The House at Tyneford (46 page)

“Safer like this, don’t you think?” he said pleasantly.

The pilot looked at him with steady hate and then leaned over and retched into the bucket. Mr. Rivers pulled Kit’s cigarette case from his pocket, offering it to the pilot. He took one and allowed Mr. Rivers to light it, without a word of thanks.

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to stay here for an hour or two, till they can send an army chap to fetch you,” said Mr. Rivers. “You’ll be quite comfortable. No one will hurt you.”

The man said nothing, just drew on his cigarette.

“Alice?” said Mr. Rivers, without turning to look at me. “Will you translate? In case he’s ignorant rather than ill-mannered.”

I stepped forward, resting my hand on the back of Mr. Rivers’ chair.

The German sat up and stared at me, his mouth slightly agape.

He continued to stare, as though disbelieving his own ears. He touched the wound on his forehead, as though unsure if I was a mirage caused by the blow. Swallowing, he licked dry lips and his eyes flicked around the room, meeting for a moment Mr. Rivers’ cool gaze. Apparently satisfied that he was not dreaming, he focused upon me once again.

I smiled despite myself. In all my imaginary meetings with captured Nazis, I had not considered making small talk. I hesitated, deciding whether to answer. I gave a small sigh.

He gazed, unseeing, out of the window.
“The most beautiful city in all of the world. Pretty enough for heaven.”

“Yes,”
I agreed, staring at him. He was a Nazi but this man who had fallen out of the sky was speaking in my mother tongue. I hated him and yet we shared something. For a moment I was crippled with homesickness. I wanted the army to take their time in coming to collect him, so I could spend the afternoon talking with him about Café Sperl and listening to the band in the park of the Belvedere Palace, or which cake was better, the chocolate at the Sacher or the linzer torte at Hotel Bristol. In a way, he was more my countryman than Mr. Rivers or Mrs. Ellsworth or Poppy or Burt could ever be. But he would also burn my father’s books in the street. I blinked.

Mr. Rivers glanced at me and then at the pilot, but said nothing. His German was passable, but I knew we spoke too fast for him to fully understand.

“Ah, the mountains of the Tyrol. Snow in winter. Edelweiss in summer,”
said the pilot, letting the ash fall from his cigarette onto the dining room rug.
“I don’t suppose I shall see them for a while.”

“No.”

I replied in English, uncertain if he was asking for my pity, but his face was blank and I realised that he merely thought aloud. He had sandy hair and a snub nose, and his eyes were a greenish blue. Blood congealed on his forehead from the cut and in the sunlight I thought I saw a glimpse of white bone. I felt sick and swallowed. He dabbed feebly at his gash with the compress, the cotton pad staining brown and red. Unaware of what I did, I found myself stepping forward and reaching for the cloth. Then I stopped dead and shoved my hands into my pockets. I would not touch him. I backed away, feeling my lip curl in horror at the thought of his proximity, and retreated behind Mr. Rivers’ chair.

The pilot eyed me, intrigued as to my obvious revulsion. I could sense him wondering and, as the fog of pain and shock cleared from his mind, considering why an Austrian girl would be living in an English country house. Any moment and he would know. He was a logical man and first he eliminated other possibilities. He scrutinised my left hand for a wedding ring.

I did not reply; I would not help him.

“He is your husband?”
he asked, nodding toward Mr. Rivers.

I flushed and shook my head.

He gave a tiny, satisfied nod. Then there was only one reason for my presence. I heard him say the word in his mind. Jew. I heard it as loud as if he had shouted, “She lives here in exile because she is a Jew.” It would have been better if he had spoken it. His silent condemnation enraged me. How dare he? He was the traitor. He was the one who had chased me through the fields like a run-rabbit as he fired upon me with his machine gun and made the woodland floor leap with bullets and the sheep on the meadow explode with a belly full of blood. He silenced my mother’s singing and her letters; he kept my sister far away across the sea; he trapped my father inside the viola. He chased me all the way from Austria across the ridge of green English hills and now he sat here in the sunlit room taunting me. I read hatred in his silence. He said nothing, so I heard everything. I crossed the room again, but this time I did not flinch from touching him. I drew my arm back and hit him across the face. I felt his jaw crack, all the way up my arm. My palm stung and I was glad. His hand went to his cheek, a streak of red on his fingertips where my thumbnail had caught his skin. No one spoke. Not Mr. Rivers. Not Poppy or Burt. The pilot looked at me in surprise.

“You shot at me,”
I shouted.
“You.”

He shook his head.
“No, Fräulein. I did not shoot you.”

Mr. Rivers grabbed my wrist to steady me, but I shook him away. I was entitled to a moment of crazed fury. There was a fleck of blood under my nail. Nazi blood, the same colour as any other. In my dreams I’d imagined them to bleed black like witches. I felt the violence beneath my skin, and the hair on my arms prickled. I thought of the night fox with his hackles raised in the dark and knew that a savage part of me wanted to kill this man. Wanted to bite and tear and claw and bleed him more than a petty thumbnail scratch. I walked out of the room and slammed the door shut, leaning for a second against it, and listened to the hammer and thud of my own heart and the hushed voices on the other side.

I lay in the semidarkness of my attic room, cradling the battered viola case, and did not move until I heard the rumble of tyres on the gravel driveway below. I listened for the sound of boots on stone and, a few minutes later, the snarl of the engine as the army truck drove away, and I knew he was gone.

T
he WAAFs arrived in March with the thaw. They came as the daffodils erupted on the banks in golden clouds and the tart spring wind carried the scent of green things. I watched from my bedroom window as they clattered across the drive in a hurry of suitcases, woollen stockings and mouths painted Woolworths red. They chattered and smoked and filled the hall with unrepressed laughter and whispered confidences. I came down to greet them, noticed the fragrance of “ashes of roses” mingling with too much cheap violet perfume, and smiled. We’d been stupid with grief for too long, numbed by winter cold and unhappiness. The house needed these girls, with their romances, pencilled eyebrows and cheerful noise. The girls hushed as they saw me. I shook hands with each in turn. “Hullo. I’m Alice Land. If you need anything at all, you’ve only to ask me or Mrs. Ellsworth.”

The housekeeper had retreated in annoyance into her kitchen, irritated by the war forcing upon us more guests than we had bedrooms for, but I knew she would relent in the face of all the happy chatter. There were fifteen girls and I’d had to squeeze four into each of the guest rooms and, for the first time since I’d been at Tyneford, all the maids’ rooms were full. All except my little attic. As I’d gone up to put fresh sheets on the bed and air the room, I’d realised that I couldn’t bear anyone else to sleep there. The WAAF girls could manage perfectly well and I decided they would probably prefer to share rooms in the cold house. Spring always arrived late to Tyneford, and despite the blossoms dusting the hedgerows like duckling down, the wind hissed through the gaps in the brickwork and, without coal to keep them going, the log fires stuttered into ash after dark. A layer of ice coated the inside of the windows most mornings. I shepherded the girls upstairs, enjoying the bustle of noise and footsteps. As I ushered the last few into Kit’s old room, I heard whispers behind me and a giggle. A girl called Maureen had seized the photograph resting on the dresser.

“He’s a dish,” she said, admiring the picture of Kit. “When’s he home on leave?”

“Bet he’s a smasher in uniform,” said Sandra, a stout girl with brown eyes and mousy hair dressed in a permanent wave.

I resisted the urge to tear the picture out of their hands. “He won’t be coming home. And if Mr. Rivers is a bit short with you, well, that’s why.”

Maureen replaced the photograph and the chatter dulled for a moment. She gave a small sigh that sounded almost like disappointment.

“That’s a right shame,” murmured Sandra, struck by the waste of such a handsome young man and clearly feeling cheated out of a romance.

“Yes. Every woman fell in love with Kit,” I said, noticing with a smile that they still did. “It’ll be a squeeze in here, but I’m sure you’ll manage. Dinner will be served at seven in the kitchen. Please don’t be late. And if you would give me your ration books, Mrs. Ellsworth will take care of them.”

The girls handed me their beige ration books with military obedience, and then those who did not have to get ready for their shift sprawled across the double bed and the low camp cots set out on the floor.

“And I must ask you not to smoke in the bedrooms.”

They promised me most politely that they wouldn’t dream of it, and I retreated to the doorway and watched as they set to, making up their faces and thumbing through Diana’s old copies of
Vogue
and this month’s
Woman’s Own
with eager shrieks. I saw Margot and me laughing as we prepared for a party, me eyeing her enviously as she slipped into gorgeous lace underwear or a pair of Anna’s handmade high-heeled shoes, neither of which would have fitted me. Withdrawing, I closed the door and made my way downstairs. As I buttoned up my coat, ready to walk down to the farm, Mr. Wrexham appeared in the hall, holding out a large brown package.

“This arrived in this morning’s post. From America, I believe, Miss Land,” he announced, as delighted as if he had fetched it from California himself.

I opened the parcel to reveal a large cardboard box, stuffed with presents all carefully wrapped in shredded newspaper. I reached in and pulled out a vast bar of Hershey’s milk chocolate. Attached to the silver paper was a letter. Discarding the chocolate, I tore open the envelope.

I delved inside the parcel, drawing out several records. In a plain cardboard wrapper, I discovered Anna’s. I couldn’t listen to it any more than I could read the novel inside the viola but I was glad Margot had sent it. One day, I would listen. My rummaging was interrupted by excited voices. I glanced around and saw a half dozen of the WAAF girls dressed in their uniforms, all ready to go on shift.

“Oh! Records! From America,” said Sandra, actually jumping from foot to foot, when she saw the package lying on the table.

“May I?” asked Maureen, reaching for the box.

“Of course.” I smiled at her and she pulled out a record.

“Glenn Miller, Billie Holiday and, oh dear, this one’s broken.”

I took it from her, holding the two snapped sides together so as to read the label:
My Sister and I
.

“Never mind,” said Sandra. “It’s the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra with Frank Sinatra I want to hear. And look, it’s perfect.”

She held up another for me to admire.

“Can’t we have a dance here?” asked one of the girls.

“Oh, yes, please,” added Maureen and Sandra, their faces shiny with hope.

I paused, glancing at Mr. Wrexham, both of us wondering what Mr. Rivers would say. There was a cry of delight and then an awed hush fell over the assembled girls as Sandra pulled a small cardboard tube from the box.

“It’s Elizabeth Arden,” she whispered in reverent tones. “Cherryred.”

“There’s been none in England for two years,” murmured Maureen, and for an awful moment I thought she was going to cry.

“Come on,” said Sandra, fixing me with a hard stare. “You simply must have a party now.”