The Other Side of Love (45 page)

“Stop here.”

Before the car had squealed to a complete halt, he had wrenched open the door. A palm against the small of her back, he thrust her out.

Her foot splashed into the gutter, and she almost fell. As she trudged through the rain, the red fury drained, and she assessed the evening. On the plus side she had learned Erich’s whereabouts. On the minus side, she had made a powerful enemy. And, as for the Vergeltungswaffe, she would watch carefully in Hall Six for any hint of information to be sent via Ulla-Britt Onslager to England.

V

The train was overcrowded, and passengers braved the icy wind between the cars. The hunch-backed man swayed along, one hand gripping the handle of a small cardboard suitcase. The village station signs were all in German, for Alsace was once again part of the Reich.

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Aubrey, though, considered it France, and gulped at the blasts of frigid air as if to clear the grime deposited in his lungs by his months in the Reich. Whenever the isolation and fear had threatened to engulf him, he had conjured up those few minutes in the ruined building. Kathe - the pure oval of her face, the bright hair, the slender graceful body, the glowing blue-green eyes.

Finally he reached the coast and the Zone Interdit. In Rouen, German civilians of an educated cut sipped wine at the cafes surrounding the Place du Vieux-Marche. He was stopped numerous times and, although he carried a German passport and excellent forgeries of passes from the local Feldkommandantur, the local Gestapo searched the small suitcase with its frayed shirts and cardboard snips of samples. At the small fabric-shop off rue de Crosne, a man with nervous tic and straggly goatee introduced himself as the new proprietor. The former owner had turned out to be a terrorist, and was shot, he said, adding:

“The widow’s lucky to have found a buyer.”

Aubrey, sickeningly aware that this new proprietor might be a collaborationist spy, schooled his expression as he gave his sales pitch for ersatz yardage. After he left, he doubled around to ensure he wasn’t being followed. Du Font’s Cremerie had a Ferme sign on the door as did Pollit’s Boulangerie. He was fearing that the entire CI4 network in Rouen had been swept up when a prostitute approached him. After a shrill exchange about the price she took him to her cold slit of a room. They sat on her bed with its rankness of sweat, semen and wartime Cologne while she reported bleakly on the arrests and executions. Then she told what she had learned while pursuing her profession. The new Germans weiWengineers and scientists. Nobody was allowed near their encampment overlooking the sea, but people whispered about the enormous cylinders aimed towards the British coast.

Leaving her room, Aubrey, head still thrust forward but smiling like a satisfied client, strolled down to the harbour. The following dawn, he was aboard a dory and sending messages on a shortwave radio. He floated in the choppy cold water for two and a half hours until a British submarine surfaced.

The following afternoon Aubrey was in the isolated Devonshire house, sitting blessedly erect as he ladled illegal clotted cream on scones spread with blackcurrant jam. Between mouthfuls he told Major Downes about the rockets he was convinced were being manufactured by slave labour on the Baltic island of Peenemunde; the

launching-sites, he believed, were being set up along the Normandy coast. °

IJownes told him he had corroboration from various sources, including True Blue, the code-name for Kathe.

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The Allies launched massive bombing raids on Peenemunde and the French coastal installations. Manufacturing of the rockets was removed to the safety of the labyrinths of an old gypsum mine near Nordhausen. Here, below the mountains of central Germany, thousands of concentrationcamp inmates were worked to death.

The Normandy launching sites, though heavily hit, remained operational.

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I

On 8 September 1943 the Italian government signed an unconditional surrender. The Germans, under tough wily Field Marshal von Kesselring, continued to fight for every inch of their former ally’s soil. Wyatt’s company battled their way up disputed hills to ancient tile-roofed towns. The icy Volturno river twisted through so many artillery-echoing gorges that Wyatt began.to believe Volturno meant

“river”

in Italian. A pastoral valley eruptecwith land-mines. A German tank with a black cross burned while inhumanly shrieking men emerged with their field-grey uniforms ablaze. Toppled churches, smashed antiquities and smashed men - that was Italy. Cold food and the too solid taste of K rations, hungry children begging for Kration chocolate - that was Italy.

And Italy was Captain Arnie Johnson, a big placid twenty-fiveyear-old Wisconsin dairy farmer, faithful husband, father of three little girls, a virtuoso on the harmonica, Wyatt’s friend Arnie with his brains scattered on the blood-red Italian soil.

Enter weeping, Captain Wyatt Kingsmith.

In July of 1944, Wyatt was given a furlough.

II

A postprandial somnolence hung over Quarles. The evacuees were helping a local farmer during their summer holidays; all except for Lucy. Refusing to attend school beyond the legal age-limit of fourteen, Lucy had been elevated to nursemaid: she was watching

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over Geoff. Elizabeth had retired to her room for a secret nip. Wyatt and Araminta were alone on the terrace, he lounging with his long legs stretched out in front of the bench, an arm around his wife. Robins chirped in huge oaks that had sheltered Cromwell’s men, fat bees foraged in the wisteria that clung to the walls.

“Happy?”

she asked.

“Miserable,”

he replied, squeezing her shoulder.

Wyatt might joke the same as ever, but he had suffered a seachange. The quality that Araminta inwardly thought of as boyish had vanished. This husband of hers was a man, a tough lean man with his skin burned dark, his voice pitched unconsciously into a tone of command. A new, even more attractive Wyatt.

She turned, kissing him. He rubbed the nape of her neck. His caress had more than a hint of appetite. Another difference. In the past, Wyatt had been a tenderly considerate lover, but now sex was urgent - almost impersonal in its urgency. Each time was the same as his homecoming, when he’d not wasted time to take off her clothes or his own. There was a kick to his roughness, and several times she had held her breath on the edge of the cliff. Now, now let it happen, she would think, and move with him. Yet never had she been transported over that precipice.

She and Wyatt moved hastily apart. The tall french doors were being jiggled open.

Geoff, thumb near his mouth, stared gravely at them.

“Damn that Lucy. She’s meant to be looking after him,”

Araminta muttered.

“Come here, Geoff, come to your daddy and mummy, darling.”

The child didn’t move. Though his hair had turned the brilliant red of Araminta’s and he had retained his early physical likeness to Euan, his personality in no way resembled either of theirs. In his own babyish way, he kept aloof, playing quietly with his toy blocks, staring at his picture-books. Is this how Peter was?

“Need wee-wee.”

“OK, Geoff old buddy,”

Wyatt said, rising to his feet.

“Let’s us guys head for the latrine.”

“Darling, next thing he’ll be calling the loo that.”

“Big sweat.”

Smiling, Araminta watched the pair, the tall man stooping to hold the toddler’s upraised hand, as they disappeared into the velvety shadows of the library.

Saturday, another fine cloudless day, Wyatt bought blackmarket petrol so they could drive to Faversham station and meet Euan and Porteous.

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Euan stumped ahead to the Daimler with his daughter.

Wyatt and Porteous followed at a slower pace.

“Well, my boy, how was it in Italy?”

Porteous asked, holding on to Wyatt’s arm.

“Wouldn’t miss it for all the world. One thing I’ll say for the Krauts, they’re damned good fighters. But so are we.”

“How has the invasion affected you?”

On 6 June the Allies had crossed the Channel, a mighty armada that had landed beneath Hitler’s Atlantic Wall, capturing the supposedly invincible fortifications, then barrelling into France.

“Taken the pressure off?”

“Not so I notice. But don’t worry, Grandfather, eventually we’ll pound the bloody shit out of the bastards.”

Porteous chuckled at the obscenities, which he never used himself, then tilted his head. His sensitive hearing had picked up a faraway hum. As the sound grew louder, Wyatt, too, heard, and sheltered his eyes against the sun. American Flying Fortresses and their fighter escorts, the new P51s, swarmed like gnats in the blue sky.

“This bombing night and day,”

Porteous sighed.

“I can’t tell you how I worry about my poor little Kate.”

Wyatt’s mouth tightened.

“Save your worries for the doodlebugs.”

A week after D-Day, a new type of weapon, unmanned rocket planes - the Vergeltungswaffen had begun hammering down on London. Later these rocket missiles would be called Vis, but at the moment because of their peculiar throbbing roar they were nicknamed

“doodlebugs’.

“The flying bombs aren’t getting through the coastal defences too often.”

Porteous gazed sightlessly up at {he roaring aircraft.

“We’re bombing Germany to bits. I can only hdBe she’s not still in Berlin.”

Gripping the insubstantial arm tighter; Wyatt firmly changed the subject.

“Watch out for the step, Grandfather.”

Araminta and Euan had reached the car.

“How much did you give for the petrol?”

he demanded over the noise of aeroplanes.

1 haven’t a clue, Daddy. Wyatt bought it.”

“A pretty penny, I’ll bet. You’ll need to watch him. Humphrey never had any idea of the value of money, always enjoyed playing the big man. And like father like son.”

Like father like son …

Arammta’s expression was thoughtful as she recalled Wyatt’s confession in twilit Green Park. Since then he had never brought up tne subject of his paternity. It had occurred to her that he’d told a white he to set her mind at rest about their consanguinity and a” o that in her weird, dislocating grief for Peter she had somehow misinterpreted his words. Now she peered short-sightedly at the

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American captain towering above the old man. Nobody else in the Kingsmith family tanned darkly or had that satirical smile. She shrugged. Why peer in dark corners? There were so many lovely exciting things to think about. After the war she would have smart new clothes, an American motor-car, a divinely warm New York flat, all sorts of delicacies to eat. A husband who slept in her bed every night.

IV

Monday morning dawned softly, with glowing pink clouds streaking the sky. Birds sang, and the sweetness of wisteria and roses hung in the air. Wyatt and Araminta took their coffee out on the terrace.

Til come up to London with you and wave you goodbye.”

“Didn’t I already tell you no, woman?”

“But, darling, it’s not the least bother. Tomorrow I go to the shop anyway.”

After Geoff was born, Araminta had weighed returning to the Auxiliary Fire Service, finally deciding she couldn’t leave her baby so much. Instead, she helped out at Kingsmith’s on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, sleeping Tuesday and Wednesday at the flat and putting in the evenings at the big American Red Cross centre in Piccadilly.

“I want to remember you here with Geoff. No bombed-out backgrounds, just you in this English countryside.”

“Such romanticism.”

“A romantic guy, I.”

She balanced her coffee-cup on the clematis-covered ledge.

“All in all, darling, I rather fancy you.”

“Keep feeling that way. Hey, and we’ve got one terrific kid.”

“I noticed you think so.”

“We Americans take fatherhood seriously.”

She set her coffee-cup down, putting her arms around his waist, resting her cheek against his ribbons.

“I live for you,”

she murmured.

“Come back safe and sound.”

V

That night, Araminta couldn’t sleep. Something nagged at her like an unfinished task. The old house creaked, an owl hooted, one of the children coughed. Finally she got up. Moving to her dressingtable, she bent to open the bottom drawer. Pushing aside the delicate prewar silk underwear, she fished out a Scandinavian painted wood box. Inside were photographs and the black velvet box that contained Peter’s rosecut diamond. Slipping the ring on next to her wedding band, she went into the hall. The moon shone through the stainedglass skylight, casting faintly coloured shadows on the walls. She tiptoed into the nursery and turned on the night-light, examining

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the matted portrait photograph of Peter with his RAF cap at a jaunty angle, the badly blurred newspaper obituary photograph, and several small snapshots of him at Mainwaring Court. Then she peered down at Geoff. After several minutes she replaced the ring and the photographs in the wooden box. Going to a place between the windows and the fireplace, she unerringly pressed a spot on the dado. A hidden catch released a tiny door. When she and Aubrey were adolescents they had discovered this hidey-hole. The Scandinavian box was a fraction too wide to put inside, so she removed the ring-box and photographs, carefully laying them in the secret cabinet before swinging the door shut.