Shelter

by Sarah Franklin

  Connie bounced forward and reached up to kiss him. His cheek tingled.

  ‘You know what I mean. Joyce usually stops by at this time of day.’

  ‘Today, instead of Joyce you have me – and this.’ He brandished the basket. Connie peered at the cloth covering its contents, then back at him.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It’s a picnic. Joe is nearly four months old now and it’s time we took him on a Sunday trip. It is time. And this sunshine makes it perfect for a picnic, no more rain for now.’ It was weather to make your heart swell, low November light glistening off the muted rainbow of browns and yellows, bringing hope even as the days grew shorter and the nights darker.

  ‘Seppe! You’ve made my day!’ She leaned forward and kissed him again, smack on the lips. At times like this Connie was a child again and his heart melted.

  She handed him the baby and clapped her hands. ‘I’ll get our things.’

  They stood at the back door and the woods beckoned them in.

  ‘Where shall we go?’

  Connie shrugged, arms out wide. ‘I don’t mind at all. It’s just good to be out and doing this. Let’s just find somewhere nearby, shall we?’

  Seppe looked down at Connie as they walked along. She was wearing her lumberjill dungarees – he wasn’t sure he’d recognise her out of them – and matching him stride for stride, her ponytail bouncing along. On impulse he reached out and tweaked it and Connie poked him in the side.

  ‘Oi! What are you up to?’

  ‘I couldn’t resist.’ It was true in so many ways. He couldn’t resist her, found every chance he could to spend with her. It was unimaginable, really, that life had turned into this. All around them was peace, auburn light casting soft optimism. Something rustled in the leaves – one of Amos’s sheep, maybe, or just a gust of wind – and then was gone. Seppe’s heart was full of all the sights and sounds, the sheer audacity of something as straightforward as a woodland walk. They could be any other family out for a picnic, no need to consider his threadbare uniform proclaiming him the enemy, no need to think that Joe was so fair he barely credibly belonged to either of them. Seppe hoisted Joe up in his arms, the fabric of his little overalls scratchy against Seppe’s cheek. For as long as today lasted, he could live in this fantasy of a real life that felt like this. It couldn’t endure, but this wasn’t a day for dwelling on the reasons why not. Today was for enjoying.

  He took Connie’s hand. She looked up at him, but said nothing. He smiled.

  It didn’t take long to find a spot, a clearing of springy grass beside a stand of saplings. Seppe laid out the rug and placed Joe in the middle. He rolled to one side, contented, and started to pull at a loose tuft. Seppe opened up the wicker basket and handed Connie parcel after parcel to lay on the rug.

  ‘Blimey, Joyce doesn’t do things by halves, does she?’

  ‘She is still feeding you as if Joe is yet to be born.’ Seppe reached the bottom and lifted out a glass bottle with still-warm tea sloshing inside it. ‘And as if it is winter, thank goodness.’

  They sat in companionable silence and ate, hardboiled eggs leaving saffron smears around their lips and chins, juice from the meat pie glazing them.

  ‘Food has never tasted as good, has it?’ Connie stretched and looked regretfully at the empty cloth. ‘Must be something to do with eating outside.’ She laughed. ‘You’d never try that where I grew up – for starters, there was never anything around half the time with all the rationing, and if the grub was half decent it’d be nicked off you before you’d got any of it into your gob.’

  ‘It’s delicious, especially after camp food.’ Seppe found a patch of yielding moss and set to work pushing it aside, idling into the sand beneath it with a stick. There might be a loose piece of oak here, useful for a trinket. Connie sat up on the rug, angling herself into the sun’s rays and began to make a daisy chain with the last remaining flowers of the autumn.

  ‘I’ve missed this, you know.’ She concentrated on the daisies. Her smile was as broad as that river you saw from the top of the hill, her crown of daisies a halo in the sluiced light. She was as happy as Seppe had ever seen her and it was contagious. He got up on both knees and bowed to her, kissing her hand. ‘Beautiful, principessa.’

  She pulled him back down towards her, one hand under his chin, and brought her lips to his so softly he wondered if he’d imagined it. ‘Thank you.’ She snuggled in beside him and together they watched Joe, still doing valiant battle with the tufts on the rug. He seemed to be convinced that he could pull them off if he just tried hard enough.

  Connie giggled. ‘D’you reckon he’s going to win?’

  ‘Oh, I think so. They are quite stubborn but he is stubborner still. He gets it from his mother.’

  Seppe pulled her closer, touched his fingertips very gently to her cheek. It was as soft as the figs that grew in his mother’s garden in Livorno. His thoughts were a jungle, tendrils reaching out. Sometimes he allowed himself to think about this being his life – their life – always, after the war ended – if the war ever ended. Often he couldn’t bear to think about something so tentative and unlikely; it was the height of audacity for him, a foreign prisoner, to be even privately imagining a life as a free citizen with a British family. For now, for today, this was enough. This was more than enough.

  Thirty-Four

  THE CINEMA SCREEN LIT up. ‘This is Europe,’ pronounced a disembodied narrator, filling the room like the voice of God. Fredo had contrived to sit beside Seppe, no doubt to inflict whatever unseen injury he could while they were amongst civilians and Seppe couldn’t escape. Seppe glanced down. Did Fredo have a blade with him? He felt sick. It had been months now and Fredo had never let up his petty vengeances.

  The screen filled with a flickering black-and-white shot of Allied troops, and Fredo hissed.

  ‘The British and American armies have done what Hitler and his cronies didn’t manage and crossed the English Channel to fight on enemy soil,’ intoned the narrator. It was a shock to hear the news backwards, to witness the English perspective of the war rather than the Chinese-whispers version of ‘truth’ put out by the fascist sympathisers within the camp. Fredo hissed again, half rose, and Seppe prodded him.

  ‘Sta’zitto! You’ll give us away.’ There was no way they should be in this cinema in the first place. Seppe had refused to come on the trip when Gianni brought it up – an evening in Campo 61 without Fredo would be its own version of solace – but Gianni had persisted because Seppe was the only Italian who really knew his way through the woods.

  ‘Think of your Connie’s face when you tell her what an adventure you’ve had!’ Gianni had exhorted. It was the ‘your’ that did it. After that, Seppe would have agreed to anything.

  Getting to the cinema had indeed been an adventure, largely due to the sheer amazement of his campmates at being out in the forest at night. ‘Eh, scalco!’ Gianni’s voice quavered somewhere ahead, but the whiff of whatever he’d put on his hair carried back to Seppe on this stiffening November breeze. ‘We need you up here at the front. I’m afraid we’ll get stuck forever in this sinister forest and miss the pictures.’

  ‘It’s not so dark.’ But Seppe stitched his way through the other men. Gianni shook his shoulder lightly in welcome.

  ‘These damn tree roots! And the branches keep attacking me.’

  You couldn’t help but smile at Gianni. To Seppe, navigating by the pinch of the yew needles, the brush of the fir, these touches were his saviours. He loved the forest at night, when the trees melted into the darkness and lost their solidity. The woods became instead a textured landscape of whispers and caresses, everything less certain and more possible.

  ‘Look, this way.’ Seppe trod them down the path. ‘There. The cinema is just over here.’

  Fredo slid up alongside him and shinned him, teeth bared and glinting like a fox, then shook his head and disappeared on into the depth of the shadows.

  Seppe shivered despite himself, thou
ght instead of Connie’s hair as it had gleamed in this same moon only a few days ago. Thoughts of Connie and Joe made him braver. He had a new life that Fredo didn’t; a child depended on him, after all. There was less room for dread. After the war, who knew what would happen – but this war was part of the very fabric of Europe these days, would surely never end. He wished he could write to his mother and tell her of his happiness, his safety – but he never, ever wanted to be in contact with his father again. His mother was too quiescent, would be honour-bound to share anything with her husband. He knew he should resent this less, but the months and years had done nothing to diminish his deep-seated regret that, bar one rare incident, his mother had done nothing to protect him and Alessa as children.

  It was bad enough that Fredo clearly relished passing back snippets of Seppe’s collaboration with the enemy to their Livorno cronies. Seppe could tolerate – just about – the treatment meted out by the northern fascists in camp. He knew better than to confront Fredo; he just needed to keep his head down and not give them the satisfaction of his response. He hated it, carved a tiny series of revenge fantasies. But he could withstand it. There was no sense at all in incurring his father’s wrath from afar.

  Seppe turned back to Gianni. ‘This film had better be worth the risk.’

  ‘You wait until you see the leading lady, you’ll be glad I persuaded you to join us.’ Gianni grabbed Seppe’s bad hand and squeezed it. The gesture was friendly, but Seppe sucked in air fast, pulled it away.

  ‘Hey, what’s the matter?’

  ‘My palm, the skin’s all gone from it.’ Seppe splayed his hand and Gianni jumped back in mock horror at the oozing red patches.

  ‘Rubbed your palm raw, eh?’ Gianni elbowed him.

  Seppe grinned. ‘How did I know you’d say that? It’s from working double felling shifts, nothing like what you’re imagining.’ But he couldn’t mind the teasing. You only teased someone if they belonged, after all. And his hand was a war wound, but one he was proud of. They’d spent three weeks working round the clock to fulfil the extra quotas. At the end of it the London people had sent special notice to Frank to congratulate him on a job well done. Frank was overjoyed, had been bragging about their success to anyone who’d listen. The war was one step closer, perhaps, to being over, and Frank was maintaining the forest as it needed him to, concentrating not just on timber production but on husbandry.

  They were heading towards the main street in Coleford now, the moon slanting down on their unfamiliar shirts and trousers.

  ‘Don’t ask,’ Gianni had warned when he’d handed out the clothes. ‘Let’s simply say there’s a washing line that’s lighter tonight. And don’t anyone think of making a break for it. You know you’ll never find your way out unless you have Seppe with you.’

  Wherever they’d sprung from, they were softer than the uniform, didn’t make Seppe scratch. What would Connie think if she saw him like this? Although it didn’t seem to be his clothes that Connie was interested in, quite the opposite. She’d undone his shirt with haste only a few days ago, flinging it to the ground and pressing herself up to him with scant regard for the actual garments. Not that he had raised any objection; when she was so close to him, her breath hard in his ear, he lost all sense of where he was and whether he’d even been wearing clothes in the first place.

  He preened in the dark, then caught himself. He’d need to mind his manners if they were to raise Joe nicely. Not that Connie showed any signs of acknowledging the significance of their liaisons, or that there might be a future for them. But he dared to hope that she felt how he felt. Surely such intensity of emotion was only possible when it was reciprocal?

  ‘Speaking of sore palms: you and the inglesa, huh?’ Gianni made a gesture that was unmistakenly filthy even in this darkness. Seppe’s skin prickled in the good way and the bad way all at once.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘You expect me to believe that? For weeks now you’re barely making it back to the truck before we’re off, and that grin – it’s like you’ve seen a pineapple! Or the Pope. Some kind of miracle. But one thing’s for sure, it’s got nothing to do with the Virgin Mary. Or your precious quotas.’ Gianni leaned in. ‘I can smell it on you, you know. When you slide in next to me, despite all those exhaust fumes, I can smell it.’ He mimicked sticking his nose up into the air and sniffing blissfully. Gianni was impossible, but it was also unthinkable not to smile at him.

  ‘There’s that grin again! Do you know how often I’ve seen you smile, eh, scalco? Maybe three times, in months. And now – now you’re an artillery gun of smiles. Are you actually doing any woodcutting?’

  ‘We’re back on normal quotas, but running slightly ahead of schedule. Connie would kill me if Frank thought we were falling behind.’ He couldn’t even say her name without grinning. It was a relief – no, a joy – to talk to someone about Connie.

  ‘But there is time for other activity too, no?’ Gianni roared and from behind them, one of the others snickered back. He leaned in. ‘But tell me, where do you go?’

  Seppe had never been so conspiratorial before. For now, knowing the densest thickets was proving to be a huge advantage. But it was getting colder, and the novelty would wear off soon enough.

  He may as well test his plan on Gianni, see how it sounded out loud. ‘I am thinking of building a hut.’

  Gianni whistled. ‘A whole hut simply for fucking in? She must know some tricks, to be worth that! It’ll take you ages.’

  ‘Not only for that.’ For living in. But he couldn’t share his plan, not yet.

  ‘Where will you build this remarkable Hut of Fucking? Can we all have a key?’

  Gianni winked and bounded across the road towards the cinema. Seppe hadn’t had a chance yet to ask Amos about the land, or Frank about the offcuts he’d need to build it. But they wouldn’t say no; how could they? They’d see the sense of him building shelter for Joe. And for Connie.

  Seppe waited outside, apart from the others, whilst Gianni performed whatever black market magic was necessary to procure them the tickets, smiling and joking with the locals as if he, too, had been born here. The stars were crowding above in the inky night sky, like yesterday. That strip of tarpaulin he’d found stashed in the back of the woodworking shop had been a godsend, but Connie hadn’t seen it like that. ‘It’s too cold and damp out here now for stripping off and lying on that! And it stinks of linseed oil – Amos’ll cotton on right away if I go home smelling like a pit prop.’

  ‘But the stars were beautiful, back there in the clearing.’ He’d never seen so many in Livorno, even since the blackouts brightened the night sky. Everything was sharper these days.

  Connie shuddered, pulled the tarpaulin about her like a blanket. ‘The only reason we’re seeing so many tonight is because all the clouds have rained themselves out. I can’t help but think that Jerry could have a field day with such a good view over our cities. And that ain’t no good for anyone, believe you me. Last time I saw a night like this was the last time I saw my family.’ It was the closest she’d come to even hinting at what she’d left behind. His heart had swollen as it broke for her. Connie usually turned any talk of their relationship into a joke, reminding him it was ‘only a bit of fun’. But now she was confiding in him, ever so slightly. Could things change?

  ‘Do you think of them often?’ What a stupid question. The dead were with you even more than the living, he of all people knew that.

  Connie had pulled into herself, head down. ‘Let’s talk about something else, shall we? Nothing gained by going over lost ground.’

  He’d covered each part of her with kisses, all the bits he could reach, pushing cold sweater up against warm, pliant flesh until the tiny stars of his kisses had smoothed away her frown. Stars tasted salty, of sweat and joy and primal desire …

  ‘I’ve got them! Come on!’ Gianni hissed from the doorway, pulling Seppe out of his reverie, his eyes gleaming as he waved the tickets.

  T
hey filed in and Seppe sank down into the chair in the gloom of the cinema. What was the name of the main picture they were here to see? Actually, who cared? He was warm and safe in the most comfortable chair in the world, the forest was over the road for cover, and tomorrow, if they could find a copse thick enough, Connie would drag him into it and do things with her hands and her tongue that even here, in the dark, he couldn’t name to himself. For those minutes when he held her head in his hands, kissed her, saw her eyes gleam with knowing and longing, he would be truly alive.

  On the screen now, scenes of war reeled past in grotesque, blown-up Pathé vision. It wasn’t Seppe’s war. This war was sanitised, presided over by a Brit with a booming voice who was talking across scenes of GIs in enormous tanks pushing triumphantly through swathes of countryside. ‘On this mission are the battle-hardened veterans of our Sicilian and North African campaigns.’ So this was the Fifth Army again, that sworn enemy of the Regio Esercito throughout those endless desert nights. He might have fought against some of those men marching across the screen. Was it wrong to almost want to thank them? Without that defeat, he wouldn’t be here, where there was not a grain of sand, no bodies ripening in unforgiving desert heat, maggots blistering in fetid wounds. This war was happening elsewhere.

  Seppe settled back in this miracle of a chair, letting the waves of battle flow over him, the modulated tones of the narrator almost soothing as a map of Europe dominated the space. His eyelids drooped and on their insides was Connie, twisting beneath him, silent for once, her hands gripping him, urging him …

  ‘Eh! No!’

  He sprang back to attention. Fredo was up from his seat now, fists pummelling towards the screen, his face in the beam of the projector, twisted and awful. What did he expect the British newsreels to show? If he couldn’t cope with this, he should never have come. Already the people in front of them were turning and tutting. If they were kicked out now they would surely have their camp privileges revoked.