Broken Rainbows

by Catrin Collier

  ‘Not enough. Finish your meal, Bethan. There’s something I have to show you.’

  Andrew sat back in the corner seat of the carriage and looked across at the passenger sitting opposite him. He searched for familiar lines in the face of the man he had known so well before the war, but the hunched skeletal figure, with close-cropped silver hair, looked nothing like the well-built, strong, dependable man, with the distinctive mop of thick, white blond hair, who had swept Alma off her feet and set up a successful business in Pontypridd at the height of the depression. He wondered if everyone else would have the same trouble in identifying Charlie.

  ‘I wish you’d let me book us into a hotel in London for the night. It was crazy to come up on the milk train.’ He stopped talking when he realised that Charlie wasn’t listening. Most of the time the Russian scarcely seemed to notice what was happening around him, and Andrew wondered if mentally he was still in the hellish, nightmare world of the death camps he had been incarcerated in for so long.

  He leaned back against the seat and looked out of the window. He could see nothing except his own and Charlie’s reflections in the glass, but when he had tried to pull the blinds earlier, Charlie had stopped him. He knew why. The camp Charlie had been in had been very different to his, but when darkness had fallen both of them had been locked into wooden huts, the doors and shutters firmly secured from the outside.

  He had thought nothing could be worse than the Oflag he had been confined in for five years, but then he’d been ignorant of the horrors of the concentration and forced labour camps. And according to one Russian doctor he had worked alongside, the camps in the east were even worse and more numerous than those in the areas that had been liberated by the British and Americans.

  It was difficult to imagine anything worse than Belsen and Nordhausen. And both had been ‘cleaned up’, for want of a better word, before he’d arrived, but even now he couldn’t get their foul stench out of his nostrils.

  When the British army had reached the gates of his camp, he had been ecstatic. Every officer had packed his meagre belongings and was ready and waiting with one thought in mind. HOME. Then the CO had sent for him and the two orderlies he’d trained and asked if they would consider working in a camp they’d discovered a few miles to the south-east that was short of medical personnel. He’d asked if it was an order. The CO had admitted he couldn’t order them to do anything, but their services were badly needed until more permanent arrangements could be made.

  He’d refused, protesting that he had a wife and two children he hadn’t seen in over five years waiting for him. The CO hadn’t argued, simply pulled a few photographs from an envelope he was carrying. They had been given transport, and a few hours later he had been driven into Belsen.

  He could even remember the date. 19 April. His birthday. Nothing had prepared him or the orderlies for the sight that met their eyes. They had been told the bare facts: ten thousand unburied corpses, evidence of cannibalism, atrocities, disease, systematic starvation, deliberate neglect – but those were concepts that could be put into words. A British doctor had come up to them and handed them pens. Red pens. He’d looked at him in bewilderment.

  ‘Put a cross on the foreheads of those you think have a chance of surviving.’

  Time became irrelevant, he scarcely slept or ate. The stench hung heavy in the air, a foul odour he thought he’d never get used to, but somehow he did. The death rate dropped to three hundred a day. Men and women at the end of their strength who no longer had the will to carry on breathing. And in all that time he had scribbled only one postcard to Bethan.

  Am well and free. Be home as soon as I can, but am needed here at present. All my love, as ever, Andrew

  When ninety-eight fresh, keen medical students arrived from London he was asked if he’d move on to another camp. One where slave labourers had been held. That time he didn’t argue. And there, in a corner of a typhus hut, a heap of rags had moved and he’d heard someone call his name.

  He hadn’t recognised Charlie. Not until the Russian had whispered his Welsh nickname, and even then he’d found it difficult to believe that the scarcely human wreck in front of him was his old friend. After making sure that the hut and everyone in it had been thoroughly deloused, he spent every minute he could with him. It had taken hours to get him to swallow the thin gruel the prisoners hated, but was the only food the emaciated could digest. Then had come the difficult part: convincing the authorities that Charlie wasn’t Russian but a British soldier who’d been working behind enemy lines.

  It had taken two weeks to get the confirmation they’d needed and new identity papers for Charlie. There had been more important messages on the wires, and more important concerns than the fate of one Russian-born British officer. But nothing was more important to Andrew. Distanced from Bethan by more than miles, terrified she’d no longer love him when he finally got home; in some, crazy, superstitious way he wanted to believe that if he saved Charlie and returned him alive to Alma, then it would be enough to safeguard his own marriage.

  Crazy stupid superstition. And, at first Charlie had refused even to talk about Alma, insisting that he had told her to build a new life and marry again if anything happened to him. Andrew had stolen minutes to sit by Charlie’s bed – not minutes that belonged to other inmates, but precious minutes that he should have spent resting – talking, coaxing, reading every extract from Bethan’s letters that related to Alma. But Charlie had been impervious to every mention of his wife, until by chance Andrew had read out an account of Ronnie and Diana’s wedding. From that moment there had been a spark in Charlie’s eyes. He had ransacked his bag and combed through all the photographs Bethan had sent until he found one of Alma with her son. That night while Charlie slept, he had pinned it to the wall above his bed.

  The following day Charlie had left his bunk for the first time since liberation. Andrew had believed himself impervious to emotion after five years of imprisonment and almost a month working in the camps with the survivors, but that was before he had seen Charlie sway on his feet, his skin stretched like yellow parchment over his skeletal frame, his eyes sunk deep in their sockets, using what little strength remained to him to put one foot in front of the other.

  ‘We’ll be in Cardiff soon.’ Charlie’s voice, hoarse, cracked, intruded into his thoughts.

  Andrew checked his watch. ‘We’ll be home in less than an hour. Alma will be up, working in the kitchen of the shop, although I doubt she still has the playpen in the corner. Your son, like mine, will be too big for it now. He’s three and a half and Eddie four and a half, I’ve almost forgotten what boys of that age are like.’

  Charlie pulled out the photograph Andrew had given him and studied it in the poor light. Andrew knew he didn’t need to look, he could trace every line of the boy’s face from memory. Those small blurred black and white figures had accelerated the Russian’s recovery more than any food or medicine.

  Andrew left the seat and lifted down the two kitbags. They had both been issued with new bags but there was little in either. Charlie had only the shaving kit, soap, toothbrush and paste and uniform Andrew had scavenged for him. There had been an American in Nordhausen who had earned the nickname of ‘the scrounger’. Andrew had told him his own and Charlie’s stories. God knows where the man had got them from, but he had turned up with French perfume and silk lingerie for Bethan and Alma, and toys for the children, and although he had made Andrew pay handsomely for his presents, he had refused to take a penny from Charlie, although Charlie’s back pay was already in hand, unlike Andrew’s. His request had been turned down on the grounds that the Germans had paid him for his services as a doctor while he’d been imprisoned. The fact that neither he, nor any of the other medical personnel captured at Dunkirk had received a penny piece in five years, didn’t affect the official ruling. And eventually, too happy in his new-found freedom to argue any more, he had let the matter drop.

  As the lights on the platform drew closer, Charlie tr
ied to lift his kitbag. Andrew took it from him and tossed both on to the platform as soon as the doors opened. When he turned back he saw that Charlie had managed to step down by himself. A workman tipped his hat to them, stopping and staring as they walked towards him.

  ‘And there I was thinking I looked good,’ Charlie complained in his guttural accent.

  ‘Compared to a couple of weeks ago you look brilliant, but you should still be in a hospital bed.’

  Charlie sank down weakly on to a bench. Andrew patted his pockets searching for the glucose tablets he’d packed.

  ‘Here, suck a couple, they’ll make you feel better.’

  ‘Do you think I’ve done the right thing in coming home?’

  ‘No. You should have stayed in the hospital at least another month.’

  ‘I don’t mean that. Look at me, Andrew, I can’t even walk. Alma will have her hands full. A baby, the shops …’

  ‘That she needs help with.’

  ‘What help will I be able to give? I can’t even carry myself.’

  ‘You’ll soon be able to carry an ox if you give yourself time to recover. You need food and rest, and as you won’t listen to me, perhaps you’ll listen to her. Come on.’ Andrew picked up both kitbags. ‘Let’s see if there’s a lift that will take us down, and up again to the Pontypridd platform.’

  Dawn had broken when their train drew into Pontypridd. Andrew watched the familiar redbrick buildings draw into view and thought about how often he had dreamed of this moment.

  ‘Dr John?’ Dai Station held out his hand to take their travel warrants. ‘Everyone’s been wondering when you’d be coming home. Angelo Ronconi and Glan Richards turned up weeks ago, but then I suppose things are different for officers.’

  ‘Not that different, Dai.’ He saw Dai staring at Charlie, but there was no spark of recognition in his eyes.

  ‘Would your friend like to go down in the lift?’ Dai continued to gawk at his companion, wondering how anyone so thin could stand upright.

  ‘I’ll use the stairs,’ Charlie answered in a surprisingly firm voice.

  ‘Charlie …’

  Andrew heard Dai gasp as he took Charlie’s arm and helped him down the steps. The porter followed with their kitbags. He glanced around Station Yard. The taxi rank was empty, but he recognised the car parked in the corner.

  ‘Want me to telephone for a taxi for you, Dr John?’ Dai Station offered, running behind them.

  ‘If you would, please.’ Andrew led Charlie towards the seats in the tiled booking hall.

  ‘Mrs John is away. She went to London the day before yesterday. But then you must know that her brother has married again.’

  ‘Something happened to his first wife?’ Andrew asked anxiously.

  ‘Went off with a Yank. Like half the women in the town.’

  Andrew’s heart sank as he looked at Charlie, who seemed mercifully impervious to the man’s babbling. ‘Just get the taxi as quickly as possible.’

  They sat side by side and waited. It wouldn’t have taken Charlie more than five minutes to walk from the station to his shop in the old days, but neither of them suggested walking now. It seemed an eternity before the taxi with a huge gas balloon on the roof arrived. The porter stacked their bags in the luggage hold next to the driver while Andrew helped Charlie into the back. He saw him stagger and clutch the door handle as he climbed in. It was pointless to ask if he was all right. It was patently obvious he wasn’t.

  As they left Station Yard he saw a bus driver and conductor walk into Ronconi’s café. A milk cart rattled down the Graig hill and under the railway bridge. They turned the corner past the New Theatre and there was a poster with Errol Flynn’s name emblazoned across the top. This was his home town and he felt like a stranger. They carried on past the turn to Mill Street and the entrance to Market Square.

  ‘You want the fountain, sir, is that right?’

  ‘Please.’ Andrew studied the driver. His face was unmarked, unlined, he was too young to have fought in the war. ‘And if you could wait, please, I’d like you to take me up to Penycoedcae afterwards.’

  ‘I’ll wait, sir, but I’ll have to leave the clock on.’

  ‘I expect you to.’

  There was a queue of tall, well-built Negroes outside Charlie’s shop. They were talking and laughing quietly amongst themselves. All of them looked incredibly fit, healthy, clean and well fed after the people he had tended in the camps. One month – four short weeks – and he had almost forgotten about normality. What must it be like for Charlie who had lived for years in those conditions?

  ‘Business is good, Charlie,’ Andrew said, fighting a lump that had come into his throat.

  Charlie nodded and Andrew realised that he wasn’t looking at the men. A small boy was sitting on the shop doorstep. There was no mistaking his white-blond hair, or the deep blue eyes.

  ‘Good God! It’s you all over again, Charlie.’ The toddler turned his head and gazed at Andrew as he opened the door of the taxi. Extracting Charlie’s kitbag from the luggage hold, Andrew stood back and waited. Charlie stepped out and the men in the queue fell silent.

  Andrew watched anxiously as Charlie leaned heavily against the cab. The men crowding into the shop moved away from the doorway. Alma walked out from behind the counter. Then, tears streaming down her cheeks, she ran forward.

  ‘I think we’d better go inside,’ Andrew suggested as she embraced her husband as though he were made of glass. He followed them back to the shop. A young girl had already opened the door to the stairs.

  ‘It’s all right, Theo, you can go too.’ The girl gave the small boy a gentle push. Andrew held out his hand.

  ‘Don’t you want to come and meet your daddy?’

  ‘My daddy?’ The small boy’s eyes grew round in wonder.

  ‘He’s come home, Theo.’

  The boy took his hand and they walked behind Alma and Charlie up the stairs and into the living room.

  ‘Alma, I don’t want to intrude …’

  ‘How could you, Andrew, you brought him home.’ She was crying and laughing at the same time. Charlie patted her hand as he fell into his chair.

  ‘Charlie’s on a strict diet, simple foods that are easily digested. Nothing too rich, oatmeal and the like. I’ll be at home. Telephone, if you want any advice. If there’s a problem, I’ll come at once. I’ll be down to see you tomorrow.’

  ‘Andrew,’ Charlie looked up at him.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Andrew closed the door of the living room behind him. Running down the stairs, he walked through the queue of servicemen to the taxi.

  ‘Your friend looked rough, sir,’ the taxi driver commented as he climbed back into the cab.

  Andrew nodded, unwilling to elaborate.

  The man drove up to the Fairfield, turned the car around and headed back through the town towards the Graig hill. Andrew checked his watch, a new one he’d been given to replace the officer issue that had been confiscated as British military property by the Germans, most likely to end up as loot in one of the guards’ pockets.

  As the car climbed the hill past the workhouse he noted the changes. The peeling paint on the shops and houses, the worn and mended clothes on the people walking up and down the hill, the shop windows filled with advertisements and empty cardboard boxes. No tins, no sweets, no goods to entice a casual passer-by.

  ‘Home on leave, sir?’

  ‘For good, I hope.’

  ‘There were times when we wondered if it was ever going to end. My brother’s in Singapore. We can’t wait for that to finish so he can come home.’

  ‘Let’s hope it will be soon.’ Andrew looked left up Graig Avenue, wondering if Evan and Phyllis were taking care of his children. Why hadn’t he insisted that Charlie stay in London and rest in a hotel last night? He would have telephoned home, and found out that Bethan was there. He could have gone to see her. They might even have passed in the
street.

  ‘Where do you want to go in Penycoedcae, sir?’

  ‘Do you know Ty Twyfe?’

  ‘Nurse John’s place.’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘You know, Nurse John, sir?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Nice lady. She looked after my mother when she got burned when the chip pan caught fire. Pity about her father losing an arm.’

  ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘It was a pit accident, sir. She’s had a lot to put up with what with losing her brother and sister and her husband being a prisoner and everything, but it never seemed to get her down. Always has a smile for everyone.’

  They left the houses behind them and Andrew looked out at the hedgerows and fields. The greenery was soft and lush, the morning colours fresh and brilliant, just as he’d imagined so many times when he’d been stuck behind barbed wire in the compound. He remembered writing a letter to Bethan …

  The trees would be green, she’d be sitting on the lawn with the children …

  ‘We’re here, sir. Do you want me to turn into the drive?’

  ‘No, thank you.’ If there was no one in, it would be a long trek down to Graig Avenue, but he wanted to walk down the drive alone.

  ‘That’ll be five bob, sir.’

  Andrew left the car, checked the fare and added a tip.

  ‘Thank you, sir, have a good homecoming.’

  As the car chugged up the road, Andrew turned and stepped on to the gravel drive.

  The first thing he noticed was that the gates had gone. He fingered the rusty posts before moving on, then stopped in stunned amazement. There was no lawn, only neat rows of vegetables. At the bottom of the garden the shrubs had been pulled up and a chicken run installed in their place. Why hadn’t Bethan told him? Then he remembered the food parcels and tins she’d sent. More than anyone else had received. He’d often wondered how she’d done it. Now he realised.

  Then, suddenly there was the house, its once white walls green and weather-stained, the gloss on the doors and windows peeling, just like on every other building he’d seen. It wasn’t only Germany that needed reconstruction, but then he was lucky, a coat of paint was trivial compared to rebuilding from rubble.