder was thrilled that Toby would be staying with ‘ordinary people’.
‘I do so want my children to experience life in all its variations,’ she said. ‘Snobbishness is rather déclassé, I feel.’
The trunks had been sent on ahead and Elisabeth carried a travelling bag with sandwiches, a flask of tea and some picture books for Toby, who fell asleep before the train pulled out of the station.
A gentleman came into the carriage and sat in the corner by the corridor; he put his briefcase on the rack, and also a parcel wrapped in Hamleys paper which must have been a present for his child. He lifted his hat to Elisabeth, then settled down and closed his eyes.
The guard was coming along the train, slamming doors. Elisabeth took off her coat and put it over Toby, tucking a sleeve underneath his face so the upholstery wouldn’t irritate his cheek. Mrs Schroëder had given her the coat and other clothes too, dresses and skirts all loose cut and long so it didn’t matter that Elisabeth was heavier and taller. Now here she was, almost like Francesca Brion – an elegant gypsy with expensive luggage and a taste for Russian cigarettes and vodka.
The train would soon be out of London and she could forget River-not-Mr-River from the Chelsea Art School, who didn’t know her at all.
Toby would sleep for a while and the other passenger was already sleeping too. His jowly pleasant face was blank and peaceful. She searched in her bag for the letter from Karen which she’d had no time to read.
Munich
Dear Little Sister
I’ve just had your lovely letter full of news. The new job sounds wonderful and I’m so happy for you, darling. Toby is such a little character, from what you say, and all those fascinating people coming and going, I almost envy you.
I meant to write sooner but it’s so hard to settle. Here is my Big News: I’m getting married! No, don’t faint – I know I said I never would, at least not for years, but I knew I was in love with Artur the first moment I saw him. I’ve never felt like this about anyone before, and I know in my heart, with all my heart, that he is the man I will love for the rest of my life. The wedding will be in November and Mutti Landau is helping me to choose a dress. It’s being made for me.
You asked me if I’ve been well and mostly I have. Dear Doktor Hartog, who is a family friend and has known Artur all his life, was called the other week when I was poorly with swollen ankles and tiredness, but I’m better now although he said I must rest more. You’ll be cross because you’ve been telling me this same thing for years. Yes, I know. I’m very silly, but I’ve promised Doktor Hartog so you can be at least a little pleased with me.
I’m in a rush to go out so that’s all for now. I’m so happy, I can’t tell you. Elisabeth darling, now I know I’d never been in love, although I thought I had. When you meet the right man, you will feel this way too.
Your
Karen
Elisabeth looked out of the carriage window at the trees and fields. She felt nothing much about the letter. What should she feel about a husband who is Karen’s? The news was like a story in a book.
There must have been a time – a day perhaps, and a moment in that day – when they cast off from the life they shared without knowing that they had. The distance between them now was more than miles and what made them sisters was disappearing. There was no Dadda and Ma any more, or pears ripening under the beds in the house in Catford.
Elisabeth tried to conjure Karen’s face, which she used to know better than her own, but could catch only a glimpse, a lightning
flash of blonde hair and a smile before Karen switched off the light. They have never said they love each other in all their lives, and what they are to each other is so embedded that Elisabeth can’t feel it, any more than she can feel her own bones and blood.
The edginess between them tips one way into closeness and the other into fury. Elisabeth is towed along as if Karen is a blustery kite and Karen is maddened at being tethered. Elisabeth seethes because she is ‘the good one’, but she could be more selfish, have more fun if Karen didn’t hog it all. She would fight anyone to save Karen from being hurt and in the same moment could want to punch her.
There is everything and nothing to guard against with Karen, who won’t let her get away with being false even for a second, and sometimes she longs to be with Karen so much it makes her ache.
Elisabeth caught sight of her reflection in the carriage window. She was smiling. Excitement had flooded into her, anticipation with no shape and no direction, like a river that had burst its banks. So this thing can’t be severed after all, and this was the comfort of it; the husband meant nothing to her but Elisabeth was happy because Karen was.
Toby woke up at Paddock Wood. Elisabeth gave him a sandwich and they looked at a picture book together. There was an awkward moment when Toby dropped his book and disturbed the man in their compartment. Elisabeth apologized and he was kind; he apologized to her for being so rude as to fall asleep.
At the change for Hythe he carried her case and they stood on the platform waiting for the branch-line train. He made courteous conversation for fifteen minutes without asking her a single question or making any reference to himself. For once she felt delicate and small. He smelled of good cigars. For the remainder of the journey he read his newspaper.
The train slowed down and Elisabeth stood up and struggled with the leather strap on the window. She pressed her face against the glass to see along the platform.
Rachel looked older – they would both be nineteen this year. They hugged each other. ‘Guess what. Karen’s got a husband,’ said Elisabeth. ‘Almost.’
‘No!’ said Rachel, linking arms. ‘Spill the beans.’
As they left the station, they passed the gentleman gathering up sheets of paper which had fallen from his briefcase into the nettles. The Hamleys parcel was on the saddle of an old bicycle leaning against the railings. Elisabeth thought a man like him ought to have a car.
• • •
Vera Ross met Mander at his front door. ‘You’re back.’
‘Hello, Vera.’ He was used to her abruptness.
‘We’ve had right old fun and games, your mother and I. Not to worry you but she had another turn at teatime yesterday. Anyway, she’s upstairs barricaded in her room. You look fit to drop.’
‘I’d better go up.’ He put down his briefcase.
‘I’ve heard her tiptoeing about so I know she’s all right.’ Vera stood squarely in his path. ‘I’ve made you a sandwich, Mr Mander, but I shall have to go, I’ve got visitors coming to the bungalow.’
‘I’m sorry you’ve had all this trouble.’
‘Just look at you. London saps you dry and don’t I know it. I’ll make a pot of tea, then I’ll be off.’
Mander tapped on his mother’s bedroom door and a moment later the key turned and Agnes peered out. ‘Where’s Ross?’ she said. Agnes was wearing a silk evening gown that matched the fawn of her skin, and an array of brooches. Her hair was swept back in its usual misty chignon, today with a Spanish comb and veil. ‘Would you have a word with her, George? I sent her to her room.’
‘Of course.’ He’d given up explaining that Vera was not a Kentish servant girl with no Christian name or home of her own. ‘Vera’s made me a sandwich,’ he said. ‘Would you like one?’
Agnes disappeared for a moment, then came out with a marabou cape around her shoulders. ‘Who’s Vera?’
In the afternoon, after Vera Ross had gone, he gave his mother the Touring Scotland game and lost count of the number of games they played. He was tired but the pattering of the dice on the board and Agnes’s impatience kept him awake. She would rap on the table with the shaker if he didn’t pay attention. Her eyes were shining, and she drove the little model car along the cardboard roads fuelled by numbers on the dice.
15
It was nearly two years since Lydia had seen Elisabeth. She was coming for a holiday and would bring her little charge, Tobias Schroëder, a seven-year-old American.
The arrangements: Vera said she didn’t mind the ladder and would sleep up in Rachel’s attic. Lydia would move into Vera’s room and Elisabeth would share with Rachel in Lydia’s room, which was large enough for the camp bed and also next to the box room where the little boy would sleep, so Elisabeth would hear him if he woke up in the night.
Lydia was invigorated by the pressure of the jobs that must be done, the extra shopping and baking and all the beds that needed to be changed. She had always enjoyed the contemplation that chores inspire, the drift of the mind being so much sweeter when one is busy. She unfurled a sheet, smoothed and snapped the corners under. She was thinking of Elisabeth, of the first time she came to Neate Street all those years ago.
It seems, Lydia thought, that the woman inside the girl is glimpsed sometimes like the colours in a starling or the fire inside an opal. It might be a tilt of her head, a gesture of her hands, a look of understanding or annoyance much older than her years, but there she is, her grown-up self waiting for her time.
Then the girl is gone. The young woman is calamity; sullenness and hope all mixed up in a pot of vanity. She’s lost the ease inside herself when she didn’t know her own perfection and didn’t know the harshness of the world.
But there’s a time between, Lydia believed, when there could be girl and woman equally together. It’s short, this time, a heartbeat in a life. It might be just a month or even days, but you breathe the moments, you watch her and you know: she is everything that she should be, she is the moon, a songbird, a quiet sea.
Lydia remembered Elisabeth when she first came to Neate Street. Rachel was past the time, and Karen even further, but Elisabeth was like water washing through the house, rinsing off the dust, illuminating colours and making the air fit to breathe again.
Vera didn’t notice, blinded as she was by the dazzle of the sister, but Michael did, and Lydia still didn’t understand why Elisabeth had made him fearful.
Suddenly, straightening the eiderdown, Lydia felt the odd crumpling-up of time, which happened often lately. Her memory seemed to order things according to their weight and not their placement in the past. How long was it since Michael walked away with Albert’s kitbag on his shoulder? Last week was already blank – perhaps then? She could see Michael waving from the corner of Neate Street, not outside the bungalow, so that couldn’t be.
Their old life in Peckham was as clear as being there again, but this morning Vera had asked Lydia to call on someone to collect something, but who and what Lydia could not for the life of her remember.
It was grief that caused this perturbation in the brain, and Lydia had seen it enough times in Peckham widows to recognize the signs. She should knit again, like they did in times of war. The pacifying clacking of the needles and orderly ravelling of yarn seemed to ravel up the mind.
The clock on the mantelpiece in the sitting room chimed twelve. The bungalow was ready, the pie and Bakewell tart were warming in the oven. Rachel had taken the day off work to meet Elisabeth, and Vera would be back from old Mrs Mander’s at one.
Michael was coming too, although Lydia had forgotten how she knew or when he said he would arrive. She was certain that his fear had left him and he was on his way home to Elisabeth.
• • •
The first night, everyone was late to bed. Elisabeth undressed and got into the camp bed. The sea wind bumped the walls and across the road the tide was scrabbling at the pebbles. Vera snored softly overhead.
Rachel turned out the light. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘I want the lot. I�
��m ready and don’t spare the horses.’
They had pushed their beds together and Elisabeth could feel how close they were, even in the dark. London was a long way away and as she talked everything she told Rachel seemed interesting and funny, as if it had happened to someone else: the unpleasant River-not-Mr-River, and Pixie Fairhaven, the Schroëders, the beautiful Mrs Brion, who were all so rich they didn’t even know it. She confessed about the treacherous Mr Caffin and what she’d said in front of Matron.
‘No!’ shouted Rachel. They giggled and shushed each other, biting the sheets and trying to be quiet. ‘You wouldn’t have the nerve to say that – did you?’ Rachel squealed. ‘You did!’
Rachel told Elisabeth about the farmer she was walking out with. ‘Eddie’s right for me,’ said Rachel. ‘Mum doesn’t think much of him but she’ll come round. Nanna’s on my side.’
‘Do you love him?’
‘I will.’
Elisabeth pondered Rachel’s certainty, which was so like Karen’s. They didn’t flounder or agonize when it came to deciding what they wanted; they seemed to cut through all the doubt and complications.
‘Rachel? I wonder where Michael is.’
There was no answer. Vera snored. The silence stretched out. Perhaps Rachel had fallen asleep. Then suddenly she said, ‘He’s in Germany.’
‘Oh, how funny that he’s there too. I wonder if he’s anywhere near Munich, where Karen lives. He doesn’t ever write to me – not that I thought he would.’
She heard Rachel turn over and the creak of bedsprings. There was a different pause, reluctance or turning thoughts.
‘What is it, Rachel?’
‘It’s nothing.’
‘There is something. What is it?’
‘I thought Karen would have told you. They met in Paris four months ago and he went with her to Munich. I had a letter from him, not saying much. You know how Michael is.’
The German Boy Page 15