Last Train from Liguria

by Christine Dwyer Hickey

  'Well, I suppose.'

  'It's the interval, darling, that's all. We can't see it, but everything is still going on behind the curtains. They'll come up again, soon as we're ready. Anyway, what was I saying?'

  What she was saying was that Alice had married beneath her.

  'Oh yes. Unlike her mum, who went up – I did. I make no bones about it. Hence this lovely house, long may it stand. And I've made a fair living out of it, in its time. Though I don't stretch myself too much these days, a few lifers, as I call them, the occasional pass-through that Peter might throw my way. But our Alice? She's got nothing to fall back on. Someone who works on a ranch is what she's got. A cowboy or whatever they call the Australian equivalent.'

  *

  The crisis in Munich blows up, then blows over. Every day she wakes and thinks today she will go to Chelsea. She gets the baby ready, has her small breakfast and leaves the house before Mrs Mains has a chance to pounce. She walks the legs off herself, the wheels off the pram. She moves through a London where, for a few days anyhow, everything seems to be happening in reverse.

  Evacuees come out of train stations and climb back onto coach buses. In parks, scars begin to settle over refilled trenches. Sandbags, damp and fat as slugs from the rain, are removed, leaving rooftops and walls looking raw and deserted.

  She goes into one of the new American milk bars when it's time to feed the baby. Or a Lyons Corner House café whenever a nappy needs changing. For a day or two after Munich she hears strangers everywhere having the same loud, long conversations. She hears the small uncertain silences in between sentences.

  She learns how to cry in public. Looking into shop windows on Oxford Street, or standing outside picture houses studying photographic stills, or sheltering under the trees in the Strand watching the traffic and picking black taxis out of the shoal.

  Late afternoon she returns to Kensington Gardens, where she wanders around or sits on a bench staring at the dusk tighten around her. Until the all-out whistle smashes her thoughts and it's time to go back to Mrs Mains. The next morning she will think about Chelsea again. There is always something else to be done. Something more urgent. Usually something to buy, and Bella is often glad she took Mrs Cardiff's advice to change her money to sterling. She goes to Smith's to buy a book about babies; how to feed, change and wean them. Then she has to buy all the things the book tells her a well-minded baby needs. Another day is spent buying a charcoal-grey suit and black overcoat that Mrs Mains says makes her look like a widow. 'You don't want to go putting the mockers on your old man now do you, my love?'

  The day after she buys her new black coat she goes into a second-hand shop to give away her continental clothes and finds herself in a queue of refugees who are selling the coats off their backs. She tries to tell the assistant that she doesn't want any money, that she's not selling, but giving the clothes away. The stupid woman insists on bargaining anyway, speaking slowly and loudly into her face. In the end Bella just leaves, giving the bag of clothes to a little black-eyed girl who is sitting on the kerb outside the shop, waiting for her mother.

  She is frequently in queues these days, and usually surrounded by refugees. In the poste restante line or at the international telephone ex change. She probably looks like one herself by now: a furtive look over a shoulder; a face with a fading suntan; a reluctance to answer when spoken to; a jump, barely contained, if someone comes too close on the street.

  The first few times she checks for a letter she is cautious, asking only that the name Barrett be checked. Then, as it becomes more widely accepted that the war is off, and the man behind the counter grows more disinterested, she chances her other names: Magrini and Stuart. But it doesn't matter which name she gives him, he always come back empty-handed.

  Two weeks since she's arrived and there's no trouble putting a call through to Bordighera. The crisis is over, the threat of war has passed. Her heart starts to thump even before she's told which number booth she should go into. The light springs on, she pulls the door behind her, tucks the baby into her arms and picks up the receiver.

  Bella listens to the phone ringing into Villa Lami. She imagines it crashing into the silence of the hall. Spreading out to the rooms that lead off it: kitchen, pantry, dining room, cloakroom. She follows its course up the first flight of stairs, the Signora's sitting room and bedroom. Weaker on the second flight up; barely audible by the time it gets to the library, her room, Alec's. She hears it roll towards the windows and French doors in an attempt to slip through and tumble down over the terraces, into the garden. But she knows by now the windows are shuttered, the sound of the telephone is trapped inside the house, away from the garden, the street, the gate.

  'I'm sorry, madam, there's no reply from that number, try again later.'

  'Yes, thank you, I will.'

  A few days later she does it again; sits and waits and listens and follows. It's like sending her own heartbeat through the empty house.

  Mrs Mains has stopped asking questions or passing remarks, even for something as obvious as the lack of a phone call or letter from a husband in Paris. She lets it be known that Bella will always be welcome, without pinning her down to a date or a large, upfront payment. She offers to provide meals even though she doesn't normally run an 'all-in' house, but Bella says she prefers to eat out. She can't do enough when it comes to the baby; insisting the sink downstairs be used to wash out the nappies, dragging out an old ham pot to boil them in first and allowing her kitchen to be turned into a bunting of steaming nappies. She even suggests babysitting anytime Bella fancies a bit of time on her own. 'The pictures maybe or someone perhaps you might care to visit?'

  'No, thank you, Mrs Mains, I'd rather stay with the baby.'

  'Just as you please, my love.'

  She shows kindness after kindness, in return only asks for an hour or two's company in the evenings, and every day Bella dislikes her a little bit more.

  At the end of October Mrs Mains moves her to a room at the top of the house. She tells Bella it will be much better up there; what has to be endured in extra stairs will be compensated by privacy. There's even a gas ring in case she wants to make herself a cup of tea or heat little Katherine's bottle. Like her own little flat, that's what it will be. The reason she wants to move Bella is that she has decided to open her house to refugees. Mrs Mains has already had a word with her remaining long-term guests and is very glad to say they have no objections. She wants to have it all up and running by Christmas. There'll be furniture to move, partitions to put up, a temporary kitchen to allow these people to eat.

  'Not everyone can afford to nosh out every day, you know,' she says and Bella wonders if she's taking a dig at her.

  'My husband was a Jew – you didn't know that, Mrs B, did you? Oh yes. He didn't bother with all the palaver, skullcaps and synagogues and so forth, but he was a Jew just the same. Just think of it, if our Alice had married a European instead of her Australian cowboy, she could be living out there in Europe somewhere; Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Italy, even France. Anything could happen really. Her being a halfo– halfo.'

  The room at the top is a large converted attic. Four and a half flights up, its windows give over rooftops and distant black trees. It holds a double brass bed and two singles, as well as a cot. Mrs Mains says the singles will be shifted downstairs for her refugees as soon as their rooms are ready but the cot of course will do for Katherine, who will have grown out of her Moses basket before they know it. There's a bathroom next door with a geyser in good working order and a walk-in storage cupboard beside it, where, one day when Bella is out, Mrs Mains has the 'girls' move all her luggage, including the two suitcases which have remained strapped up and packed since her arrival.

  When she comes back to the house Judy is in the hallway holding her lower back like a pregnant septuagenarian and resentfully glaring.

  Bella looks out the window of her new quarters and sees brown foggy days. She sees the flutter of torchlights on street corn
ers and phantoms groping their way along by the railings. She sees skies that stay on the same low wattage all day. She feels a sun that blinds, but gives little warmth. She feels rain that seeps into her bones.

  One day in the post office the man behind the counter says, 'I think you may have struck oil today.'

  She knows his face so well by now, the spots around his mouth, the inner pink rim of his eyes. She's surprised when she hears him speak with a phlegmy Liverpool accent. This is all she can think about as he goes behind the counter and returns with an envelope – how unexpected his accent is.

  The envelope is addressed to Mrs Barrett and has been posted in London. There is nothing inside, only an address in Pimlico.

  *

  Bella knocks at a door in a cul de sac off the Pimlico Road. There's a sign in the window – 'Catholic Mission Closed Until Further Notice'. A nun comes out and helps her bring the pram into the hall, then through a side door into a dingy brown room; two kitchen chairs and one long table at the wall piled with religious pamphlets.

  The nun then invites her to sit down. 'I'd offer tea,' she continues, 'but we're all packed up – I'm off to India tomorrow, this place is to close down.'

  Bella nods.

  The nun smiles. 'Would you like to smoke? We have an ashtray.'

  'No, sister, I'm fine.'

  The nun takes the seat opposite and lays her hands on her lap. 'How is the child?' she asks.

  'Very well.'

  'You've been able to manage?'

  'Yes,' Bella says.

  'Good. Now, Mrs Barrett, the reason you are here.' The nun shuffles her seat a little closer to Bella. 'We have had word from our sister convent in Italy, have in fact been asked to pass a message to you. I'm presuming you will know and understand what it means.'

  'Yes, sister.'

  She smiles again. 'Now, it appears that the woman you work for…'

  'Signora Ta—'

  'I don't know her name and it's probably best not to tell me, after all our sisters are still in Italy and the less we know, the fewer lies we have to tell.'

  'Yes, of course,' Bella says.

  The nun resumes. 'The woman has still not been located although it is almost certain that she is in Germany.'

  'Oh. And the boy?'

  'The boy and the man were both detained. The boy is, so far as we know, in an orphanage for Jewish children.'

  Bella presses a fingernail into her wrist. 'Where?' 'It doesn't matter where – he could in any case be moved to another orphanage.'

  'Where?' she asks again.

  'Mrs Barrett, may I ask about your own papers? That is to say, your original papers?'

  'I left them in Bordighera, as I was told to do. They're to be sent to me in due course.'

  'It's just that the maid there said she couldn't find them.'

  'Oh? Well, I don't have them.'

  'You must understand there is no possible way you can return to Italy.'

  Bella nods.

  'You have committed a serious crime, travelling on false papers, taking a child from the country, not to mention money and other valuables. You will be arrested before you get down from the train. No matter which papers you use. Do I make myself clear? You will put yourself and the baby at risk. And you will also jeopardize whatever steps have already been taken to help the boy.'

  'Yes, I see, sister.'

  The nun waits for a moment. 'The man who was with you was also arrested, although we understand he is to be sent to the south of Italy where he is to be detained indefinitely.'

  'To confino?'

  'Confino – is that the name of a place?'

  'No, it's a sort of Italian exile to a remote place, usually in the south. The conditions are not – well, some say it's worse than prison.'

  'In that case, yes, it is confino. Would you like a drink of water, Mrs Barrett?'

  'No, thank you.'

  'You have a choice. You may give the baby to me and I can see that she is taken care of in one of our convents here, that is until such a time as her mother reappears. Or…'

  'Or?'

  'Are you sure I can't get you a glass of water? You're very pale.'

  'No, sister. Honestly.'

  'Or you can keep the baby, but only if you agree to go to your father's house where we can find you, when we need to do so.'

  Bella reaches out and holds the handlebar of the pram. She feels it rock and slightly squeal under her hand. 'Yes, I'll do that.'

  'Which, Mrs Barrett?'

  'I'll go to my father's house.'

  'If you're sure? It is quite a responsibility looking after someone else's child.'

  'Yes, I am sure.'

  'Very well. I'll need your father's address, Mrs Barrett. I'm afraid we don't have it. As your employer is missing and your papers were unavailable.'

  'Of course, yes.'

  Bella stands up. 'Will he be all right?'

  'The boy?'

  'Yes. Will they take care of him?'

  'Oh, I'm sure—'

  'You see, he's very, he's a little nervous, not too good with strangers and—'

  'I'm sure they'll treat him kindly, Mrs Barrett.'

  'Thank you, sister.'

  'The address, Mrs Barrett? Your father's address?'

  'Oh goodness, yes of course. I'm sorry.'

  The nun puts a piece of paper and a pen on the table. Bella notices then the red crescent mark from her fingernail is embedded into her wrist. Yet her hand as she writes is rock steady. She is careful not to hesitate, not even for a second.

  'There you are, sister,' she says, holding out the paper.

  The nun smiles and accepts the false address.

  *

  In a downstairs room Gracie Fields is yelling out of a radio. From the house next door comes the yap of a highly strung dog. Bella stands at the window in her room, breathless from her journey up the stairs; the weight of the baby in her arms, and the weight of fear in her chest. And she hears that too: her breath, the dog, Gracie Fields, her fear, louder and louder.

  Soon the baby will wake. Gradually Bella calms herself, turns from the window and washes her face. She lays the baby on a towel on the bed and opens the nappy to a sharp, warm smell of ammonia. The skin on the scrawny little backside is raw. Bella folds the nappy into itself and puts it in a basin on the floor. Then she opens the baby book and begins to follow step-by-step instructions: washing, drying, plastering with cream, squirting clumsy puffs of talcum powder on what is referred to as 'the area'.

  Intent on this task she doesn't notice the baby has woken until she happens to glance up and find her little eyes watching her.

  'What?' she says. 'What are you looking at?'

  At the sound of her voice the baby begins kicking her arms and legs. At first she moves slowly; deep, concentrated movements. The longer Bella looks at her the more force and speed she uses, until it looks as if she's running for her life.

  Bella holds one tiny foot in the palm of her hand, feels it push and push again. For the first time she really looks at this baby: Alec's half-sister, the Signora's daughter. This Italian, half-Jewish child lying on the bed watching her.

  Bella stands up and goes to the mirror. Her skin, tinged a slight yellow, almost back to its old pasty self. She sees her father's green eyes in a face that might have been pretty but somehow never quite was. It's her mother's face now: thin, hard, worried. It shows every day of its thirty-seven years, and perhaps a deal more.

  'I will never be married,' she says to it. 'I will never have my own child.'

  Behind her, through the mirror, the baby croons away to herself, still joyously waving her arms and legs.

  Bella goes back to the child, dresses, reswaddles her, leaving the hands free, before putting her into the big bed. She tidies everything away, washes her hands, then gets in beside the baby. She knows now if she goes home to Chelsea her father will make her do the right thing, give up this baby. And even if he can be persuaded to let the baby stay on, one day a knoc
k will come on the door. And even if it doesn't, she will always, always be waiting.

  There is a winter chill in the darkening room, the coils on the electric fire beam orange onto the rug. Outside on the street she can hear the giddy chatter of trainee typists coming from the Pitman's college down the road. Further out is the purr of traffic on the Bayswater Road. A gate clicks out on the street.

  When she looks down again the child is sucking the thumb of one hand, and has laid the other hand on Bella's shoulder. A baby gesture that means nothing, but there is something companionable about it, something reassuring and comical.

  'Oh, Katherine,' Bella says, and kisses her on the forehead.

  A few seconds later, the baby is asleep.

  It grows dark and Bella gets up and puts on the light. She goes out to the landing, pulls all the luggage from the walk-in cupboard, hauls the two full suitcases up onto one of the single beds, unstraps them, then pushes their lids back.

  The first sight comes as a shock: seaside stripes, Alec's bent plimsoles, his brand new tennis sweater still wrapped in tissue with the name of the shop, Farini di Bordighera, printed on it. Bella snaps the lid down and has to sit for a few moments on the corner of the bed with her back to the suitcases. Her mind is dazzled with grief. She waits for a while, then gets up and empties both cases.

  Now she is moving. Deciding what can and cannot be taken as she goes along, she hears her voice say, 'Yes. No. Yes. No. No. No. Yes.' Two separate piles begin to grow. Whenever she comes across a money-tuck she puts it on the double bed beside the baby. She doesn't stop until the larger of the suitcases is refilled, restrapped and dragged back out to the cupboard.

  She comes back to the room and sees, behind a hedge of money-tucks, the shape of the sleeping baby.

  Much later, after Katherine has woken again, been fed and put down for the night. After she has spent her hour with Mrs Mains, told her she has decided to go home to Bournemouth and asked for permission to leave one of the suitcases for a more convenient time. After she has said her goodbyes, drunk her cocoa, said her goodbyes again – she comes back to the attic room and opens Edward's knapsack.