The Shell Seekers

by Rosamunde Pilcher

  The journey seemed to take forever. The train was icy cold, there was no restaurant car, and at Plymouth they were joined by a draft of sailors, who piled in until the carriages were packed tight, and the corridors filled with kitbags and smoking seamen and card games. Penelope found herself jammed into her corner seat by a young boy, stiff and uncomfortable in his brand-new uniform, and when the train started up again, he promptly fell asleep with his head on her shoulder. Darkness fell early, and after that you couldn’t even read by the meagre, dimmed lights. To make everything worse, they were held up at Reading and finally drew into Paddington three hours late.

  London, blacked out, was a mystery city. They managed, by great good chance, to find a taxi, which they shared with a couple of strangers heading in the same direction. The taxi chuntered down the dark, semi-deserted streets, and the rain poured down and it was still piercingly cold. Penelope’s heart sank. Home-coming had never been like this.

  But Elizabeth, warned, was ready for them, and listening for the arrival of the taxi. As they paid this off, and felt their way down the ink-dark-area steps to their own basement front door, it was flung open and they were bustled inside before any illegal gleam of light could penetrate the black-out.

  “Oh, my poor things, I thought you were never coming. You’re so dreadfully late.”

  It was a great reunion, with hugs and kisses, and explanations, and descriptions of the dreadful journey, and finally much laughter, because it was such a relief to be at last out of the cold and the darkness and the train, and home.

  The big, familiar room stretched the depth of the house. The street end was the kitchen-dining room, the garden end the sitting room. Now, it was bright with light, for Elizabeth had tacked blankets at the windows in lieu of black-out curtains, and she had lighted the stove; a pot of chicken soup simmered, and the kettle sang. Sophie and Penelope took off their coats and warmed their hands, and Elizabeth made a pot of tea and a stack of hot cinnamon toast. Before long, they were sitting at the table, just as they always had, eating the impromptu snack (Penelope was starving) and all talking at once, exchanging months’ worth of news. Depression lifted and the tedious train journey became a thing of the past and was forgotten.

  “And how is my darling Lawrence?”

  “Marvellously well, but worried about his Shell Seekers, in case the house gets bombed and the picture destroyed. That’s one of the reasons we’re here, to have it crated up and take it back to Cornwall with us.” Sophie laughed. “He doesn’t seem to be bothered about the rest of his possessions.”

  “And who is taking care of him?” She was told about Doris. “Evacuees! Oh, my poor things. What an invasion for you.” She chattered on, telling them all that had happened in the last few weeks. “I have a confession to make. The young man in the attic was called up, and moved out, and I have allowed another young couple to take his place. They are refugees from Munich. They have been in this country for a year, but had to leave their lodgings in St. John’s Wood, and could find nowhere else to live. They were desperate, so I suggested they come here. You must forgive my high-handedness, but their plight was desperate, and I know they will be good tenants.”

  “But of course. I am so glad. How sensible of you.” Sophie smiled lovingly. Elizabeth would never falter in her brave work. “What are they called?”

  “Friedmann. Willi and Lalla. I want you to meet them. They are coming down for coffee tonight, so why don’t you bring Penelope up after supper and join us? When you’ve settled yourselves in. Peter longs to see you both. And it will be good to talk. It will be like the old days.”

  As she spoke, she radiated enthusiasm, her most endearing and infectious characteristic. She never changed. Her handsome, wrinkled face was as bright-eyed and intensely intelligent as ever; her thick, wiry grey hair bundled up into a knot at the back of her head, where it teetered uncertainly, skewered by a few black hairpins. Her clothes were unfashionable and yet dateless, her swollen-knuckled hands adorned with many rings.

  “Of course we will come,” Sophie told her.

  “About nine o’clock? What a treat.”

  They went, and found the Friedmanns there before them, sitting around the glowing gas stove in the Cliffords’ old-fashioned parlour. They were very young, and very mannerly, springing to their feet in order to be introduced. But, Penelope thought, they were old, too. They had about them a sort of poverty-stricken dignity that was beyond age, and when they smiled and said hello, their smiles did not reach their eyes.

  At first all was well. A little small talk took place. They learned that Willi Friedmann, in Munich, had studied for the law, but now earned a living doing translations for a London publisher. Lalla taught music, giving piano lessons. Lalla, in her strange, pale way, was beautiful, and sat composedly, but Willi’s hands were nervous; he chain-smoked, and seemed to find it hard to be still.

  He had been in England for a year, but, covertly observing him, Penelope thought that he had the appearance of a man who had only just made it. She was filled with compassion for him, trying to imagine his life, coping as he must with the daunting prospect of making a future for himself in an alien country, bereft of his friends and colleagues, and having to earn some sort of a living in an undemanding and unfulfilling way. As well, it was likely that he was constantly devilled by the almost unbearable anxiety for a family still living in Germany. She imagined a father, a mother, brothers and sisters whose fate, even now, might well have been sealed by a midnight summons. A ring at the bell, a knocking at the door tearing the night apart, confirming the most horrible of fears.

  Presently, Elizabeth went out to her little kitchen and fetched in a tray with cups and hot coffee and a dish of biscuits. Peter brought out a bottle of Cordon Bleu cognac and tiny coloured glasses. These were dispensed. Sophie turned to Willi with her charming smile and said, “I am so pleased you have come to live here. I hope you will be very happy. I am only sorry that we shan’t be here too, but we must go back to Cornwall and look after everybody there. And we will not let the basement. If we want to come to London and see you all, it is better that we have our own rooms to stay in. But if the bombing starts, you must all be sure to use them as an air-raid shelter.”

  It was a sensible and timely suggestion. So far, there had been no more than the odd air-raid warning, to be followed, almost at once, by the all-clear. But everybody was ready. London sandbagged to the hilt, the parks dug with trenches and air-raid shelters, water tanks erected, and filled with emergency supplies. Barrage balloons floated overhead, and all across the city the anti-aircraft guns crouched, camouflaged with netting, and manned by troops who waited, minute by minute, hour by hour, week by week, for the attacks to start.

  A sensible and timely suggestion, but it had a shocking effect on Willi Friedmann.

  He said, “Yes.” He abruptly tossed his brandy down and did not demur when Peter, without saying anything, refilled his glass. Willi began to talk. He was grateful to Sophie. He was grateful to Elizabeth for all her kindness. Without Elizabeth he would be homeless. Without people like Elizabeth and Peter, he and Lalla would probably be dead. Or worse …

  Peter said, “Oh, come now, Willi,” but Willi had started and did not seem to know how to stop. He had finished his second brandy and was far enough gone to reach for the bottle and help himself to a third. Lalla sat without moving, staring at her husband with round dark eyes that were filled with horror, but she did not try to halt him.

  He talked. The flow of words became a torrent, pouring over the heads of the five mesmerized people who sat and listened to him. Penelope looked at Peter, but Peter, watchful and grave, had eyes only for the poor demented young man. Perhaps Peter knew that he needed to talk. That, sometime, it all had to spill out, and why not now, when he and his wife were warm and safe in the thickly curtained room, and with friends.

  It went on and on and he told them more—things that he had seen, things that he had heard, things that had happened to his friends
. After a bit Penelope did not want to listen, and longed to cover her ears with her hands and close her eyes and blot the blackened images away. But she listened just the same, and slowly was consumed by a horror and repugnance that had nothing to do with watching newsreels or listening to radio bulletins or reading the paper. Suddenly, it became personal, and terror breathed down the back of her own neck. Man’s inhumanity to man, unleashed, was an obscenity, and that obscenity was each person’s own private responsibility. This, then, was the meaning of the word WAR. It wasn’t just having to carry your gas mask, and do the black-out, and giggle at Miss Pawson, and paint the attic for the evacuees; but a nightmare infinitely more terrible, from which there could be no grateful awakening. It had to be endured, and this could only be done, not by running away, or putting your head under the blankets, but by picking up a sword and going to meet it.

  She didn’t have a sword, but the next morning, early, she walked out of the house, having told Sophie that she was going shopping. When she returned, just before lunch, and patently empty-handed, Sophie was puzzled.

  “But I thought you were going shopping.”

  Penelope pulled out a chair and sat in it and faced her mother over the kitchen table and told her that she had walked until she found a recruiting office, had gone inside, and signed on, for the duration of the war, with the Women’s Royal Naval Service.

  7

  ANTONIA

  The dawn came stealthily, reluctantly. Finally, she had slept again, but awoke to a darkness growing opaque, and knew that morning was on its way. It was very quiet. Cold air flowed through the open window, and, framed by the casement, the chestnut tree raised bare branches to the grey and starless sky.

  Cornwall, as it had been, still filled her mind, like a brilliant dream, but even as she lay there, the dream folded its wings and slipped away, back into the past, where, perhaps, it belonged. Ronald and Clark were little boys no longer, but grown men, gone out into the world. Their mother was not Doris Potter, but Doris Penberth, nearly seventy now, and still living in the little white house deep in the old cobbled streets of Porthkerris. Lawrence and Sophie were long gone, and the Cliffords too; and Carn Cottage was gone, and finally Oakley Street as well, which left her here, in Gloucestershire, in her own bed, in her own house, Podmore’s Thatch. She was—and this was one of the occasions when the fact took her by surprise, as though the years had encapsulated themselves and played a cruel trick upon her—not nineteen, but sixty-four. Not even middle-aged, but elderly. An elderly woman with a stupid little heart flutter that had landed her in hospital. An elderly woman with three grown-up children, and a whole new cast of characters, with their attendant problems, who now inhabited her life. Nancy, Olivia, and Noel. And, of course, Antonia Hamilton, who was arriving to stay … when was she arriving? At the end of next week? No, at the end of this week. For this was Monday. Monday morning. Mrs. Plackett came on Monday mornings, cycling from Pudley, steady as a rock on her sit-up-and-beg bicycle. And the gardener. The new gardener was starting work today, at half past eight.

  This, as nothing else could do, stirred Penelope to action. She turned on her bedside light and looked at her watch. Half past seven. It was important to be up, dressed, and about before the gardener arrived, otherwise he would imagine that he had come to labour for a lazy old woman. A lazy master makes a lazy servant. Who had come out with that archaic proverb? Her mother-in-law, of course. Dolly Keeling. Who else? She could hear her saying it, while she ran her fingers along the edge of the mantelpiece to check for dust, or stripped the sheets off her bed, in order to be sure that the long-suffering daily made it properly. Poor Dolly. She, too, had gone, keeping up appearances until the very last moment, but leaving no sense of loss behind her. Which was sad.

  Half past seven. No time to waste on memories of Dolly Keeling, whom she had never liked. Penelope got out of bed.

  An hour later, she had bathed and dressed, unlocked all the doors, and eaten her breakfast. Strong coffee, a boiled egg, toast and honey. Sitting over her second cup of coffee, she listened for the sound of an approaching car. She had not before had dealings with the Horticultural Contractors, but she knew that they sent their men out to work in smart little green vans with AUTO-GARDEN written in white capitals on their sides. She had seen them buzzing about, and very smart and efficient they looked, too. She felt a little apprehensive. She had never employed a gardener in her life, and hoped that he would be neither surly nor opinionated. She must tell him very firmly, right away, to prune nothing, to cut nothing back without her permission. She would start him off on something simple and down to earth. The hawthorn hedge at the bottom of the orchard. He could trim that down. She supposed that he was capable of using her little chain-saw. Was there enough petrol for the motor in the garage? Should she go and look, while there was still time to go and get some more?

  There was not time, for at that moment these anxious speculations were abruptly interrupted by the unexpected sound of footsteps on gravel, approaching the house. Penelope set down her coffee-cup and got to her feet, peering across the room and out of the window. She saw him, in the quiet, chill morning light, coming towards her. A tall young man in a khaki oilskin jacket and jeans tucked into black rubber boots. He was bareheaded, brown-haired. As she watched him, he stopped for an instant, looking about him, uncertain, perhaps, of his surroundings. She saw the set of his shoulders, the lift of his chin, the angle of his jaw. Yesterday, seeing her son Noel approach across the lawn, Penelope’s heart had missed a beat, and now the same scary thing happened. She laid a hand on the table, closed her eyes. She breathed deeply. Her galloping heart settled down. She opened her eyes again. The doorbell rang.

  She went through the porch to open the door. He stood there. Tall. Taller than herself. He said, “Good morning.”

  “Good morning.”

  “Mrs. Keeling?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m from Autogarden.”

  He did not smile. His eyes were unblinking, blue as chips of glass, his face thin and brown, rough with the early-morning cold, the skin drawn tight across high cheek-bones. A red woollen scarf was knotted at his throat, but his hands were bare.

  She looked beyond him, over his shoulder. “I was listening for a car.”

  “I came on my bike. Left it at the gate. I wasn’t sure if this was the house.”

  “I thought Autogarden always sent their men to work in those green vans.”

  “No. I bicycled.” Penelope frowned. He put a hand into his pocket “I’ve a letter from my boss.” He took it out, unfolded it. She saw the letter-heading, the authentication of his identity. She was instantly embarrassed. “I never thought for a moment you weren’t genuine. I just imagined…”

  “This is Podmore’s Thatch?” He put the letter back in his pocket.

  “Yes, of course it is. You’d … you’d better come in.”

  “No. I won’t disturb you. If you could just show me what you want me to do … show me where you keep the garden tools. Coming on the bike, I wasn’t able to bring any with me.”

  “Oh, never mind, I have everything.” She knew she sounded flustered, but that was because she was flustered. “If … you’ll just wait a moment. I’ll get a coat.…”

  “That’s all right.”

  She went and found her coat, and her boots, and took the garage key from its hook. Outside again, she saw that he had collected his bike from the gate, and was leaning it up against the wall of the house.

  “It won’t be in the way there, will it?”

  “No, of course not.”

  She led the way across the gravel, unlocked the garage doors. He helped her open them and she turned on the light, and there was the usual confusion; her old Volvo, the three children’s bicycles which she hadn’t the heart to throw away, a mouldering pram, the motor mowers, a selection of rakes and hoes and spades and forks.

  She edged her way through this collection, making for a decrepit chest of drawers, relic of Oakle
y Street, where she kept hammers and screwdrivers, rusty tins of nails, and odds and ends of garden twine. On top of this was the chain-saw.

  “Can you use one of these?”

  “Sure.”

  “Well, we’d better see if there’s some petrol.” There was, mercifully. Not much, but enough.

  “What I’d really like you to do is trim up my hawthorn hedge.”

  “Fine.” He shouldered the chain-saw, and took up the petrol can in his other hand. “Just point me in the right direction.”

  But she took him there, to be sure that he made no mistake, leading him around the house, across the frosty lawn, through the gap in the privet hedge, and across the orchard. The thicket of hawthorn, a tangle of thorny boughs, reared up before them. Beyond it, quietly, coldly, flowed the little river Windrush.

  “You’ve got a lovely place here,” he observed.

  “Yes. Yes, it is lovely. Now I want you to cut it down to this height. No lower.”

  “Do you want to keep any of the trimmings for firewood?”

  Penelope had not thought of this. “Is it worth keeping?”

  “Burns beautifully.”

  “All right. Keep the bits you think will be of use. And make a bonfire of the rest.”

  “Right.” He set down the saw and the petrol can. “That’s it, then.”

  His tone was dismissive, but she refused to be dismissed. “Are you here for the day?”

  “Till four-thirty, if that’s all right by you. Summer-time, I start at eight and finish at four.”

  “What about your lunch break?”

  “I take an hour. Twelve to one.”

  “Well…” She was talking to the back of his head. “If you want anything, I shall be in the house.”

  He was squatting on his haunches, unscrewing the cap of the chainsaw with a long-fingered, capable hand. He made no reply to her remark, simply nodded. She was made to feel intrusive, in the way. She turned and made her way back up the garden, a little annoyed, and yet amused at herself for being so outfaced. In the kitchen her coffee-cup, half empty, waited on the table. She took a mouthful, but it had gone cold, so she threw it down the sink.