Last Telegram Page 9

  “Put me out of my misery,” I said. Surely she wasn’t pregnant?

  “Oh, Lily,” she blurted out suddenly, with a sob in her voice, “if there’s a war, he says he’s going to join up. Whatever am I going to do?”

  The grass and the evening sky seemed to pale, like an overexposed photograph, and the persistent cooing of the collared doves became loud and irritating. “I don’t believe it. Why’s he told you, but not us?” I squeaked.

  She shook her head, and quite suddenly, I was overcome with anger. “What a stupid, stupid, selfish boy,” I found myself shouting. “He never thinks of anyone else but himself. What about Mother and Father? They’ll be devastated.”

  “I shouldn’t have told you,” she whispered, her voice cracked.

  “He doesn’t have to go. Father said he thought producing parachute silk would be a reserved occupation, like being a doctor or an engineer. They won’t have to fight because they’re needed here, at home.”

  “I’ve already been through all that.” Her face was blotchy and wretched. “But he says he can’t stay at home while other people fight, and the Germans will invade unless we stop them.” She started to sob properly now, shoulders shaking, the tears leaving grimy streaks on her cheeks.

  I pulled out an insubstantial lacy handkerchief, rather grubby.

  “He doesn’t have to stop them in person,” I said, as Vera tried to dry her eyes. I watched the ants running up and down the bark of the tree, busy in their miniature world, and envied their simple lives. “How will we cope at the mill? Why hasn’t he told us?”

  “Because he knows your parents would try to dissuade him, that’s why.” She gave a ragged sigh. “Bloody, isn’t it? Men feel it’s their duty to go and fight, but…hell, I’m so terrified I’ll lose him, just as we’ve found each other.” A new tear overflowed, trickled down her cheek, and came to rest in a dimple.

  “Let me talk to him.”

  “Please don’t. He’d be furious if he knew I’d told you.”

  “Then you’ll have to stop him.”

  “You think I haven’t tried?”

  “This is so awful. Why do countries have to fight each other?”

  We sat silently for a moment.

  “Lord, is that the time?” She peered at the little watch pinned upside down to her breast pocket like a medal. “I’ve got to go. The parents will worry. When John gets in, would you mention that I’m back? Casually—you don’t know about us, remember?”

  “Shall I see you tomorrow, or have you got to see John instead?” I sounded like a jealous lover.

  “Oh, Lily, don’t be such an idiot. This won’t stop us being best friends.” She jumped up, brushing the dust from her skirt. “I’m sorry all of this has come as such a shock. I didn’t mean to gab about his joining up, but I’ve been so worried. You’re the only person I can talk to.”

  • • •

  I watched the sun setting behind the poplars and listened to the evening chorus of birds noisily staking their territories. An absurd thought crossed my mind—if birds could settle their differences by singing, why couldn’t countries find some similarly peaceable way of doing it? Why did they have to fight each other?

  Didn’t John realize his misguided sense of duty could get him killed? I had to try to dissuade him. But what chance was there of changing his mind when Vera had already tried and failed? He seemed so absolute these days, so certain of his opinions. He railed against Chamberlain’s peace-making—in his view, nothing but brute force would stop the Nazis now. In any case, if I talked to him he’d be furious with Vera for breaking his confidence.

  When I got back, the house was empty and a cold supper was laid on the kitchen table, covered with muslin, a note propped against the water jug. “Gone to bed. Headache. Sorry. Mother.” I had no appetite, anyway. I pulled an armchair over to the sitting room window, poured myself another large gin and tonic, and sat with my head full of angry, miserable thoughts, as the air grew thick with dusk and the room went dark around me.

  • • •

  The following day, Vera and I went shopping in Westbury for makeup to cheer ourselves up. We made a pact not to talk about war. Over strong tea and stale cakes in Mary’s Café, I told her about my date with Robbie.

  “Flying you away for the weekend, how romantic,” Vera sighed. “Sounds like something out of Hollywood.”

  “I won’t go, of course.”

  “You must go. When would you get a chance like that again? To hell with your virginity, you’ve got to lose it some time.” Vera might already have lost hers, I thought, mildly disgusted at the thought of her and my brother doing it. But it wasn’t the virginity thing that concerned me.

  “To be honest, I’m not sure what I feel about him. He’s so gentlemanly and handsome and he’s got a beautiful car. Ma and Pa think he’s the bee’s knees. But…”

  “But what?”

  Why was I hesitating? I hardly knew myself. I’d been desperate for a boyfriend and desolate when Robbie had failed to follow up his promise. Now that he seemed keen, I was having doubts. And it wasn’t just that I thought he was a bit fast.

  “What’s up, Lily?” A slow smile spread across her face. “There’s someone else, isn’t there? Goodness, you are a dark horse. Go on, spill it.”

  “No,” I said firmly. “No one else, nothing to tell.”

  There really was nothing, at least not that I could make sense of. But something unexpected had happened that I couldn’t get out of my mind.

  • • •

  All week, the weather had been roasting and so hot in the weaving shed that we had struggled to keep our hands dry to avoid staining the silk with sweat. The canteen, with its wide windows, was also sweltering and provided no respite at tea breaks. Stefan, Kurt, and Walter had started to take their breaks outside to get some fresh air, and I was usually invited to join them.

  That day, I found Stefan on the bench behind the boiler house, on his own. It was cool there, shaded from direct sunshine by the overhang of the building.

  “Where are the others?” I asked. Kurt and Walter had recently been promoted from the packing shed to work in the new finishing room with Bert.

  “They have to finish a couple of rolls before they can stop, Bert said.”

  Across the meadows, a gentle breeze blew a blizzard of willow fluff. “Is it snowing, in June?” he said, as we sat down with our glasses of orange squash.

  “It’s just the seed from the cricket bat willows, silly.”

  “Cricket bat willows?”

  “Those tall, straight trees.” I pointed. “They use the wood for cricket bats.”

  “All of those trees? That will make many bats.”

  “Every English boy has to have one.”

  “You and your cricket,” he laughed.

  “It’s like a religion,” I said.

  “But why do they use that wood? Is it so special?”

  “It is flexible and strong, and doesn’t crack when you whack a cricket ball.”

  “I know nothing about cricket, I’m a city boy,” he said, pulling out a packet of cigarettes, tapping the end, and taking out two. He lit them both and passed one to me. The intimacy of this gesture gave me a little jolt of pleasure. I found myself watching him without meaning to; no movement was superfluous. He reminded me of a sleek black cat.

  “Tell me about your city,” I asked, trying unsuccessfully to blow smoke rings into the still air.

  “Hamburg? It is a wonderful place. On a big river, the Elbe, a harbor, lots of ships. But most of all I like the music. It has many jazz clubs and bars.” The fingers on his left hand played silent notes on his knee.

  “Where did you learn to play the piano?”

  “From my mother. She taught me traditional music: Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, you know? She trained to be a concert pianist, but it was difficult to make money this way, so she became instead a teacher.”

  “That’s a coincidence. We both have mothers who are pianists,” I
said.

  “But I let my mother down. I was a rebel. My friends took me to a jazz club and I did not play Beethoven anymore. Jazz was the only music for me. Bohemians, my father called us.” He took a drag of his cigarette and blew three perfectly formed rings into the still air.

  “Wow. Where did you learn to do that? In the jazz clubs?”

  “Those clubs got me into trouble too.”

  I remembered that wet Sunday in the drawing room. “What you told us about…Swingjugend? What were they? What happened?”

  “Jazz is forbidden and the government is closing the clubs. The Jugend want to keep the clubs open. It is for…” he struggled to find the right words.

  “To protest?”

  “Yes, that is it,” he said. “To protest the Nazis.” I hadn’t the heart to correct him. I was still struggling to understand why such joyful music should be banned in the first place. “What is so bad about jazz?”

  “It is negro music,” he said bluntly. “Not pure. Dirty. Like what they say about the Jews.”

  I was shocked into silence. “Dirty?” This quiet, sensitive boy slouched so elegantly against the wall, contemplating his feet, that gleaming mop of dark hair falling over his face? The notion would be laughable, if it weren’t so sickening. “Tell me what happened next.”

  “When they arrested us, they said if they caught us again, we’d be sent to work camps. We didn’t care. The most important thing was to make a stand against them, against…It is horrible, living in fear, people shouting at you in the street, throwing things.”

  He looked away across the field, almost talking to himself. “When I got home, Vati told me they had to get me out of Germany. People never came back from the camps, he said. I thought he was crazy. How can I leave my family? But he found a sponsor for me only, and they have the money for just my fare. They will come later, they said, but now they have no jobs, they have no money to pay.” There was a break in his voice as it tailed away.

  “You know my father is still trying very hard to get them work and visas?” I said. He had pulled all possible strings at the Rotary Club and the local Chamber of Commerce, but so far in vain. We all knew that if war came, it would be too late.

  Stefan lit another cigarette, raised it with a trembling hand, and exhaled slowly. No smoke rings this time. “I will never forget that day. He would not let my mother and the girls come to the station in case she changed her mind. Everyone was crying, except for him. He was trying to be strong.”

  His voice faltered and stopped. I put my hand gently onto his shoulder. Without warning, he threw down his cigarette, swiveled on the bench, and wrapped his arms around me, burying his face in my neck. His hair smelled deliciously of sweat, shaving soap, and cigarette smoke. We held each other for a long moment, listening to each other’s heartbeats, matching the pace of our breathing.

  Eventually he pulled away. I wanted to say something more but couldn’t find the right words, and then the klaxon sounded the end of tea break. As we walked back into the mill, we passed Bert returning to the finishing room. He was a short, bowed man getting on in years, who always wore the same grubby tweed jacket. I imagined him to be a widower, or more likely a bachelor who had never developed the social skills to attract a wife. He scowled and seemed barely to acknowledge us. I felt ridiculously guilty, as though I’d done something wrong just being seen with Stefan.

  That night, the heat was oppressive. I couldn’t sleep. Even hours later, I could feel the impression of that awkward embrace against me and it made my body feel heavy and hot. But what did it mean? Had he turned to me just for comfort? Or was there more to it? My thoughts were like a tangled skein. He was just a boy, nearly two years younger than me. Even if he really was older, as Leo had suggested at the camp, he could never admit it. If Father found out, he would be furious, might even send Stefan away. But nothing was going to happen.

  And nothing did. Stefan and I continued to work closely at our looms, and often stood beside each other, looking for lost warp threads or checking the tension on the cloth beams. Occasionally, a private smile passed between us, and once or twice I caught him watching me. As the weeks went by, I wondered if that moment by the boiler house had meant anything at all.

  Besides, Robbie was my ideal boyfriend: charming, rich, and fun. The perfect match. So why did my heart not leap when I thought of him?

  8

  Silk has a range of remarkable properties: it is rot-resistant, making it capable of being stored for many years without deterioration; it is non-allergenic, which makes it ideal for bandages; and it has very low conductivity and thus was widely used for insulation of electrical wiring before the advent of plastics.

  —The History of Silk by Harold Verner

  For several weeks, Father had been traipsing around the country meeting potential contractors, including Robbie’s outfit in Hertfordshire.

  Hitler had signed a non-aggression pact with Russia, which the papers said would effectively allow the Germans to invade Poland unhindered, so war seemed inevitable. All this was affecting our business terribly; it had never been worse. We’d had no new orders for weeks and faced the dismal prospect of having to lay workers off.

  But that evening in late August, Father’s face was bright with triumph. “It’s still hush-hush, but our test samples have been accepted,” he said, pouring sherry. “Let’s toast to that.”

  “The ministry also wants a smallish quantity of fine white taffeta,” he went on, after we’d all raised our glasses. “Won’t tell me what it’s for, but one of the minions told me, on the QT, that it’s for printing what they call escape and evasion maps. They’re sewn inside airmen’s uniforms, so if they’re downed in enemy territory, they can find their way back.”

  We sat down at the table and Mother brought out his favorite supper.

  “I’ve made toad-in-the-hole to celebrate your success,” she said, starting to serve the sausages in their jackets of puffy Yorkshire batter. John was unusually quiet, I thought; he hadn’t reacted with much excitement to Father’s news. And then I remembered. It could be him, that airman downed behind the lines. Was he imagining what it would really be like, cold, hungry, frightened, and possibly injured, not knowing who he could trust? A map might be some comfort, I supposed, but not much.

  “I learned something else today,” Father said, pouring gravy liberally over his mashed potato. “As of next week, the government’s going to sequester all stocks of raw silk, so only mills with contracts for essential war uses will get any. Without these contracts, we’d probably have had to close, at least for the duration. It could have been a disaster for us. As it is, we’ll be busier than ever. Well done, everyone.”

  As I watched John raise his glass to toast our success, the thought suddenly struck me. It’s all very well for you, I thought bitterly. You won’t even be here to help.

  • • •

  A couple of days later, I caught sight of Robbie at the top of the weaving shed steps, scanning the rows of looms. He looked like some exotic creature among the weavers’ dun overalls and head scarves in his expensive pinstriped suit, a glossy black briefcase under his arm.

  Gwen went over to meet him and he bent to shout something in her ear. They came down the steps, and as they walked along the narrow aisle between the looms, she fell a few steps behind and imitated his military gait, straight-backed, chin in the air. A dozen weavers looked up, amused by her gentle mimicry. Robbie grinned back, confident their smiles were for him.

  “Great day,” he shouted. “Just signed the parachute contract with your pa. Can you take a break?” He pointed toward the side door, opened to allow the breeze to circulate around the weaving shed. I nodded, untied my overall, pulled off my head scarf, tweaked my hair into shape, and gestured to Stefan to ask him to watch my looms. As we walked away I caught his eyes following me, and Gwen watching Stefan.

  “Phew, it’s hot in there. Don’t know how you stand it,” Robbie said, once we were outside. “Who’s the ch
armer?”

  “Charmer?”

  “Fellow at the loom next to you.”

  “One of the German boys. What do you mean, charmer?”

  “Never trust those sultry European types,” he said. There was a brittle edge to his voice.

  While I was trying to think up a decent response without sounding defensive, he went on, “Now look here, old thing. I wanted to say that I’m sorry I haven’t organized that trip to the Peaks I promised. Problems borrowing a plane.” Thank goodness, I thought. I’d dreaded the moment he’d suggest it again. “But we’re thinking of going to Cambridge on Sunday,” he went on. “Take out a punt, have a picnic. The weather’s wonderful and I need a bit of light relief. What do you say?”

  “Sounds fun,” I said, relieved. “Who’s we?”

  “A couple of friends. And you, I hope.”

  Any misgivings I might have felt were immediately brushed aside. With a group of people, nothing would get too heavy, I reasoned. I had visited Cambridge a few times before, and knew it to be a very beautiful, romantic city. But I’d never been taken punting before. Robbie had promised champagne. How glamorous it sounded, and what an adventure.

  • • •

  The day dawned cloudlessly, and by the time he arrived, it had turned into a glorious morning. I felt like royalty, easing myself into the Morgan in a carefully chosen strappy summer dress and sandals. The regiment of brass buttons on Robbie’s blazer twinkled in the sun, and my parents waved with approving smiles. John was nowhere to be seen. I wondered if he was piqued about not being invited, but hardly gave it a second thought.

  When we reached the river, the punt looked so comfortable, with tartan rugs spread over the cushions and a large wicker picnic basket loaded in the front.

  “Shouldn’t we wait for the others?” I asked, as we prepared to climb on board.

  “Others? Ah. Last-minute decision. They can’t make it after all,” he said airily, taking my hand as I stepped onto the flat deck. “Didn’t I say? Never mind, we can have a good time together, can’t we?”

  I sat down on the soft warm cushions and watched him dealing efficiently with the ropes, casting off, and pushing away from the bank. He must have planned it this way, I thought. It was not going to be the party I’d expected.