Last Train from Liguria

by Christine Dwyer Hickey

  Peter had gone off to make inquiries. When he came back he said there was no point in trying to put a telephone call through to Italy. 'Best wait till we've the boat journey behind us and we're back on home ground – eh, old girl?' he said, and promised to help her when she started to cry.

  *

  She was asleep when the train drew into Waterloo station, but knew the moment she opened her eyes, they were back in London; everyone over-dressed, in the sense of too many, rather than too lavish, clothes.

  Through the window she could see people asleep on benches or lying on coats on the ground, standing in queues at ticket windows or stuffed into doorways of waiting rooms. There were makeshift canteen counters set up by the wall; women in crossover pinnys and nets in their hair, splashing out Bovril and tea. Posters pleading for calm. And a sign that said, 'Children for Evacuation. No parents beyond this point.'

  All over the concourse, a criss-cross of movement. Sailors with duffle-bags, young men in new khaki. Nurses in navy-blue cloaks. Women dragging children behind them. In the middle of it all, one old lady, muffled up to the ears in fur, stood like a stem to the current.

  Bella stepped down from the train, into a clamour of English voices that seemed, to her ear, jagged, ugly and utterly foreign.

  By the time they came through the station it was almost morning. Peter went off to try for a taxi, Audrey to the lavatory to freshen up. Bella waited with Dolores on the corner, the Moses basket weighed between them. Dolores pressed a piece of paper into her hand with her address in Dublin on it. 'In case,' she said. 'Just in case.'

  In silence they watched the evacuee children arrive. Poor children on foot accompanied by overly chirpy mothers pushing prams full of luggage. Across the street, children of substance popped down from coach buses, one neat small suitcase each and one tweed-suited teacher per orderly queue, calling out names from a roll book while keen hand after keen hand shot up in response. Girls in felt hats and double-breasted coats. Boys – she tried not to notice. Although one or two strays managed to slip into her view just long enough to show a belted gabardine, and a cap moulded into the perfect shape of a young boy's head.

  'Rich or poor it makes no difference,' Dolores remarked. 'They either cry or they don't – did you notice that?' And Bella said no, she had not.

  In the taxi she suddenly decided she couldn't go to Chelsea, couldn't face all the questions, the fuss. Even if her father had already left for the country, she still couldn't bear to face the empty house with Mrs Jenkins' 'tasteful stamp' all over it.

  'What day is this?' she asked, all innocence.

  'It's Wednesday – isn't it? The twenty-eighth.'

  'Oh dear, I'm sorry, I just wasn't thinking. You see, the thing is, my father works in a hospital in Birmingham on Tuesday and Wednesday, he won't be home until tomorrow night. I had forgotten all about it.'

  'But didn't you say you had a stepmother or something?' Audrey asked.

  'Yes, but she always goes with him and I'm afraid I don't have a key.'

  'You mean, there's absolutely nobody there? You don't have a maid?' Audrey sounded worried.

  'Yes, but she's a daily. Today's her day off.'

  'Oh. Couldn't we just go to her house and fetch the key?'

  'She'd be asleep, I couldn't disturb her at this hour.'

  'But where will you go?' Audrey, by now barely able to keep the panic from her voice.

  'A guest house or a small hotel would be perfect,' Bella said.

  And Peter said he knew just the place.

  *

  The owner of the guest house insists on liking her, lending her a pram that once belonged to her granddaughter, and heating up a bottle for the baby now known as Katherine.

  She says it's a pity to have overslept breakfast, though given the circumstances, quite forgivable. 'I mean, travelling all night, with a war snapping at your heels? Can't have been easy, my love.'

  Then she makes the 'breakfast girl' – who looks about seventy – go back into the kitchen just as the poor weary woman is about to put on her coat and go home. 'Tea and toast for our guest, and try to be smart about it, there's a good girl.'

  She tells Bella they had kidneys earlier, lovely and fresh, 'All gone now, what a shame.' And Bella feels grateful for small mercies.

  Another 'girl', named Judy, also quite elderly, is sent off to wash and polish the pram.

  The owner says her name is Mrs Mains. She calls Bella the name on the English identity papers. Then tells her all about Mr Chamberlain's speech last night.

  'Not looking good – is it now, Mrs Barrett?' she concludes. 'Not looking good at all.'

  'No, Mrs Mains,' Bella has to agree. 'It certainly is not.'

  'Here, why not let me give the little one her bottle whilst you have your tea?'

  'Well, if you're sure you don't mind?'

  Mrs Mains feeds the baby, and at the same mildly interrogates Bella, who in turn watches and learns from Mrs Main's baby-feeding technique, while at the same time tries to remember the advice Peter had given her in the early hours of this morning. Bella was not, at any rate, to mention Italy. Terra Non Grata, Peter had called it. 'Best not tell anyone, really, until we know the lie of the land. I'll think of something for Mainsy. You just rub along with it.'

  'And Peter was saying your hubby's still in Paris?' Mrs Mains begins.

  'Yes, that's right, he sent us on ahead of him, wants us to be safe, you know, just in case.'

  'Course he does, my love. You'll be missing him, I daresay. And Peter was saying he works in the embassy?'

  'That's right.'

  'Oh now! A clerk he was saying?'

  'Mmm.'

  'Oh well. At least you've got your lovely little bay-bee, eh? Let's be thankful for that much anyway. I don't know when we last had a kiddie in this house. And we must look after her for her da-ddee now, we must keep her safe at all costs. Gas masks first and foremost. Well, the embassy – I am honoured.'

  'He's just a clerk, really.'

  'Oh, we get chaps from the civil service here all the time, the bowler brigade, I call them. The foreign office too on occasion. But it's not the same – is it? The French embassy. And in Paris. Well, now.'

  A short while later Bella blunders the pram down the garden path, aware of how clumsy she must seem. The wheels lodge into the cracks in the paving, the carriage of the pram jams in the garden gate and Mrs Mains stands watching from the steps of the house.

  'All right, my dear?'

  'Yes. It's just a little different to the one I'm used to,' Bella says, no longer surprised at how the lies just seem to fall out of her mouth.

  She turns onto the Bayswater Road. The streets muddled with people and traffic. It's a London she doesn't quite recognize. Everywhere sandbags. Men dragging them off the back of lorries; horses pulling them along on carts; people moulding them into walls of buildings and around the plinths of monuments. Another truckload staggers around another corner. As if the whole of London is to be upholstered by nightfall.

  Bella tightens her grip on the handlebar; her knuckles white and hard as pebbles – no matter how much she squeezes, the shake remains in her hands. She glances at the stranger in the pram and dismisses the urge to abandon it.

  Through Lancaster Gate. Into Hyde Park, a hefty draught of horse manure. She pulls in behind a group, pram-pushers and pedestrians already paused to give way to the Ladies Riding Club hack.

  In front of her two nannies chatter: 'All little chaps, don't you see? Hitler, five six if that. Musso five nothing, and as for that Italian king, well, they say he's a midget!'

  'Do you mean a proper midget? Like in a circus and that?'

  'Oh yes, just so.'

  'Trying to prove themselves – if you ask me, and I—'

  The thuds and snorts of the passing horses beat the rest of her comments into submission.

  Bella follows behind the two nannies, drawn by the solid shape of them, their sense of purpose, the sure way they handle their prams. On
North Carriage Drive they are joined by another.

  Over the treetops, out on the street, workmen crawl along rooftops. A constant sound of tapping hammers from the direction of Park Lane. She sees sheets of galvanized iron edging over the upper windows of hotels and houses. Through trees, the red smear of a passing bus.

  There's a brief worry that someone might look down from a top deck and know her. If not here in the park, then later on, out in the street. She is only beginning to realize now how close she is to Chelsea and the hospital where her father still occasionally works. And she is not sure if she wants to be seen just yet – if at all. But then who would know her in this cream, French-cut coat and these Italian shoes? And who would ever place her behind a pram? Her own father wouldn't think to look twice, not that he would still be in London with all this going on.

  She looks down at her clothes, resolves to buy something more English first chance she gets. Blend, she thinks, blend.

  Bella steps up closer behind the drably dressed nannies, but finds after all that this makes her more obvious, not less. She breaks away.

  All over the park lawns are being carved into trenches; mounds of yellowish earth along the rims. A head pops up out of the ground, then a spade. Along the lines it makes a pattern: head, then spade. Head, then spade. The bite of shovel and pick.

  Just off the path, a congregation of onlookers. A glint of silver against the mass of dark greenery. Bella moves closer, finds a viewpoint between the shoulders of two men and watches an anti-aircraft gun swing into position. On Speakers' Corner voices are howling, one more hysterical than the next.

  *

  She doesn't recognize Peter at first and wonders why this man in a bowler hat and pinstripes should be standing grinning at her. He looks younger in his old man's attire, almost clownish.

  He tells her he's very pleased to see her and asks how she's getting along with Mrs Mains.

  'Oh, very well, she couldn't be nicer. In fact I'm thinking of staying on a bit longer. I didn't like to say in front of everyone but you know, my father will have already gone to the country to his new wife's family and I don't really, you know…'

  'No need to explain. Stay as long as you like, until you know what's what, that's my advice. She's not a bad old bird, Mrs Mains. Keeps a good house, I'm told.'

  She asks him how Audrey is feeling after the long journey.

  'Oh, you know.' He smiles and grimaces childishly, like she's his teacher and not his wife. 'Bit peeved at my going back to work so soon, but I thought, well, everybody's got to do their bit, you know. She wanted to complete the honeymoon by going on outings. I mean – outings! What did you have in mind, I said to her – filling gunnysacks with sand in Whitby Bay? Anyway, we've had the most frightful row.'

  He walks slightly ahead, talking back to her, one hand on the hood of the pram. Whenever they have to cross a road, he comes back to the handle and guides it over.

  'Now – it goes without saying, Mrs Barrett, that you will be listened in on, so I'll just run through a few guidelines to avoid your being disconnected. Thankfully this person you are telephoning speaks English, because any spouting off in a foreign language and chop-chop, I'm afraid. Please don't use any foreign-sounding names and try to make your questions as ordinary as possible. I suggest you make out that you're calling your mother who is on holiday. Obviously you are going to have to get your meaning across, just be careful of how you do it. I'm sure I don't need to tell you this is a very great favour. And a once-off. Also, I shan't be able to stay with you. Oh, and you will have no more than a minute or two. We are this close to war you know.'

  'Yes, Peter, I understand. Thank you, I can't tell you—'

  'Oh well, never mind all that,' he says, bringing her in through a gate marked 'Deliveries' and crossing a yard to an office building with steps to a steel door. He comes round to take over the pram, hauling it up the steps.

  'A chap called Fred will take care of you. He's sneaking you in. Now he's going to stay in the room so be warned, if you say anything even vaguely incriminating he'll cut you off to save his own skin.' He opens the door and reverses the pram into a hallway.

  'You're quite the expert with that thing,' Bella remarks.

  'Oh yes! Tell the truth, Audrey is not my first. Third, in fact. I'm an old hand really. One child first time around. Two the next. Some people never learn, what?'

  He waits for a moment, then lowers his voice. 'Now. I've already slipped a ten bobber to our friend, so don't you go giving him any more. Please – it was my pleasure.' He blocks her hand when it reaches for her handbag. 'Ah, there he is now, the shifty little bugger. Well, good luck, Mrs Barrett. I really hope everything works out.'

  'Thank you, Peter, and please give Audrey my regards.'

  'I will,' he says and grimaces again.

  *

  She can hardly hear Elida, her voice so frail and tight from trying to hold back the tears. Bella decides to jump straight in, and hopefully give Elida a chance to catch on.

  'Mother! How lovely to talk to you. How's the holiday going? Hope it's not too warm for you. Oh, your poor throat still sore then? Never mind, don't speak. So how are the boys? Are they back from Monday's fishing trip yet? You'll never guess who we met on the train? That piano chap, can't think of his name, anyway he's gone fishing too. Isn't that nice? So they're still out then?'

  'Nobody is here, no,' Elida cautiously croaks.

  'Oh, Mother – what a pity about your not being well, you should stay in the good weather as long as you can – promise me now? Don't go anywhere until you're well again. And what about that aunt of mine – I suppose she's out shopping as usual. Has she even telephoned to say what time she'll be back for lunch? No? Now let's see what news this end… Oh yes, that nice friend of Ursula's said he might be in touch. Such an interesting man. Do you know the one I mean? He works with her. Tall, handsome, dark; all that. We have friends in common you know – did he call at all looking for me?'

  'Yes. This morning.'

  'Lovely! Did he mention if he'd news of any of the old gang?'

  'He has no news but hopes soon.'

  'Oh, ask him to drop me a line sometime, would you? I'd love to hear from him. No, I'm not staying at home – the builders are in. I'm with a friend.'

  Fred looks up from the racing page of his newspaper, catches her eye and taps his watch.

  'Well, Mother, I must go. I'm off now to the post office in Portman Square – I said the P-O-R-T-M-A-N – to fetch letters for that nice lady I'm helping out. Ursula introduced us, yes, she's English all right. From Bournemouth, I believe. Has a little baby girl – ask Ursula, she'll tell you all about it. Hasn't made up her mind to come or to go, so for the moment her letters go to the Portman Square. By the way, that little parcel I left? Don't give it to Ursula after all but put it away safe for me somewhere, would you? Until I decide what to do. I'm afraid those children of hers will get their hands on it and you know what they're like!'

  Fred has folded his newspaper under his arm and is rapping his knuckles on the desk now.

  'Yes, darling, I've got to go now. Yes, I have to really. You take care and tell that family of mine I miss them and to write. I'll try again soon. I'm thinking of you always. I'll see you very, very soon.'

  She puts down the phone on Elida's sobs.

  Fred waits a few seconds and says, 'Look, I'm really going to have to ask you to go. I'm sorry but… I really am.'

  'Yes. Yes. Just give me a minute – would you? I'm afraid I'm not feeling all that well.'

  Bella wipes her eyes and goes to her bag. She takes out a ten-shilling note. 'I wonder. I wonder if you'd mind, I mean, if I could ask you to take the pram back down the steps for me?'

  Fred takes the note and does as she asks.

  *

  When she gets back to the guest house she tells Mrs Mains she has a headache.

  'Exhaustion, my love. Everything's catching up on you, I shouldn't wonder.'

  She wears herself out, al
l that afternoon and well into the night, her ribs ache and the walls of her throat swell up from the strain of crying. Even after it seems there's not a drop of water left in her body, it jolts on regardless, for another hour or so, like a car that's run out of petrol.

  The following evening Mrs Mains invites her into the private parlour for a listen to the wireless. They drink cocoa. Mrs Mains knits and prattles away. Bella nods, occasionally mutters something agreeable while desperately trying to hear what the radio broadcast is saying. Mrs Mains talks like someone who, despite long periods of practice, is still not used to living alone and can't help but take full advantage of a new pair of ears. Bella tries not to scream.

  It's probably one of the most important items Bella has ever heard come out of a radio, Chamberlain returning from Munich saying there won't be a war after all. Yet the news has to weave through and duck under Mrs Mains' anecdotes and opinions in general.

  Sometimes the voices appear to mingle. So that it seems as if Mr Chamberlain has a daughter out in Australia named Alice, and it's Mrs Mains who has just come back from Munich.

  'Peace for our time,' she hears the man on the broadcast say.

  'Peace for our time,' Mrs Mains repeats with a sigh. 'Well, let's see how long that lasts!'

  'You think not?'

  'I tell you what I think, I think that Chamberlain is a right doormat, is what. They ought to have sent that Anthony Eden, he's man enough for the job.'

  'At least there won't be a war.'

  'Oh, I don't know. Call me gloomy but. We've got a right few Jewish refugees come in lately – you must have noticed, dear, London's crawling with them. More coming in every day. The landlady of the Avon guest house down the road was telling me only yesterday that her house is jammers with them. Some of the stories! Germans, Austrians, Hungarians, all sorts, she's got a few Eyetalians coming in the next few weeks, Frenchies too. Well, it can't go on. It can't really. Someone will have to put a stop to that Hitler.'

  'You're not hopeful then?'

  'The government's been expecting it all along. No reason to stop expecting it now.' She puts down her knitting and leans towards Bella. 'Put it this way, Mrs Barrett, did you never wonder how so many gas masks should be ready so quickly? I mean thousands and thousands?'