by Peggy Savage
Charlie shrugged. ‘What we’re told, I imagine.’
Rob frowned. ‘I suppose we’d all have to join up.’ His voice was quiet, self-deprecating, disappointed. ‘I don’t know what I’d do, with my eyesight.’
‘I’m sure they’d find you something,’ Charlie said. ‘You’re clever. You’ve got a scientific mind. We’d need brains as well as brawn.’ Hitler, he thought, doesn’t want his soldiers intelligent – he wants them brutal. But we’d need brains. Brains always won in the end. Britain had always had brains, always been inventive, ever since the steam engine. Surely they would come up with something…?
The atmosphere seemed to darken. Tessa looked at the boys. As she watched, something seemed to pass amongst them, a thought, a stillness. They sat in silence, unmoving, but slowly a hardness crept into their faces, and a kind of resolution, lips pressed together, jaws clenched. Each of them seemed to change before her eyes, to grow, to age. They didn’t move, but they seemed to join closer together in some kind of unspoken connection – a male connection, unavailable to the girls. Then they glanced at each other and the moment passed. They dived into the pool and raced up and down its length, laughing and splashing.
On the way home Tessa said, ‘You didn’t say much to me about Berlin. You just said it was fun, boating on a lake and going to a nightclub. You didn’t say anything much about all the rest.’ Charlie shrugged. ‘You won’t upset me, you know,’ she went on. ‘I’m not frightened of it. Well, not more than anyone else.’
‘I didn’t want to say anything to you, or especially Mum,’ he said. ‘It’s only my impressions, after all.’ He thought for a moment. ‘They seem to be thriving, getting the country together, but there’s something wrong with it, Tessa. Something bad. You can’t speak your mind, you can’t criticize your own government, or vote them out. They’re arming themselves to the teeth. It doesn’t bode well.’
They walked on. ‘What about Kurt?’ she said. ‘What does he think?’
He glanced at her quickly. ‘I don’t know really. He didn’t say. His father’s a red-hot Hitlerite, and there’s this thing about the Jews. They’re blaming everything on them – throwing them out or putting them in labour camps. They’re all terrified. I don’t think Kurt likes it, but he’ll have to do what he’s told. They don’t stand for any opposition.’
‘We’d be on opposite sides.’
‘I know.’ He glanced at her again. ‘Did he ever say anything to you? Did he ever say that he liked you?’
She coloured a little. ‘No, but I sometimes wondered.’
‘Did you like him?’
‘Charlie,’ she said, exasperated, ‘I’ve got six years of training ahead of me. I’m not remotely interested in anything else.’
‘Just as well,’ he said.
August drifted into September, and still the country held its breath. Pickfords came to take the twins’ trunks to Cambridge and Amy watched them go, feeling bereft. They had to leave home sometime, she knew that, but now there was so much danger, so much rumour of war, she begrudged every day that they would be away from her.
She went to visit her father. She took a train to Bromley and walked down the familiar streets of her childhood and into the house where she had been born.
Her father came out of the sitting room and held out his arms. ‘Lovely to see you, my dear.’
She kissed his cheek, the skin thin and soft. He looked well, she thought, still sprightly, doing well for his seventies. ‘Are you well, dear?’ she said. ‘No problems?’
‘I’m fine. Mrs Jones is still looking after me – feeding me up.’
They sat down in the sitting room that she remembered so well. It had never changed, still had the Victorian air that her mother had left behind.
‘How’s Dan?’ he said, ‘and the twins?’
‘Very well. Looking forward to Cambridge.’
‘Fancy them both going,’ he said, ‘and Tessa doing medicine. Family tradition now for the girls.’ He smiled, a dozen little wrinkles gathering around his eyes. ‘I suppose things are a bit easier for girls now – not quite such a struggle as it was for you.’
‘And for you,’ she said. ‘I know what sacrifices you had to make.’
‘I was glad to do it,’ he said. ‘You know that.’
‘It’s still a fight,’ she said. ‘Cambridge still won’t give women proper degrees. They do all the work and the exams and then get something called a titular degree. Other universities accept the girls as proper undergraduates. I don’t know why Cambridge is still holding out.’
‘At least she’s there,’ he said.
Amy had a sudden memory of her patient, Mrs Lewis, and her little girl – Sara, was it? That little girl, obviously intelligent and studying hard and mad keen to do medicine, and hardly any chance at all. Tessa was lucky.
Her father took her hand. ‘What’s happening, Amy? What’s going on in the world? What does Dan think?’
‘He thinks nobody really knows. It all seems to depend on what Germany does.’
‘Once again,’ he said.
She looked around the room that held all the memories of her growing up with her father, after her mother died. It had been her home until she married Dan. But she had not been here during the Great War. She had been in France, in all that horror and pain.
She felt a sudden chill. There were ghosts here still. She thought they had gone to their rest, but they were re-emerging now, whispering and beckoning, ghosts of those dreadful years of the war, of 1914. There were ghosts of the people she had loved and lost in France, of the tears she had shed on her father’s shoulder, tears for all the suffering and the dead. She took her father’s hand.
‘How can anyone even think of it?’ he said.
She looked at him dumbly, for a moment unable to speak. She could see her memories reflected in his eyes.
She pressed his hand. ‘It’ll be all right; we just have to hope for the best.’
‘You could leave London,’ he said. ‘You could come here. London would be the first place they’d attack. Sometimes I wonder whether the aeroplane should ever have been invented. It seemed such a wonderful thing at the time. We didn’t know they would be used for this.’
‘Let’s just wait and see, shall we?’
They had tea together, then she travelled home again. Where would anyone be safe? Her father in Bromley; her own family in Holland Park? There was no hiding-place now. Perhaps her father should stay in Kent if war happened. He’d probably be safer there than in London.
She ran her usual clinics. Mrs Lewis came again.
‘Doctor,’ she said, ‘Do you remember that I told you that I have a little girl, Sara? She wants to be a doctor.’
Amy nodded. ‘Yes, of course.’
‘I don’t really like to ask….’
‘What, Mrs Lewis?’
‘Sara wonders if you have any old medical books that you don’t want. She’s mad keen. Only anything that you’d throw away.’
‘Well yes, I have. I’ve an old Gray’s Anatomy that she can have. It’s falling to bits, but I think it’s still readable. I’ll bring it in next time I come and you can pick it up.’
‘Thank you so much. She’ll be thrilled to bits.’ She hesitated. ‘My husband says it’s pie in the sky. Do you think I should put her off? My husband says it’s impossible and it’s not right to encourage her because she’ll only be disappointed. I don’t know what to do for the best.’
Amy felt her emotions rise, rebellion, fury, the memory of her own difficulties in the past, just because she was a woman. To be bright and eager and then disadvantaged by being a woman was bad enough. To be held back by poverty and class was just as bad. There should be a way for the country to use these bright young minds. ‘I don’t think any child should be discouraged,’ she said. ‘We don’t know what’s going to happen, do we? Let her study, Mrs Lewis. Let her at least try. If I find any other books I’ll bring them in.’
After Mrs Lewis had gone
she sat for a moment, reflecting. They hadn’t had much, but somehow her father had raised the money for her training. He was like Mrs Lewis – determined that his only daughter should achieve her ambition. Nothing would have put her off doing medicine. Perhaps things would change, the slums, poverty, wasted lives. Things must change. No one knew what was going to happen. The future was another country.
She and Dan had dinner alone as the twins were off somewhere with their friends. ‘I saw a woman today in the clinic,’ she said, ‘a really nice woman. Her husband works in a furniture factory. Working class, whatever that may mean. Her little girl wants to be a doctor. She asked me if she should tell her to forget it; there’s no possibility that they could afford it. I told her to let her try. What do you think?’
‘I agree with you,’ he said. ‘Let her try, let her have her dreams.’ He pushed away his plate. ‘I sometimes feel as if something or someone is stirring the whole damn world around like a great big mess in a great big pot and nobody knows what’s going to come out at the end of the chaos. God knows, it might even be better. The little girl might get her chance….’ He didn’t finish the sentence. She looked at his face, serious, grim. He wouldn’t voice the alternative.
After dinner she and Dan listened to a concert on the wireless, Beethoven’s late quartets. Between items the concert was interrupted by the soothing voice of the announcer. They both unconsciously sat up straighter. What now? The announcer read the latest, urgent news. Mr Chamberlain, the Prime Minister, and Monsieur Daladier, the French Prime Minister, were going to Germany again to discuss the situation in Europe. Herr Hitler had also invited Signor Mussolini.
‘Oh Dan!’ Amy took his hand. ‘At last. Surely they’ll come to some kind of agreement.’
He squeezed her hand, his face solemn. ‘I hope so.’
‘You don’t sound convinced.’
He got up and stood beside the fireplace, looking into the fire, now burning low. ‘What about Austria and Czechoslovakia? I don’t know what use treaties are. Hitler seems to think he can ignore them whenever he likes.’
She began to feel cold. The evening was chill after the warm day, but she knew that the chill was more than that. It came from within her. ‘You’re still worried, aren’t you?’
‘We wouldn’t be ready, Amy,’ he said, ‘any more than we were last time. Do you know what the Germans have been doing? They were forbidden to train an air force after the war, so they’ve been training glider pilots – just for sport, they say. So now they’ve got hundreds of trained young pilots and all they have to do is convert them to powered aircraft. We haven’t got anything like the number. Mr Churchill’s been warning about it for months.’
Tears sprang into her eyes. ‘I don’t think I can bear it again, Dan.’ Dreadful images of the trenches almost overwhelmed her. ‘I can’t bear to think of Charlie.…’
He sat beside her and put his arm around her. ‘He’ll be all right,’ he said, but his voice was grim. ‘He’ll be all right. Nothing has happened.’ He pulled her towards him. ‘Are they ready to go? Got their clothes and books and what have you?’
She took a deep breath, trying to wipe the images from her mind. ‘Yes. I’ve been sewing nametapes on for ages. The house is going to be very quiet.’
‘They’ll be home for the holidays, and they’re only in Cambridge. It isn’t far away.’
She couldn’t stop her thoughts. ‘Has Charlie ever talked to you about the war?’
‘Not really,’ he said. ‘Even if he did, how could one ever describe it? Why would one want to?’
‘He told Tessa that he doesn’t want to kill people.’
‘No sane person wants to kill people,’ he said, ‘except, perhaps, for the Germans bombing Guernica. That was utterly brutal, unnecessary killing.’
‘And the Spanish,’ she said, ‘and the Italians and the Japanese. There’s killing going on all over the world. How can they do it?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I’ve never been in that position. But I know one thing – if an enemy soldier had ever come anywhere near you in France I’d have put a bullet in his brain without thinking twice. It’s in all of us, I suppose, to defend your own.’
‘I hope to God he never has to.’
‘So do I.’ He held her close and kissed her hair. ‘You mustn’t worry so much.’
The day after was strange, an atmosphere everywhere of tension, and of hope. Mr Chamberlain was in Munich, talking to Herr Hitler. It seemed like the last chance.
‘I hope Mr Chamberlain gets it right.’ Amy said. ‘What a dreadful responsibility. Everything depends on him.’
‘I hope he kicks Hitler’s behind,’ Dan said sourly.
Next day Dan came home early. He was home when Amy came back from her evening surgery. He met her in the hall, holding up an evening newspaper. ‘Look, Amy. Have you seen this?’
‘Oh darling, I know,’ she said. ‘Isn’t it wonderful?’
Dan looked doubtful. ‘One can only hope so.’
The photograph of Mr Chamberlain half-filled the front page. He was smiling and holding up a piece of paper – the agreement he had signed with Herr Hitler. ‘I believe it is peace for our time,’ the headline said. Amy read the article, her eyes shining. Mr Chamberlain seemed to have pulled it off – no war. He had appeared on the balcony at Buckingham Palace with the King and Queen, to almost hysterical, cheering crowds. That night Amy slept without moving or dreaming. The dreadful nightmares didn’t come. She woke refreshed and relieved.
It didn’t last. That evening Dan was sombre and quiet again.
‘What’s happening now?’ Amy said at dinner. ‘What’s this in the evening paper?’
‘The Germans are going into Czechoslovakia tomorrow,’ Dan said, ‘taking the Sudetenland. That’s just about half the country.’
Amy was shocked. ‘Why? I thought we’d made an agreement.’
Dan looked grim. ‘That, apparently, was part of the agreement. It’s a disgrace. We’ve thrown the Czechs to the wolves. I only hope it was worth it.’
Chapter Four
1938
Sara sat beside her mother on the bus on the way to her first day at school. She was, with a little self-conscious pride, wearing her new uniform, blue dress, blue blazer, hat with a yellow hatband, and carrying her new leather satchel. The only things that were not new were her shoes, and her mother had polished those to a high shine. She glanced at her mother from time to time and Nora gave her a bright smile in reply. She was wearing, Sara noticed, her best suit and a hat with a little feather in it – dressed up for the occasion.
‘Are you all right?’ Nora asked.
‘Yes,’ Sara said. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Not nervous?’
‘No.’ Her mother looked nervous, she thought. Maybe she was herself, a little bit. She wondered how clever the other girls would be. It was a different sort of school altogether, girls who had all been clever enough to pass the exam. Where would she fit in? Would she be able to keep up?
They had both been to the school before, when Sara had been interviewed by Miss Jenkins, the headmistress. The headmistress was tall and thin and spoke a bit like the announcers on the wireless – what Dad called a plummy accent. Her mum’s voice had changed a bit when she spoke to the headmistress, got a bit more careful, not like she talked at home. Her dad didn’t seem to care, but her mum had changed the way she spoke since they came to London. She said parth instead of path and barth instead of bath, and she was getting Sara to do the same. She seemed to think it was important.
She had other things to think about. Inside her satchel were her new books, the ones they’d had to go to a special shop to buy: Maths and French and Latin. She stroked the smooth leather of the satchel. She seemed to see her way now as down a long, clear road. She didn’t see any obstacles. If she worked hard enough she would get there. Surely, if you worked very, very hard, and wanted something very, very much, it could happen? She had a simple belief that she could do
anything.
Her mother took her in through the gates. The school yard was thronged with girls in blue and some of the younger ones had their mothers with them. None of the other mothers seemed to be as smartly dressed as hers, Sara thought. They were just in cotton dresses and a cardigan and no hat. She saw her mother looking at them.
They went into the entrance hall. A teacher was waiting there with a list in her hand. ‘All new girls come to me,’ she said. She already had a small group around her – several girls, all neat and wearing new clothes. She looked nice, Sara thought, nice and smiling.
‘This is Sara Lewis,’ Nora said.
The teacher smiled. ‘Just leave her here then, Mrs Lewis. Say goodbye to your mother, Sara.’
Nora looked as if she was going to kiss her cheek, Sara thought, but Nora changed her mind. ‘I’ll be here at four o’clock,’ she said. ‘Have a good time.’ She turned at the door and gave a little, nervous wave.
Sara looked around her, breathing in the atmosphere. The old building seemed to have a sense of things happening, of purpose. It had its own smell, of a nice kind of age and chalk-dust and furniture polish. A wide staircase led to the upper floors and down into the basement. She glanced around the other new girls. Were they all terribly clever? Would she be the dunce of the class? She wasn’t used to that.
Older girls stood in groups, talking and laughing, carrying lacrosse sticks and tennis rackets and satchels full of books. Some of them looked really grown up; sixth form girls, she supposed. One of them passed close by and she could smell the familiar scent of her shampoo. Her mother used it; ‘Friday night is Amami night’ was printed on the bottle. I’m here, she thought, I’m really here. They’re going to teach me everything. Excitement bubbled up and made her shiver.
They were shepherded to the locker room to leave their hats and blazers and change into their indoor shoes. She had worn hers around the house at home for a bit, partly because it gave her a secret thrill, and partly to make sure they didn’t creak or anything. Her mother’s slippers creaked – you could hear them all over the house. That would have been terribly embarrassing. Her father had hammered little metal segs into the heels of her outdoor shoes so that they wouldn’t wear out so quickly. They made a little tapping noise but she didn’t mind that; that was outside and no one would hear.