Joy coursed through Miro in uncontrollable shudders. His relief was clearly obvious.
‘They mean a lot to you, don’t they? If you work hard, they’ll be all right. I’d say you’re one of the lucky ones. How many Yanks do you reckon are around Mowbray and Claremont? Their equipment is stowed around. For instance, you could take a square mile as an example. Easy enough on your bicycle.’
Miro listened and said nothing. If Paddy disappeared someone else would take his place and maybe his parents would suffer.
‘I get the picture. I must go. I said I was going to help a friend with his homework. My foster mother might phone them. She’s waiting up for me.’
‘Go then. I’ll be in touch.’
Drenched with remorse over his guilt and his mad jealousy, Miro retrieved his bike from the foul pillbox and set off for home. He was very aware that Paddy might embroider his story and this might have consequences, but there was no possibility that the story could lead back to Daisy. She was his guardian angel. She always had been, right from their very first glimpse of each other. He, in his half-mast trousers and shirt sleeves, red-nosed, shivering with cold, scared . . . a lost boy, had found himself gazing at a vision of loveliness and kindliness and he had loved her ever since.
The sun is shining and Dover’s legendary cliffs look dazzling white as the train approaches Dover. Passing through a narrow track between the cliffs and the sea, Miro glimpses a castle set amongst green hills and forested slopes. The train stops with a series of shudders. He and the social worker from Southampton, step on to the smoky platform. They look anxiously around and see a woman hurrying towards them. He has been told that an English woman has promised to look after him for the duration of the war, but it can’t be her. She is too lovely to be a foster mother. Miro has very firm views on foster mothers: they are middle-aged, fat and bossy, like those in the orphanage. She glances at him and then looks away, trying not to show her shock.
Miro saw his reflection in the lavatory mirror on the train – the first glimpse in months and it was a shock. He is skinny from his time in Dachau, red-eyed from weeping, with the worse haircut in the world, the work of his Gypsy supervisor and he is wearing someone else’s clothes. He hasn’t had a shower for over a week, so he probably stinks. When he breathes in, a sharp pain between his shoulder blades brings on a fit of coughing. Forlorn and wretched, he waits while the woman argues with his carer. He is convinced that she won’t take him. ‘It’s disgraceful,’ she says loudly. Miro makes a point of remembering this word so he can find out the meaning later. Finally she shrugs, takes his hand and leads him through the station to her car, a three-year-old Alfa Romeo, which impresses him. The woman is angry, he can see that.
Miro longs for his mother. By now she would have pushed him into bed and she would be fussing around with a thermometer, hot compresses and sore throat sweets, blackcurrant and eucalyptus, the kind he loves. He blinks his tears away. As they drive past small shops and wretched rows of tiny houses, he longs to be back in Prague, which is beautiful, but those days are forever gone. All he knows is that somehow he must keep alive, so he can work to protect his parents.
Soon they are in a leafy suburb, which gives way to fields with horses, cows and sheep. His foster mother speaks to him – an ongoing string of words, but he has no English so he merely shrugs. After a long drive they turn into a steep lane running between fields and woods. Right at the top is a bungalow, set in front of a wood. The woman swings into the gate and parks in the driveway.
‘Daisy, Daisy,’ she calls. A dog rushes towards them. ‘Johnny,’ she says, pointing at the dog who is leaping up and down, long ears flapping. ‘Home,’ she says, pointing at the house. ‘Daisy,’ she says, pointing at a vision of loveliness running towards him. Is she real? Her long hair floats like threads of spun silver. Her skin is tanned, eyes of deep violet are smiling at him. He feels bewitched by the warmth in her eyes and the way she takes his arm and tugs him along the driveway.
She calls to her mother and they argue, but in a friendly way. He understands that Daisy wants to take him to the stables, where he can see two horses watching them. Her mother wants him in the house. Daisy wins. He has the feeling that she always does. She shows him the garden, the fish pond, the horses and shows him how Johnny can sit or walk or come at her command. She is talking in words of one syllable as if he is an idiot. He wants to explain that he speaks Czech, German, Hebrew, Yiddish and French, but not English, but he will learn this language as fast as he possibly can. He says this to her in all five languages and she does her best to reply in her school French. Now he is excited. They can communicate. He sprawls on the grass excitedly and writes the words he wants to know in the earth in French, and in turn helps her to pronounce the French words properly.
That is how Helen finds them ten minutes later after she has called the doctor and the village chemist. They are lying full length on the grass, swopping words with the help of the flower bed. Belle? ‘Beautiful,’ she says. Cheveux? ‘Hair.’ ‘Beautiful hair,’ he manages in English, pointing at hers and she flushes and looks pleased. Helen lets them stay there until the doctor comes. A hot bath follows, medicine and a two-week stay in bed, because Miro has bronchitis. By the time he recovers, his wardrobe is full of new clothes, he has gained eight pounds in weight, he has a smattering of English, enough to get by at an English school, and Daisy’s French is vastly improved.
A car was approaching, filling the lane and driving too fast. Miro swerved to the side and thrust his feet down. Can’t they see him? They seemed to be coming right at him. He jumped up the bank into nettles, hauling his bike after him. Phew! That was a close shave. Idiots!
‘Damned Yanks,’ he said, rubbing his ankles from the stings. Dazzled by the bright lights in pitch dark it was impossible to know what kind of vehicle had driven him off the road, but then he remembered to switch on his headlight. All he knew was that the coming of the GIs had changed his life irrevocably. He and Daisy had always been inseparable. ‘But what was, was,’ Miro whispered bitterly, remembering a phrase of his mother’s.
Seven
It was a sunny, humid day, with thunder clouds on the horizon. Helen was hanging out the washing, hoping that it would not rain before she got home. She tried not to stare at the Yanks loitering on the other side of the fence, but she found them interesting. They looked so casual, shirts hanging loose, hands in pockets, slouching, but they were friendly and extroverted. What touched her the most was their youth. How could they send kids like this into battle? Some time had passed since the Yanks arrived. To Helen it seemed like weeks, but when she worked it out, it was only eight days, which surprised her.
A tempting aroma of food was drifting across the garden. It must be coming from the GIs’ kitchens. Who else could produce such tantalizing smells in wartime? She could smell bacon. Oh my God! Imagine having bacon and eggs with toast and butter – oodles of butter – and marmalade and maybe porridge to start with. And would they have fruit, too? She couldn’t stop envying them.
‘Breakfast is ready,’ Dad said from right behind her. ‘How are you doing?’
She was drooling for bacon, but she kept this to herself. ‘Famished.’ Helen hurried inside to gobble her porridge and toast. Daisy and Miro had an egg and a beef sausage each because they were growing and they needed the protein, not that there was much protein in the sausages they bought nowadays.
Helen was late for work. She rushed outside, fetched her bicycle and moments later she was cycling towards the factory at breakneck speed. All along her route tents had been erected on every grassy verge, even on circles at crossroads. Every available space was filled with tents or parked vehicles covered in tarpaulin. All the side roads that weren’t vital for motor traffic were roped off to store all kinds of war vehicles. The village green, the park, the green belts bordering the river, and the gardens in front of civic buildings were full of tents and the streets were crowded with GIs wandering around, examining the bomb damage
, going into shops and trying to make friends. Every day there seemed to be more and still more of them. She smiled to herself. Real hope was spread around her. It was the first time she had felt confident of winning the war. But what of the future?
Everything’s changing, nothing will be left of our old lives. Will we forget who we were? But who was I? Not a real wife, not since Eric was having an affair with a woman half my age and I never suspected him. I won’t be a mother for long either. Daisy will grow up and leave and Miro will go home at the end of the war. I’m thirty-seven, but I feel no different, exactly the same as I felt when Daisy was young. Do we ever get old, I wonder? Or is it our bodies that age and we, trapped inside them, have to adjust and pretend, just as we are adjusting to the war, and our losses, more each day, she told herself feverishly. But what’s all this gloom and doom, Helen? Get a grip on yourself. Be positive. You’ll find another role to play.
She stopped beside a group of GIs and said, ‘Thank you for coming.’
They looked startled and a little embarrassed. Perhaps they thought she was a bit gaga and to tell the truth she was this morning, sensing that she had reached a watershed. Soon she caught sight of the factory roof through the trees. Padlocking her bike in the shelter, she hurried inside.
The explosives factory was set at the edge of a farm near a copse and it was camouflaged with dark green and khaki stripes on the roof. Inside, the walls were whitewashed and covered with posters depicting lovely young girls with super hairdos and make-up, smiling as they did their stint for Britain’s war effort. It was half-true. The girls in her group smiled a lot and sometimes they sang and some of them were young and a few were pretty. They wore brown overalls, which disguised their figures, scarves over their heads and large goggles. Helen’s place was at the end of the work bench, beside the wall. She had been warned against this position. If there was an explosion, due to someone’s carelessness, the blast would be worse where she stood, but she enjoyed the semi-privacy and she liked her neighbour. May was a cheerful woman of forty-five who had married young and never had a job, rearing six children instead. Her husband, Reg, had owned a small haulage company, but now he was fighting in North Africa and the family was hard-up. May was a rough diamond with enough courage for three men, and a loyalty to her mates that was legendary. She was a true survivor, keeping her would-be boyfriends at arms’ length and enjoying extra meat and groceries because the shopkeepers loved her. She always had a joke to tell, and she was overly generous, sharing her largess with anyone in need.
‘I’m glad you’re OK. I was worried because you’re never late,’ May said.
‘It’s silly, I know, but I’m scared to leave before I see Daisy in case she takes off again. I dawdle a bit so we can meet at breakfast.’
‘You got your Yankee yet?’ she asked cheerily.
‘Not yet. I think they’ve forgotten us.’
‘No such luck, but perhaps he’ll be dishy.’
‘Some hopes. But we’re ready for him. I’d like to say that we gritted our teeth and got on with yet another austerity in true British style, but the truth is we bickered and fought and tried to hang on to our space. Neither of the kids wanted to relinquish their bedrooms. Daisy played the martyr. Then my father decided to quit his downstairs study with the French windows leading into the garden which, I must tell you, he loves so much, and move his desk, bookcase and clutter to his upstairs bedroom. The family is stuck with only one bathroom now. It’s such a nuisance, but Daisy and I are still using ours until our lodger actually arrives. I hope this fellow is civilized and that he doesn’t chase Daisy.’
May, who had never seen Daisy, laughed at her. ‘She’s only sixteen, isn’t she? Did you notice how crowded the camps are getting? Hundreds more moved in during the night. I hope we don’t have any more trouble. You heard about the attempted rape, I suppose. The locals are good and mad.’
‘I haven’t had time to read the papers lately. We listen to the radio at night to get the war news.’
‘One of the Yanks attempted to rape a girl of sixteen. She got home bruised and crying. This’ll have repercussions, you’ll see. I was in our local cafe when the pint-sized owner tried to chuck a Yank out. He’s a little runt and the Yank was a big, burly black guy. He just stood there while this little guy punched him time and again. He didn’t move a muscle, but he looked upset. When the guy stopped, he shook his head and said, “I’m the 29th Division’s boxing champion – that’s why I didn’t fight back. One punch would have floored you. One of these days you folks will be glad we came.”
‘We felt terrible. The local girls are kicking up a fuss because the Yanks have been barred from the local Palais. They are crazy about jiving.’
The morning wore on slowly for Helen as she listened to the girls chatter: how to make face cream when there wasn’t any, how to tan your legs without sun, how to mend your own shoes now the shoemaker had joined up, a million makeshift do-it-yourself remedies. Some of them even made coffee by roasting dandelion roots.
By the time she rode home, the weather was hot and sultry, but the rain was holding off. Helen wondered why she never felt tension from the danger all the time she was working. It was only later, once she’d left, that she began to feel like a puppet with the string pulled too tightly.
She needed a swim, but were the GIs training in the bay? Hurrying to the end of the garden, she peered down. The bay twinkled and winked at her, bringing back childhood memories of picnics and later midnight barbecues on the sand. It all looked deserted. Ten minutes later she was picking her way down the badly eroded, zigzag path to the beach, riding her mare, Leila, who was well-schooled and used to the cliffs. At the end of the beach was a fresh water spring, almost hidden amongst the grass and shrubs. Wearing her modest, skirt-fronted, one-piece bathing suit she pushed her clothes into a bush and walked barefooted on the sand, leaving Leila to munch the grass around the spring. The delicious feeling of sun and wind on her bare limbs and sand between her toes was strangely thrilling.
She swam out in a fast crawl and returned through the breaking surf, diving under the rollers, avoiding the rocky areas. Her mouth and eyes stung with salt and her skin tingled. Setting off in a lazy crawl to deeper water, she paused for a rest and lay floating on the surface, enjoying the solitude as she rose and fell over the gentle waves, hearing the soft splashes of water against her cheeks. Clouds drifted past, gulls swooped and soared, and she caught snatches of jazz from the GIs’ camp. Slowly, lethargically, she began to swim backstroke.
Turning over, she flinched at the sight of a large black lump floating under the surface of the water only a few metres away. Don’t panic, she told herself urgently. There are no man-eating sharks in British waters. Could it be a lost whale? Or a dolphin? But as she watched, it sank rapidly down into the depths. One moment it was there and then there was nothing. Thrusts of fear pierced her stomach. What could it be? The thought of that black thing swimming beneath her was frightening. She was far from the shore and she had never seen anything like it. If she had to guess she would choose a giant squid. But of course they didn’t exist. Or did they?
Fighting back her fear she took a deep breath and dived into the water, finding herself too buoyant to get further down than a few feet below the surface. Suddenly it was zooming towards her. Magnified by the water’s refraction, it looked huge, something out of science fiction. Displaced water splashed around her like a fountain as the thing caught hold of her arm.
‘Are you all right, Ma’am?’ She heard. So the beast was human! Anger replaced fear.
‘Let go.’ She kicked him hard.
He pushed back his mask. ‘I’m sorry. Truly I’m so sorry. I’ll get you back to the shore. Just relax. I’m a lifesaver.’
‘I’m not panicking and I don’t need help. Let go of me.’ She set off for the shore, annoyed that he had seen her fear.
Lifesaver! Huh! Tortoise would be more like it. She reached the beach, mounted Leila and set off for home, grabb
ing her clothes from the bushes as she passed. Halfway up, she paused to look back and saw him staggering up the beach with a large oval container like a boiler, strapped to his back. No wonder he was so slow. She watched him crouch on the sand to undo the harness strapped around his chest. Once free of the tank, he stretched and rubbed his shoulders before retrieving a trailer from the bushes. She was so busy watching, she let Leila step too close to the edge, which crumbled. As one leg slipped over the cliff, Helen jumped down fast and pulled the mare back onto the path. That’s enough scares for one day, she said to herself. She walked the rest of the way, but when she passed the Hawthorn copse, on top of the cliff, she paused. Smacking Leila on the rump to send her galloping home, she peered through the thorny branches and watched the GI strip off his black rubber suit and stand naked on the sand. He was suntanned and strong. All muscle and no fat, she noticed and despite his broad, lean shape, there was a delicacy of movement in everything he did. She admired his black hair rippling in the sunlight. When he turned away, she noticed that his buttocks were solid and his legs shapely. The effect of his beautiful naked body on her psyche was devastating. Feeling deeply ashamed she walked back to unsaddle Leila.
Later that evening, when they had finished dinner and washed up, the family sat in the lounge listening to No Place to Hide, on the radio, Miro’s favourite serial. The anticipated storm had not materialized and it was a lovely evening. Shadows were gathering and they could hardly see, but switching on the lights meant drawing the blackout and that would be a shame. The windows were open and they could hear birdsong and the repetitive boom of waves on the shore. They could scent the tobacco flowers John always grew beneath the windows. By a unanimous decision they decided to wait until the last possible moment before shutting the windows and drawing the curtains.
String of Pearls Page 6