Hannah & Emil (17 page)

I took a soft leather notebook from under my pillow and a fountain pen from the bookshelf, knowing even as I did it that it was a bad idea, placed them carefully at the centre of the desk, beneath the large white-framed windows open to the trees of the heath and the summer sky. A writer's desk, here, in my room.

On the street a motor vehicle rumbled for a second or two before cutting out. Mrs Gask was out there, calling to the driver. I ran down the stairs, out of the open front door and onto the street where Mrs Gask was standing next to a van with its back doors open. ‘Mrs Gask,' I called out to her. ‘Your desk. It is in my room!'

Mrs Gask turned and took my hands in her own. ‘Yes, Hannah dear. It is a gift from William and me.'

‘But why don't you need it? You are not—giving up journalism?'

‘Oh, Hannah. Your face. We would not disappoint you so. We are going to Paris for a while, and all about. The
Daily News
wants stories from the Continent, peacetime dispatches from our neighbours, that sort of thing.'

‘It is the most wonderful present. And you and Mr Gask will have such a time! I am almost eaten alive with envy.'

‘One day it will be you, Hannah dear. You are a much cleverer young woman than I ever was. Do you know, my French is appalling, in spite of all you've tried to teach me.'

I thought I would cry right here on the street with the removalist looking on. ‘I shall miss you, Mrs Gask. We could never have such nice tenants as you and Mr Gask again.'

‘And we will never again have such kind landlords. What a joy you are, dear Hannah. What a clever, determined young lady. Goodbye and good luck.'

Mrs Gask thrust forth a hand for me to shake. I offered my own briefly and ran inside before I could disgrace myself. In my room the desk was as I left it in its perfect position beneath the window. The pages of the journal flapped against one another in the breeze.

The next morning, when Mother came in to wake me, I groaned under the covers.

‘What's wrong, little one?'

‘Don't feel well.'

Mother laid the back of her hand across my forehead. Her long pale fingers, always cool. ‘Goodness. You are burning up. Stay in bed. I'll bring you tea.'

When she had gone I pulled the hot-water bottle from under the covers and threw it under the bed.

As I drank my tea, Geoffrey appeared at the door in his school uniform, glowering. ‘What's supposed to be the matter with you?'

‘Spanish flu. Go to school.'

‘Do you want to buy a copy of the
Heath Herald
to read in bed? Special edition.'

‘I don't like football.'

‘There's a fairly devastating exposé of the goings-on at number twelve.'

‘Oh, all right then. There's tuppence on the dresser.'

He took the coin, left a thin newssheet in its place.

‘Geoffrey?'

‘Yes.'

‘Where's Benjamin?'

‘Playing out on the heath.'

‘Oh.'

I looked at him, made an effort to fix his face in my memory—not the scowling version, rather how he looked when he too was playing on the heath, running, smiling, curls pulled back by the wind. Or now, that look of grim satisfaction when he had just made a sale. As he went out I put the picture aside and thought through my morning.

After an age the house fell silent. Father left early to visit his shops, of which there were now three. Mother called in Benjamin and the boys went off next after the usual whining and scuffle with Mother over combing hair, brushing teeth. There had been a commotion when Benjamin thought he'd twisted his ankle after sliding down the banister but he was all right after Mother made him sit with ice on it for a while. He had actually broken his arm once sliding down the banister but he never would stop. I wanted to go out for a look at him but it would seem odd when I was supposed to be bedridden. Then at last Mother, who came in quietly with the basket over her arm, told me she was going to walk across the heath to the market at Golders Green and asked if there was anything special I would like her to bring back.

‘No, thank you, Mother,' I said quietly as she kissed my brow. I could not look at her as she left, even to remember later.

I listened for a moment to the quiet of the house. When you listened it was never so quiet as you thought. There was the water gurgling in the hot-water system, the loud tick of the clock in the hall, a schoolmaster shouting at a class of boys cross-country running on the heath. Come on then, Hannah, I told myself. I pushed off the covers, beneath which I was fully dressed, and reached under the bed for my brown leather case. It was heavy. On top of it was yesterday's edition of the
Ham and High
. There was the address circled in red. A Mrs Windsor in Willow Road. I unclasped my case, laid the
Ham
and High
and Geoffrey's
Heath Herald
on my clothes and refastened it.

I stood before the desk for a moment, case in hand, the high-stacked clouds billowing over the pond, and leaned forward, rested my head on its cool painted surface. Go, Hannah. The case was heavy. It banged against my legs on the stairs. At the door I snapped my key quietly onto the bureau and stepped outside.

As I lugged my case along the empty street under scudding clouds, the work of carrying it warming me in spite of a chill breeze, I must have been sad, mustn't I? I was not an entirely heartless young woman. But that is not the feeling I remember as I walked away from our lovely house that accommodated everybody I loved. I felt a pure, sweet burst of energy, to be moving, to be out in the world, to be on my way.

Part II

Emil

THE NORTH SEA, 1929

Strange to ride as a passenger aboard this empty steamer. No shift to prepare for, hours to kill to Bremen, shuffling about the ship like a wealthy old tycoon deprived of the cabarets and pretty waitresses and cool heavy linen.

Emil sat on a stool he had brought up onto the first-class deck from his cabin, sliding around a little in the spray, the only furniture on the broad gleaming road of decking that stretched away fore and aft. His body was cold inside his coat but his face was warm in the morning sun that had dropped a silver blanket over the sea as they ploughed east towards Germany. A dark figure appeared against the glare, rounding the prow, growing larger along the shining road. There was something in the walk he knew: the little bob after impact. A roundish man, bouncing towards him. A cheerful walk. It was Meier, a young engineer he had met in Ireland when he went over with Siemens for the hydro-electric scheme at Ardnacrusha. The sight of his walk, the round stomach and face, fat-lipped smile, took him back to that place before the years at sea, the solitary weeks, the rough chaos of furloughs at port. His marriage to Ava was new then. He carried the knowledge of his fine, bright-haired wife across the sea like a medal in his pocket. The secret of how he had discovered her at a dance in Düsseldorf and talked her into marriage within a week. And Ireland, a wonder, that light after the night voyage falling on his new-feeling skin, dawn on the dock at Dún Laoghaire, the ride into Dublin and the streets filled with musicians, beggars and priests from some unfolding story—even Ireland just a place in the big world now, just another he had seen.

He stood, held out his hand. ‘Meier!'

‘Ah, Becker. It
is
you! I saw your name on the roster when I boarded in England but did not believe it. You look well.'

‘And you, Meier. Where have you been all this time? Did you stay on in Ireland?'

‘I did. I saw the opening, and the lights going on in the towns. It was a true marvel. And now, since August, I work on the ships. It is a quieter life than we're used to, Becker.'

‘Until you reach port. But you're right. I have never read so much in my life.'

‘You always were the intellectual. Let me guess. Kant? Nietzsche?'

‘The fellow before me left a lot of murder mysteries, in several languages. I am now able to commit the perfect crime in Paris, Berlin or London.'

Meier leaned over the rail, his face rosy in the autumn sun, his thinning hair trailing shipwards in the wind. He drew a hipflask from the pocket of his greatcoat, offered it to Emil, who took a draught. ‘Irish whiskey. That takes me back.'

‘What else is a man to drink? I am ruined for schnapps forever. It doesn't warm you in the same way. You know, Becker, I'm remembering the last time I saw you, you devil. Wasn't it that night . . . ?'

Emil smiled at the sea. He knew what Meier was talking about. It was the night they had crept through the workers' camp, between huge tents that emitted the sounds of men sleeping and talking, down to the project. He and Meier had climbed across the scaffolding onto one of the massive pipes set out over the dam, sat astride it, drinking whiskey for perhaps an hour, this man talking about Irish girls, the exact and detailed ways in which they differed from Germans. He remembered that Meier's enthusiasm seemed untempered by actual experience. Then the boy had dropped the bottle. It fell into the blackness beneath them for long seconds before shattering on the stony bank below. The guard dogs went off and they had scrambled along the slippery pipes with splayed legs and outstretched arms, snagging on bolts, giggling, uncoordinated, suddenly frightened of falling—that bottle had taken a long time to hit the bottom—then scurrying through camp, chests on fire, to the engineers' barracks. The chains of the dogs clattered behind them; the Alsatians were wild for a catch.

Emil was on a train across the green country to Dún Laoghaire the next day. He'd been offered a position in Finland, setting up a smaller power plant, and since then he had tested equipment on the ships. He had never known what came of that night, but here was Meier, none the worse. Everyone a little older and wiser. He felt a pang for youth and stupidity. It seemed to him he was not a man to do such things now.

‘I almost got my head kicked for that one.' Meier smiled. ‘And you, you were the ringleader! And then you were away, scot-free.'

‘We did no harm. They didn't discipline you, did they?'

‘They could not prove it was me. And since you were gone, they let it go after a few days. But you know, I would do it again. I shall never forget it.'

‘No.' Emil laughed. ‘Me neither.'

‘I remember,' said Meier, offering him another draught, ‘there was a baby . . .'

‘Yes, Hans. He's three now. I'll see him tomorrow.'

Meier clapped him on the shoulder. ‘That's right. A boy! And your beautiful wife? She's well?'

‘I think so. I've not seen either of them for several months. It's not always easy to tell, from letters.'

‘No, that's true. Still, they'll put on a fine homecoming for you. You're lucky to have a family to welcome you. I'm returning for some training. Then back to sea.'

‘You are a young man still. Did you never find an Irish girl?'

‘Irish girls don't want to go to Germany. They prefer America. I should know. I asked enough of them.'

‘Spend your leave with us. You can stay at my apartment. It's no good coming home with nothing to do.'

Meier took a drink. ‘That's all right, Emil. I won't be staying in Germany for long. I find I like the sea.'

Emil felt the whiskey burn close to his heart. In his coat pocket he had a picture of the boy, an old one. He was not much more than a baby, sitting on his mother's lap for his portrait. Emil had taken them to the studio on his visit before last. It had cost a fortune, but he was paid and fed well, and liked to spend his money on them.

In the distance was the dark green line of the shore. In his gut spread a small fear. That he did not know his wife. That the boy would look at him as if he were a stranger, after this long separation. And the town might be too much changed to recognise. Father wrote that he was not worried about these Nazis. Or the communists with their little bombs. Each time he detailed something he was not worried about, Emil felt his anxiety drifting up off the page.

He was a lucky man next to this Meier. Mostly, he felt warm, a heat coming from the green horizon, pulling him towards it, guiding him into the gap in the land at the Elbe, on down into his country, the land not yet frozen for winter, to his town and his woman and his boy, who would launch himself into his arms, then hang off his neck and chatter until the cavernous spaces the sea wind had cleared in his head were blown away entirely.