by C. J. Sansom
They walked on, still at a snail’s pace, brushing against the privet hedges. The leaves felt damp and greasy. Twice more they almost collided with people, but everyone seemed good-natured. David was reminded of the air-raid warnings of 1939–40, when he was home on leave that winter, people’s forced cheerfulness as they hurried to the shelters in the blackout, hiding their fear of the destruction from the air that in the end never came.
They found the right turning, peering up to read the street sign. Natalia bent to look at the number on a gate. ‘This is Number 4,’ she said. ‘We want Number 42. Count the houses.’
They reached what they thought was the right house. David opened the gate, went up the little path and knocked at the door. A thin, harassed-looking woman in curlers answered, children’s voices sounding behind her. She stared at him. ‘Yes?’
The codeword was the same as they’d used at the Brocks’, Aztec, but David sensed it was the wrong house. ‘I’m looking for Number 42,’ he said instead.
The woman frowned. ‘Two doors along.’
David touched his hat. ‘Thank you.’
‘This bloody stuff,’ she said. ‘You’re letting it in.’ She closed the door on him with a snap. As he walked away, David saw a curtain had been pulled back from the front window. A little boy was staring out at him, eyes hostile and unblinking.
They went to the next house but one. This time the door was answered by a big dark-haired man in his forties, in a vest and braces. He looked at David enquiringly.
‘Mr O’Shea?’
‘That’s me.’ His Irish accent made David think of his father.
‘Aztec,’ David said, feeling oddly foolish.
‘You all safe?’ the man asked quietly.
‘Yes. Yes, we are.’
He took them along a narrow hall, into a crowded living room at the back of the house. A coal fire blazed in a grate. An old-fashioned television with a tiny screen was on in a corner, showing a programme about a new dam the Italians were building in Ethiopia. A small, squarely built woman in a flowered pinny, with greying black hair, sat working a sewing machine on a large table that dominated the room. She stood up as they crowded in. The man spoke quietly. ‘They’re here safely. Five of them, like they said.’
The woman smiled. Her face was lined, kindly, but strong. ‘Everything go all right?’ She too, was Irish.
‘Like a dream,’ Ben answered. ‘Apart from that fog.’
The woman’s eyes went to Frank. ‘Are you the scientist?’
Frank had been staring with that wide-eyed, fearful look again but something about Mrs O’Shea seemed to reassure him. ‘Yes,’ he answered calmly.
She looked to the others. ‘Now, which of you is Mr Fitzgerald?’
David stepped forward. ‘I am.’
She came up and took his hand. For a terrible second he thought it was bad news, but then she said softly, ‘Your wife is still safe, dear. Just to let you know, all’s well there.’
David took a long, shuddering breath. ‘Thank you, thank you. Is she – is she coming here?’ He realized suddenly that he feared the prospect.
‘No, we felt it safer to get her out of London straight away. You’ll meet up later. It’s all taken care of. Now, where’s my manners? Sit down, all of you.’
They gathered round the big table. Mr O’Shea switched off the television and sat in a sagging armchair beside it. He took up a pipe and lit it, his eyes darting between them. Natalia said, ‘What is to happen next?’
‘You’re to stay here a couple of days,’ Mrs O’Shea answered. ‘Then you’ll go south to the coast, by train probably. We’ll have to wait till this fog clears, it’s too thick for anyone to move about safely, and there’s something up with the railway timetables just now.’
‘I work in the goods yards,’ her husband said. ‘They were arranging some big transports to Portsmouth this weekend. We think that’s why they settled the strike. But whatever they were going to do, they’ve had to call it off because of the fog.’
‘We think they were planning to move the Jews across to the Isle of Wight. Into German hands.’ Mrs O’Shea smoothed down her pinny with work-roughened hands. ‘It’s a terrible thing.’
David was appalled. ‘As soon as this?’
Mr O’Shea nodded through a haze of pipe smoke. ‘I think so. We should’ve seen this coming. We know the army have been ordering vast quantities of barbed wire for months. To build the detention camps, of course.’
‘And when they were all lifted from their homes, the Sunday before last, it was done so quietly and smoothly most people didn’t even notice. We’ve heard today the same thing’s happened to the French Jews. Oh, they’ve been planning this a long time, the devils.’
There was a moment’s silence, then she continued, ‘Anyway, moving you all is going to be a bit more complicated than we thought. And while you’re with us you’ll have to stay indoors, I’m afraid. There’s too many of you to be visitors. People notice things round here.’
‘We’re gettin’ used tae it,’ Ben said. ‘Eh, Frank?’
‘We went to another house by mistake before this one,’ Natalia said. ‘Two doors down, it would have been Number 38.’
Mr and Mrs O’Shea exchanged a sharp glance. Mr O’Shea asked, ‘Who did you speak to?’
David said, ‘A woman. And there was a little boy peering out of the window. I didn’t give her the code word, just asked for Number 42. She shut the door on me, saying I’d let the fog in.’
‘That’s the Sperrins,’ Mrs O’Shea said. ‘He’s active in Coalition Labour, he’s got Blackshirt friends.’ She thought a moment. ‘Did she see all of you?’
‘I don’t think so. The fog’s so thick, I think they just saw me.’
‘She’ll be at the shops tomorrow. I’ll tell her you got the wrong street in the fog, you were after 42 Majuba Street.’ She stood up. ‘Now, I’ll get you something to eat.’
‘Can I help?’ Natalia asked and followed Mrs O’Shea out to the kitchen.
Her husband caught David’s glance. ‘Bert Sperrin was in the old Labour Party with me. When it split in 1940 I stayed with Attlee but he went with the other lot. He was always a big Empire man.’ He pursed his lips sadly. ‘We used to be friends, would you believe it? He knows where I stand, so we have to watch him.’
‘I’m sorry.’
He didn’t answer for a moment, puffing at his pipe. Then he looked at David. ‘Fitzgerald, that’s an Irish name.’
‘Yes, my father was from Dublin.’
‘You were brought up in England, though?’
‘Yes. Dad has the accent. He’s in New Zealand now.’
Mr O’Shea sighed. ‘Well, there’s nothing good for the Irish left in De Valera’s republic, unless you’re a pro-German Catholic like him and his friends.’
‘I’ve never been that,’ David said.
‘No,’ Mr O’Shea said. ‘You sound like you went to some English public school.’
‘Grammar school, actually.’
‘Yes. Well.’
‘You’ve got children?’ Geoff nodded at a box of comics under the table.
‘Eamonn and Lucy. Eleven and twelve.’ Mr O’Shea’s voice softened. ‘We’ve sent them to their auntie’s. Little pigs have big ears and even at their age the school goes on at them to beware of terrorists everywhere. That and teaching them about the endless glories of English history,’ he added bitterly. ‘Bringing civilization everywhere, even to Ireland. The history teaching’s got even more nationalistic and imperialistic since that Fascist fellow-traveller Sir Arthur Bryant got made Education Minister.’ He looked curiously at Frank. ‘Well, so you’re the man everybody wants.’
Frank shrank back in his chair. ‘I can’t say anything about it. I mustn’t.’
‘You wouldn’t believe the effort that’s been put into getting you out the country.’
‘Leave ’im, pal,’ Ben said firmly.
‘Is he safe?’ Mr O’Shea asked brutally. ‘I know h
e’s been in a loony bin.’
‘He’s safe.’
Frank said, ‘I don’t feel good, Ben. My mouth’s dry, my heart’s started jumping.’
‘I think you need your pill, Frank. I’ll get you a glass of water.’
Frank looked at Mr O’Shea. ‘I don’t want to take it in front of everyone,’ he said with a touch of defiance.
Mrs O’Shea came in from the kitchen. ‘Got a cludgie I can take him to, missus?’ Ben asked.
‘Yes. I might as well show you where you’re sleeping, while I’m at it.’ She smiled at Frank. ‘Poor lamb.’
There were three small bedrooms upstairs. Mr and Mrs O’Shea had one and mattresses had been laid on the floors of the other two, little children’s beds pushed into a corner. Frank and Ben would have one room, David and Geoff the other. Natalia would sleep downstairs. As they had at the Brocks’ they would each take turns to stay awake during the night, though, as Mrs O’Shea said, there would be little enough to see in the fog. The television news, which they watched when they went back downstairs, showed buses crawling along London streets led by policemen carrying lanterns; people queuing to buy facemasks at London chemists; theatres and cinemas being closed. Two women had been attacked and robbed in the smog. There was no sign of it lifting, and people with chest problems were being urged to stay indoors.
Natalia and Mrs O’Shea brought in the food and they all crowded round the table. Frank was quiet, half-asleep. Natalia began by thanking the O’Sheas on behalf of them all. ‘We know what we are asking of you,’ she said.
‘Call me Eileen,’ Mrs O’Shea said. ‘This is Sean.’ Her husband nodded briefly. ‘I’ll go out tomorrow and get some supplies, then I’m meeting my contact to get some news.’ She looked at David. ‘I’ll get them to tell your wife you’re safe.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Sean’ll be leaving early in the morning for his shift. I may be out a good while, it won’t be easy getting around even in daylight by the look of this. Remember you mustn’t go out, any of you.’ There was steel in her clear blue eyes as she looked at each of them in turn.
‘We’ll stay in,’ Natalia answered firmly.
Geoff coughed again. ‘If you’re near a chemist, could you get me one of those facemasks? Sorry, it sounds silly.’
‘It’s not silly at all. I’ll be sure I do.’
‘Even in here my throat’s rasping.’ David looked at his friend. He did look uncomfortable. The bitter smell of the fog was starting to seep into the house.
Mr O’Shea asked, ‘What’s the phrase the Germans use, when they make people disappear?’
‘Night and fog,’ Geoff answered. ‘Nacht und nebel. It comes from Wagner.’
‘It would. We hear enough of that bastard on the radio.’
‘It’ll be all rock ’n’ roll when you get to America, I expect,’ Eileen said, resolutely cheerful. David shook his head; it was hard to imagine.
‘The arch-bastion of capitalism,’ Ben said ironically. ‘Still, needs must when the devil drives.’ He turned to Sean. ‘You work on the railways, then?’
‘Have done since I came over here in ’23. After the Irish War of Independence.’
‘Did you fight?’ David asked.
Sean nodded. ‘In the Civil War, too. I was a Michael Collins man. My people are dirt-poor farmers. From Wexford.’
‘What d’ye think about the railwaymen’s pay claim gettin’ settled?’ Ben asked. ‘I didnae think the government would give way.’
‘Ah, they got the union leaders in and offered them just enough to buy the men off. They’ll need them if they’re going to transport the Jews. The so-called union,’ he added bitterly, ‘full of right-wing Coalition Labour people.’
Ben nodded agreement. ‘They’re crafty. They know the minimum the men will accept. Real unions would have the men out, like the Liverpool dockers. But the workers will win in the end, they must.’
Sean looked at him askance. ‘That sounds like the Communist line.’
‘It’s the truth, mac.’
Sean shook his head. ‘No, it isn’t. The railwaymen have always been right-wing. Have you forgotten Jimmy Thomas, that betrayed the miners in the General Strike?’ He pointed the stem of his pipe at Ben. ‘You’d be surprised how many union people supported the peace in 1940, and have ever since. Even now it’s low wages that brought the threat of the railway strike, not politics.’
‘The shop stewards should’ve held out for more. The railwaymen could bring the whole country to a stop.’
‘Then they’d bring the army in.’
‘My husband’s been a shop steward over twenty years.’ Eileen raised her voice. ‘It’s getting more dangerous all the time, all it needs is for him to make some pro-Resistance comment to the wrong fella and he’d be charged with sedition.’ She stabbed an angry finger at Ben. ‘So don’t tell him all he needs to do is snap his fingers to bring the revolution.’
‘But they’re fighting up North,’ Ben countered fiercely. ‘Demonstrating, facing down the police, fightin’ back. What about the Liverpool dock strike, the Yorkshire miners, the Scottish printers—’
Geoff said, ‘They’re desperate in the North, with wages driven down to nothing by unemployment—’
‘And there are special circumstances there,’ David said. ‘Everyone knows the mine owners are hopeless, all those little inefficient companies, and they keep going by driving wages down—’
‘Wages are bad down here, too,’ Ben responded. ‘Though on a civil servant’s pay I dare say you widnae notice,’ he added sarcastically. ‘The tide’s turning, and that’s what it is, the tide of history. The pro-German newspaper magnates have controlled the press since before the war – we’ve got one as bloody Prime Minister – and the BBC, and the radio, but they cannae keep us down for ever, the ordinary people—’
‘The proletariat, you mean,’ Natalia said, sounding weary.
‘Aye, the proletariat. The working class. We’ll win in the end, like Lenin did in Russia—’
‘So, Ben, you’d like Europe to be as Russia was?’ Natalia said. ‘With those huge prison camps the Germans found there?’
‘The Germans built those camps, got German actors to pretend to be Russian prisoners—’
Natalia shook her head. ‘No, you’re wrong. I understand enough Russian to know what the survivors were saying. And you saw their faces on the newsreels, they were starving, dying—’
‘All right. Mebbe Stalin went too far, but people exaggerate that. Khrushchev and Zhukov want a different Russia—’
Sean said, ‘Opposition may be growing here. But this government’s still got plenty of supporters, including working-class people like our bloody neighbour. Beaverbrook’s got his newspapers behind him. And the police and the army and the Germans. It’ll be a long bloody battle and I hope to God we get something new and better at the end of it. Not what the Russians had.’
‘Probably we’d end up like America,’ Geoff said. ‘Not sure that’d be a good thing entirely.’
Frank sat up. ‘Don’t fight among yourselves like this,’ he said pleadingly. ‘Please, don’t.’
Ben said, ‘We’re just having a wee chat—’
‘It’s because of me you’re all here.’ There was a sudden silence round the table. ‘You’re the brave ones, the ones who decided to fight. You need to stand together.’
They went to bed after the meal, tired out. In their room Geoff undressed and got under the covers.
‘Are you all right?’ David asked.
‘I’ll survive.’ Geoff nodded at the mug full of water he had brought up. ‘My throat’s so damn dry, I keep drinking. I’ll be getting up to piss in the night, I’m afraid. Funny how this damned fog affects some people more than others.’ He smiled. ‘Good news about Sarah, eh?’
‘Yes.’
‘I can’t help worrying about Mum and Dad. But like Jackson said, they don’t know anything, and they’ve got contacts.’
‘They’
ll be okay.’
‘How d’you think Frank is?’
‘He’s in a state still, you could tell from what he said at dinner. But I don’t think he’ll try to run again. He promised me. I think I’ll just drop in on him now, before bed.’
David knocked at the door of the next room. Ben had stripped to his underwear and was folding his clothes neatly beside his mattress. David saw a big round scar on the side of his stocky torso, a row of long scars on the backs of his thighs. The round scar looked like a bullet wound. He realized how little he knew about Ben, what he had been through. Frank was just taking off his shirt, his white body painfully thin.
‘Everything all right?’ David asked.
‘Aye,’ Ben answered cheerfully. ‘Just settlin’ doon for the night, aren’t we?’
‘I’m very sleepy,’ Frank said. ‘I’ve had my night-time pills.’
‘We all are,’ Ben said. ‘Still, we can rest up tomorrow. That’s war, isn’t it? All action one day, then sitting around doing nothing the next.’ David realized Ben was happy, he was enjoying the danger. ‘We can have another game of chess tomorrow, if you like,’ he said to Frank. ‘You can beat me again.’
David said goodnight. He wanted a cigarette. In case it made Geoff’s throat worse – his friend hadn’t had his pipe out all evening – he went downstairs to the kitchen. Natalia was standing there, quietly smoking. He felt the sudden rush of physical attraction again.
She nodded at him, smiled. ‘I just had a look outside,’ she said. ‘You can’t see a thing.’
David lit a cigarette and leaned on the edge of the cooker. ‘Safer for us all if we can’t be seen.’
‘Yes.’
‘I think you got the better of that argument with Ben earlier. About the Soviets.’
‘Ben is a good man, he cares more about Frank than he shows. But he is naive about Russia.’ She sighed heavily. ‘He needs something to cling on to, I suppose, like all of us do who have turned our backs on normal life.’