by Debbie Rix
While at Traiskirchen, George had been interviewed by both the British and the American immigration teams. Both had expressed an interest in offering the elderly university professor and his daughter sanctuary. In the end, George chose Britain. He had good connections already at several British universities and the authorities were sure they could arrange a suitable post for him. A couple of days before he and his daughter were due to leave the camp, a job at London University was confirmed.
Rachael, who was working in the camp kitchens, ran to find Chuck and tell him their news. She found him walking back from the language block on his way to lunch. He loped along, with his long stride, carrying a sheaf of notes under his arm.
‘Oh, Chuck… good, I’ve found you.’
‘Hi Rachael … how are you today?’
‘I’m fine – and happy. My father has got a job – in the department of archaeology at a university in London.’
‘That’s terrific,’ said Chuck. ‘Not America then…’
‘No,’ said Rachael, observing Chuck’s obvious disappointment.
‘I was hoping we’d end up on the same continent, at least,’ he said.
‘I’m sorry. My father thought about moving to America, but I think he will be more at home in England. And he knows a professor in London – they collaborated some years ago. He is very happy.’
‘Well we must celebrate,’ said Chuck.
‘Yes… we’d like that,’ said Rachael.
As Rachael walked back to the camp kitchens, she turned around and caught Chuck watching her. He raised his hand a little in salute, smiled and turned on his heel.
She had grown very fond of Chuck. They often spent the evenings together. It started as a chance for her to practise her English, but soon they were just chatting. They talked about everything – József, the baby, what she might do if she moved to England, or America. She liked the sound of America, she told him – the snowy landscapes of Vermont, the friendly people, the dance music. Chuck had introduced her to dance music. He’d turned up one evening with an old gramophone and pile of vinyl records. He set the record player up in the canteen after supper and played his favourite tunes – Chuck Berry (‘You have to love Chuck Berry,’ he told Rachael – ‘he’s my namesake’), Little Richard and Elvis. Sometimes, he would persuade Rachael to dance with him. He took her in his arms and swung her around the room, holding her carefully, never allowing her to fall, or trip, always mindful of the child she was carrying. Rachael enjoyed these impromptu sessions. She had never danced to modern music before and found it exhilarating. She was fond of Chuck. He was positive and intelligent, and he made her laugh. And although he did not elicit in her the same feelings of love and desire that her husband had done, she did begin to see there could be a life after József and that one day she might find love with someone else.
In the meantime, she had her English language classes to attend, and her duties in the camp kitchen, which was staffed primarily by refugees. She had gained quite a reputation for her jams and desserts among her fellow workers. And she enjoyed the companionship of the other women – women of all ages. They fussed over her, fretting about her pregnancy, insisting she sit to chop vegetables, and were ready with a stream of advice about the baby, as well as bringing her endless cups of tea. It made her realise that by staying at home to care for her father she had missed the companionship of other women. More than that, it made her long for her dead mother.
Their departure from the camp, when it finally came, was swift. Over breakfast, an official came into the room and read out their names from a long list.
‘Would all the following people be ready by ten o’clock – waiting with all your belongings in the main hall.’
They packed hurriedly. It was simple enough as they had so little. But Rachael was anxious to find Chuck before they left.
‘We must say goodbye to him… he’s been so kind.’
‘Of course,’ said George. ‘You go and find him, I’ll bring the suitcases.’
Rachael searched all the classrooms, but Chuck was nowhere to be seen. She was just beginning to despair, wondering, if perhaps, he had gone back to Vienna, or out for the day, when she saw him at the other end of the corridor.
‘Chuck, Chuck,’ she called out.
He turned and ran towards her. ‘I just heard… you’re leaving today. I was coming to find you.’
‘And I you…’
They stood opposite each other in nervous silence, unsure what to say, or how to say it.
‘I’ll miss you,’ she said at last. ‘You’ve been a good friend to us…’
‘I’ll miss you too,’ he said. He gripped her arms; he wanted desperately to tell her how he felt – that he had fallen in love with her. His whole body ached to pull her towards him and kiss her.
‘Rachael, Rachael.’ George came hurrying down the corridor towards the pair. ‘Darling, we must go… the bus is leaving.’
She kissed Chuck fleetingly on the cheek. He held her just a little too long. She felt the bristles of his stubble, his breath against her neck; he whispered something. Had he said, ‘I love you?’
Her father called her again: ‘Rachael, come now…we must go.’
George and Rachael finally arrived at Charing Cross station. George had been advanced a month’s salary and had been given a list of boarding houses in a part of London called Hampstead. At the barrier, as they handed in their tickets, they asked for directions.
‘You want to get the underground, mate,’ said the ticket inspector.
‘Ah, thank you. Yes… of course,’ said George.
They walked down the steps into the bowels of the station and were directed to the Northern line. Sitting in the carriage, Rachael had a chance to survey some of the people she would now be calling her fellow citizens. In many ways, they looked no different from men and women in Budapest. They read their newspapers, or books; women sat with children in their laps; men carried briefcases. When the train drew into stations, the passengers jostled for position, but everyone was very polite. Men stood up for women on the train. Young men offered their seats to girls and smiled at them, hoping they might grant them a smile in return. As the train rumbled through the dark tunnels, she wondered about the city above her head. She had seen pictures of Buckingham Palace in books when she was a child. Were they passing beneath it now?
As they got out of the train at Hampstead, they followed the signs to the lift. It was out of order.
‘You’ll have to take the stairs, I’m afraid,’ said a tall man, with jet-black hair and distinguished manner. He carried a briefcase and a rolled-up umbrella. ‘It’s always breaking down. It’s a disgrace really – this is the deepest underground station in London… and they can’t even get the lift working. It’s quite a climb. Good luck!’
Noticing that Rachael was pregnant, he offered to take her suitcase for her.
‘Here… let me carry this. It’s a very long walk. You’ll need your strength.’ Turning to her older companion, he asked, ‘Are you going to be all right?’
‘Yes… thank you,’ said George. ‘We’ll follow you.’
Three hundred and twenty steps later, Rachael and George emerged from the emergency staircase. The man handed Rachael’s suitcase back to her father.
‘Here we are! Heavens – what a welcome to London – what must you think of us…?’
‘Not at all,’ said George, ‘you’ve been very kind.’ He leaned against the tiled wall of the tube station entrance, breathing heavily.
‘Do you know where you’re going?’ asked the man.
‘I have an address written here.’ George pulled the list of addresses out of his coat pocket and handed it to the man.
‘Oh yes… I know the first one on the list. The house is not far. Just a little way up the hill and turn right at the pub on the corner.’ Then, seeing the look of bemusement on George and Rachael’s face, he added, ‘Pub… like a restaurant or cafe, but it only serves drinks. Good luck!’
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The landlady at the first boarding house stood barring the doorway and looked the pair of foreigners up and down with an air of disdain. She wore curlers in her hair, covered with a thin headscarf.
‘I’m sorry – but my regulars wouldn’t like it,’ she said, nodding towards Rachael’s obvious bump, swelling beneath her shabby coat. ‘Babies crying in the night… that sort of thing. Sorry.’
She closed the door. They went on to the next house on the list, but it was the same story.
‘I’ve got a lot of theatricals here,’ said the landlady, ‘they wouldn’t like it; sorry.’
When they finally arrived at the third address on the list, Rachael was braced for bad news. The landlady, wearing an apron decorated with a blue and green swirly pattern, stared implacably at Rachael and George.
‘When’s the baby due?’ she asked, her arms crossed over her ample stomach.
‘Sometime in May,’ Rachael said with a sinking heart.
‘Well, you’d better come in,’ said the landlady. ‘You must be tired. Would you like a cup of tea…? I was just putting on the kettle.’
‘Thank you… yes,’ said George gratefully.
The landlady returned ten minutes later, carrying a tea tray covered with a lace cloth, and a plate of fruit cake, which she placed on a small mahogany table. After a brief discussion about where they had come from, and the job George had been offered at the university, their rent was agreed.
‘There isn’t a lot of room up there in the attic, but you can make it cosy, I’m sure. My last gentleman was very happy there, but he had to go back home to Paris. There’s a washbasin in the room, and the bathroom is only one floor down, but as for laundry – nappies and so on – you can do them downstairs in my laundry room.’
‘Thank you,’ said Rachael, grateful for any kindness.
‘I’m Mrs Roper, by the way,’ said the landlady. ‘I hope you’ll both be very happy here. I’ve read a lot about your troubles in Hungary in the newspaper. I’m delighted to help.’
Heath House, Willow Road was a tall double-fronted, early-Victorian house, spread over four floors. There was a large basement, which housed a kitchen and laundry room and was the sole domain of Mrs Roper. The ground floor was dominated by a long narrow hall, with a patterned tiled floor. At the far end was a glass door that led down to the garden. An incongruously grand staircase rose imperiously up to the first floor and beyond. On one side of the hall was the communal sitting room – or parlour, as Mrs Roper referred to it. It had an upright piano against the wall, dark mahogany furniture and stiff, uncomfortable chairs. It was rarely used and smelt faintly of mothballs. Behind the sitting room, and overlooking the garden, was Mrs Roper’s bedroom. No one in the house had ever seen inside, as the door was kept permanently locked. Across the hall from the parlour was the dining room, which stretched from the front to the back of the house. Painted in a shade of dingy green, this was where guests took all their meals, at small tables covered with lace cloths. Each table was assigned a number that corresponded to their room number. Rachael and George sat at number five. Mrs Roper was not a talented cook, but she was competent, and the food was nutritious and edible.
Rachael and George had a suite of two rooms in the attic, which comprised a sitting room and a small bedroom. The sitting room contained a single bed at one end of the room, along with two armchairs, a gas fire and a washbasin. The bedroom next door was barely big enough for a single bed and a chest of drawers. George insisted Rachael should have the bedroom and he would sleep in the sitting room. The bathroom was on the floor below and was shared with the four other residents – an Austrian photographer named Max Hass who occupied a room at the front of the house; behind him, overlooking the garden at the back, was a young Norwegian girl called Matta, who worked at the BBC’s foreign service in Bush House. Rachael was fairly sure that Max and Matta were involved in a passionate affair – especially after she found negatives of the girl, quite naked, hanging up to dry on a washing line strung over the old tin bath. Across the landing from Max and Matta, lived two gentlemen who worked in a bank in the City. They went off each morning dressed in striped trousers, waistcoats and tailcoats, trailing an air of mystery behind them.
On that first afternoon in March, as Rachael and George surveyed their tiny apartment, they knew they were lucky to have found it. Standing in the sitting room, where George would sleep, they took in the view from the window. The green heath stretched away as far as the eye could see. The tops of the trees fluttered in the breeze. It reminded Rachael of the view from their apartment in Budapest. Rachael felt certain she could make a comfortable home for them both under the eaves of this large ramshackle house. It was not quite the elegant apartment they had left behind in their home country, but it was so much better than a single room in an old army camp in Austria.
Rachael and George soon settled into the attic rooms. Rachael got used to the long climb to the top floor. It was not so different from walking up to their apartment in Budapest, after all. Mrs Roper was friendly and even allowed Rachael to bring one or two small pieces of furniture into their rooms.
Browsing an antique shop on Haverstock Hill one afternoon, Rachael had found a small bookcase. The dealer offered to deliver it later that day. As she signed for it in the hallway, Max was just coming downstairs on his way out for the evening.
‘Just as well I was here,’ he said to her, ‘you shouldn’t be carrying anything like that, in your condition.’
‘Thank you – that’s kind. But I’m quite strong; I’m sure I could have managed.’
‘I’m sure you could… but still, it’s not a good idea, is it?’
He carried the heavy mahogany piece up to the top floor of the house and deposited it in the attic.
‘Here…?’ he suggested, placing it against the long wall opposite the window.
‘Perfect… thank you, Max.’
Delighted with her purchase, Rachael borrowed some beeswax polish from Mrs Roper, and polished the bookcase until it gleamed. Once her father’s books were neatly stacked, she stood back to admire it. The room was gradually beginning to feel like home.
George, who quickly found his feet at the university, helped to create a sense of camaraderie in the house. Most evenings, before dinner, he would sit in the uncomfortable parlour chatting animatedly to the other guests.
‘Your father’s holding court again,’ Mrs Roper would call out to Rachael as she came downstairs for supper.
George would discuss the events of the day with anyone who was prepared to listen. Max, Matta, even the gentlemen who worked in the city were lulled into joining the group by the mellifluous tones of George Laszlo. Conversation rarely strayed into the personal. George, in particular, had no interest in people’s personal lives. Instead they discussed the latest news or politics. Mrs Roper, who rather enjoyed this convivial turn of events, bought a bottle of sherry, which she encouraged George to offer to the other residents. Sometimes the conversation became quite animated, and if Rachael closed her eyes, it was just as if they were in their drawing room in Budapest. Except that József was not there.
On a sunny morning in early May, Rachael was walking past the tube station and stopped at the flower stall. Her eye was drawn by a display of tall galvanised buckets filled with scarlet tulips. They would look beautiful in a glass vase on top of the new bookcase, she thought.
Returning home, she was walking towards the kitchen to ask Mrs Roper for a vase, when she felt a sharp stabbing pain in her stomach. She dropped the tulips onto the tiled floor and fell to her knees.
Mrs Roper, hearing the noise, rushed into the hall. She knew instantly what the problem was. ‘Right. You’ve started. Come on, dear… I’ll take you to my room. You’ll never get upstairs in your condition. Then I’ll call the doctor.’
With her arm around Rachael’s waist, she unlocked her bedroom door from a large bunch of keys she had attached to her apron.
In spite of her discomfort, Rachael was
fascinated to see the inside of this room – a frequent subject of speculation amongst the residents. The glamorous interior came as a complete surprise. A large double bed dominated the room. It was covered with a dusky pink satin bedspread with matching pillows. The French windows overlooking the garden were framed by lace curtains, draped gracefully on either side. There was a mahogany dressing table, covered with silver bottles and dishes, a crystal bowl of face powder, complete with a pale pink powder puff, and numerous bottles of perfume. The room was suffused with the scent of Yardley’s ‘English Lavender’. It felt more like a boudoir than a bedroom.
‘Now, you just lie there,’ said Mrs Roper, helping Rachael onto the soft pink bed, ‘and I’ll go and call the doctor. Do you want me to ring your father too?’
‘Yes… Please. Thank you,’ said Rachael, panting.
The baby was born with remarkable speed.
‘Well,’ said Mrs Roper as she bundled up the bloodstained towels to take down to the laundry. ‘That was jolly quick for a first-time mum…’
Rachael, who had been just as surprised by her swift but painful delivery, lay back on the lace pillows and beamed.
‘I’m sorry about the mess on your beautiful bed…’ she said apologetically.
‘Oh, don’t worry about that. I’ll soon get that off.’
The moment George got the message that his daughter was in labour, he rushed out of his lecture theatre and onto the bus back home. When he arrived, Rachael was already sitting up in Mrs Roper’s bed, smiling broadly, the baby lying in her arms.
‘Here, Papa – here is your granddaughter…’
‘Oh… she’s so beautiful,’ said George, taking the tiny girl in his arms. ‘She’s like a little angel.’
‘That’s what we should call her,’ suggested Rachael ‘Angyalka…’
‘Yes…’ said George. ‘But I think – in English – Angela. We are in England now and must do things the right way.’
‘Angela…. Yes. I like it. It’s perfect.’