Wartime Sweethearts (40 page)

Mary nodded and said that she did know. She was now very much aware that Andrew was interested in more than her culinary skills. He seemed nice enough, but Michael was missing. She couldn’t get interested in anyone else until she knew how he was.

He suggested the following evening, but Mary declined. ‘My brother’s coming home on leave. Only a few days, but I would like to be here for him. Can we leave it until he’s gone back to his ship?’

Andrew looked disappointed but agreed.

The following day Charlie arrived home. On this occasion Frances stayed with Ada: coming home meant she would have missed school and seeing as she’d settled in well, Stan decided it was best that she stayed there.

As it turned out they saw little of Charlie, nights out were declined in favour of him being with Gilda. Even his old cider-drinking friends up at the farm were surprised that he only popped in to say hello.

‘Lovesick, that’s what ’e is,’ said one of the Martin boys.

Mary and Ruby were inclined to agree. They saw little of him during that leave including one night when he didn’t come home at all.

‘Mrs Hicks is away. I’m staying overnight to keep Gilda company.’ He saw the looks on his sisters’ faces. ‘I’ll be sleeping on the settee.’

The twins knew their brother well enough not to believe him and voiced their concern to their father.

‘It’s none of your business,’ their father said to them. ‘He’s a grown man.’

Even so, it was easy to see that Stan Sweet was troubled. His concerns were aired only to Sarah.

‘I can’t tell him what to do,’ he said over her grave. ‘He’s a grown man. I’m not too sure of Gilda’s circumstances. She’s got two kids, but it’s difficult to make out whether her husband is alive or dead. Troubled times, Sarah. Troubled times.’

So he said nothing.

Gilda had been helping out in the bakery – mostly in the shop – ever since Ruby had taken on the position of Kitchen Front Economist.

They’d got to know her better, though she was hardly a chatterbox, but polite to customers and a hard worker. The only time she came truly alive was when Charlie was home. The moment Charlie came into the room, her face became more alive and her eyes sparkled. Charlie reacted in pretty much the same way.

Gossip was rife in the village.

People came into the shop just to look at her. One or two commented behind her back that it was disgusting; her being a married woman leading on a nice young man like Charlie.

‘That’s their business,’ Mary said to those who dared comment.

‘I’ll only buy my bread when you’re serving,’ Mrs Powell declared to Mary. ‘Or Ruby. I don’t approve of such carryings-on.’

Stan Sweet declined to dismiss Gilda from the shop. ‘I won’t be intimidated by sanctimonious busy bodies!’

The twins decided it was down to them to have a word with her, to tell her about the gossips. ‘Though tactfully,’ warned Mary. ‘Personally I can’t stand gossips, but she has to be made aware of what’s being said.’

Ruby agreed. ‘And Charlie?’

Mary pulled a rueful face. ‘Charlie doesn’t give a damn about gossip.’

It was true. He aired the view that it was his business and nobody else’s.

‘Then I’ll have a quiet word with her,’ stated Ruby.

Charlie looked her in the eye and raised a warning finger. ‘Don’t. You might not like what you hear.’

‘What did he mean by that,’ Ruby said to her sister once Charlie was out of the room.

Mary frowned. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps we shouldn’t mention it.’

‘Oh, I think we should,’ said a more headstrong Ruby. ‘A woman-to-woman talk. Where’s the harm in that?’

Mary was in two minds, but ultimately decided that it was a good thing if it prevented hearts being broken.

It was after midday closing when they decided the time was ripe to warn Gilda about the gossip going on behind her back. Charlie had left earlier that day to re-join his ship. Gilda had helped out that morning and Ruby came back early from handing out leaflets in Hanham High Street. Mary had made tea and cut up two of Ruby’s meatless pasties that she’d made the night before.

So it was that once the shop was closed and the three of them, Mary, Ruby and Gilda, were sitting around the table, the subject was finally tackled.

Mary took a deep breath and dived in first. ‘Gilda, there’s something we want to speak to you about. Something very important.’

Gilda’s complexion turned pale and her eyes were filled with alarm. ‘Can I still work here? If anything is wrong …’

‘Nothing is wrong, Gilda,’ exclaimed Ruby. ‘Not as far as the bakery is concerned anyway. It’s about you and our Charlie.’

Mary covered her eyes and shook her head. Her sister had the habit of charging forward without uttering a few reassuring words first. Mary tended to be more tactful.

‘Gilda,’ Mary interjected before Ruby did her bull-in-a-china-shop routine. ‘This is a small village. Charlie is a single man and you are a married woman with two children. Besides that you’re foreign, and believe me, even coming from Bath or Bristol means you’re foreign in these parts. What I’m saying is the facts have not gone unnoticed—’

Suddenly Gilda burst into tears.

‘Gilda! We’re not going to sack you …’ Ruby began.

Gilda’s tears went on unchecked, then retreated into sobs leaving her shoulders heaving.

‘I am no longer married …’

She reached into the pocket of her apron. They knew Gilda received letters from relatives in London, but the one she drew out of the pocket of her apron was rumpled and looked as though she had had it for some time. She handed it to Mary.

Mary felt her throat constrict as she read it. Once she had, she gave it to her sister.

Ruby reacted in much the same way as her sister. They both now understood why Gilda was crying.

‘Have another one,’ said Mary and poured her a second cup of tea. What other consolation was possible in the circumstances? Gilda’s husband was dead.

‘It’s my fault,’ Gilda stammered, her words shrouded by sobs.

‘Oh, Gilda,’ murmured Mary, giving the woman’s shoulder a squeeze. ‘That’s foolishness. How can it be your fault?’

Gilda wouldn’t be comforted, her tears running down her face and into her mouth. ‘It is,’ she said still sobbing and stammering her words. ‘It is. It is all my fault.’

Ruby slid along on to the chair next to Gilda. Like Mary she squeezed Gilda’s shoulder. ‘Do you want to tell us about it?’

‘You don’t have to, but it might help,’ Mary suggested.

Gilda blew her nose. For a moment she seemed to think about it, though couldn’t say a word until her sobbing was under control, and even then the odd one escaped, her shoulders convulsing each time. Slowly her sobs came under control, though her shoulders still quaked.

‘He has been dead some time.’

Mary exchanged a quick look with Ruby. They’d both read that he’d been dead sometime in the letter which had come via the Red Cross. Death by hanging, it said.

‘They promised he would only go to a concentration camp. They broke their promise. I should have known,’ said Gilda, shaking her head sadly. ‘I should have known.’ Gilda continued pulling the same lock of hair, twirling it around and around her finger one way then back in the opposite direction.

As she spoke her eyes stayed fixed on the message, the scrap of paper looking so insignificant, even trivial despite the Red Cross letters written boldly at the top, yet it held the most severe message a wife could possibly receive. Her husband was dead.

‘It’s my fault,’ she whispered softly so that both twins had to listen carefully in order to catch what she was saying. ‘I had to make a choice. I was forced to make a choice.’

Mary frowned. ‘Go on,’ she said calmly.

Gilda continued to twirl the strand of hair, all the while staring at the piece of paper.

‘I am Dutch. Frederich was Austrian, a professor at the University of Vienna. We were happy enough even after Hitler came to power in Germany, after all, why wouldn’t we be? It was nothing to do with Austria. Naively we chose to ignore that the two nations spoke the same language and regarded themselves as all part of one big Aryan family. Austria was an older country than Germany, which had consisted of many principalities in the previous century until Bismarck had united them. As Jews we thought we were safe, but as time went on, things began to change. Eventually Germany annexed Austria. There was much jubilation, though we were not joyful. Suddenly we feared what might happen next. We had heard what was happening to Jews in Germany. Suddenly it began happening in Austria.

‘Frederich lost his post at the university, replaced by a jealous underling of less aptitude but of Aryan blood.

‘My husband didn’t take it lying down. He protested and got involved in a small resistance movement. There was a scuffle one night during a protest and a policeman was killed. Although Frederich hadn’t been present, he was arrested and so was I. Our children were placed in an orphanage.

‘At my interrogation I protested my innocence. I also pointed out that I was a Dutch national, a citizen of the Netherlands, born in Amsterdam.’

Gilda paused, her eyes downcast. She swallowed deeply as though her mouth was dry. Mary poured milk into her cup which she drank in one gulp.

The twins waited silently, their apprehension mounting.

Gilda continued. ‘My husband had told them he was at home that night, as indeed he was. My interrogators told me they wished me to tell the truth and that he was not home, that he had lied.

‘I told them he was telling the truth.

‘They hit me then, slapping my face about six or seven times. After that they took me back to my cell then brought me out again the following day. It was then, after I had suffered the privations of being slapped and kept in a cold cell, that they told me what they wanted me to do. They needed me to say it was a lie. They wanted to pass the death sentence. My evidence would help them achieve that.

‘I said I would not, but these people …’

Gilda took another deep breath as though her heart was breaking – which it was. It was obvious to the twins that explaining what had happened was taking its toll. She’d already said she hadn’t told many people; they guessed that Charlie, and perhaps Michael, was one of the chosen few.

‘They said that if I did not testify as they wanted, my husband and children would be sent to a concentration camp.

‘“At least we shall all be together,” I said to them, defiant despite my sore face and my fear.

‘I remember the way he smiled, that man, the one who was obviously more German than the others. Gestapo.

‘“No. Not you, Frau Jacobson. As a foreign national you will be deported back to the Netherlands, your husband in a camp for men, your children, being Austrian born, in a separate camp. Many children die there without parents to take care of them.”

‘“You let children die?” I said to them. Only Jewish children, they told me. We only let Jewish children die.’ She shook her head in disbelief. ‘I shall never forget the evil look on the man’s face. He went on to say that if I complied with their request I could leave with my children and return to Holland.’

It seemed to Mary as though the oxygen had suddenly been sucked from the room and she was close to fainting. She didn’t look at her sister but sensed she was feeling much the same. Her gaze remained focused on Gilda.

‘They made me choose between my husband and my children. I knew my children would never survive a camp alone without me, but that Frederich might. They promised he would not be executed as long as I confessed. They gave me hope but their promises were hollow.’ Gilda shook her head. ‘I betrayed my husband. Now he is dead. I had no choice.’

She went on to explain that she’d wanted to hide from the world after that. The make-up helped but it was only a mask.

‘I felt I had no right to happiness ever again. Then Charlie came along and everything changed. So now you know.’

Mary felt tears in her own eyes; Ruby patted Gilda’s hand. ‘You did what you had to do, Gilda. I would have done the same in your position. I’m glad you’ve found happiness again.’

Mary tossed and turned all that night, fighting to shake off nightmares of prison camps full of men in uniform, all wearing RAF uniforms. Michael Dangerfield was one of them.

Frances Sweet was home for the weekend and snuggled under the bedclothes.

At the other end of the village the sound of machines and men shouting were enough to wake anyone who wasn’t already up.

Frances couldn’t help thinking about Mario, the man who lived in the forest. It was totally unfair that he should be carted off and interned as an enemy alien. She hadn’t known Italians were enemy aliens. In fact, she hadn’t even realised that Mario was Italian.

‘He can’t be an enemy,’ she’d shouted at Mary on her arrival back home. ‘He helped me find my way back to Ada’s.’

Mary had looked undecided. Even when Frances had pointed out that he’d carried her all the way to Ada’s house, she maintained an undecided expression.

By ten o’clock Frances was washed, dressed and eating toast with plum jam. One bite and she screwed her face up at the taste of it. ‘This butter tastes funny.’

Mary turned round from turning the handle of the mincer. Cottage pie was on the menu tonight and some of the beef from Sunday’s roast was the main ingredient.

‘It isn’t butter. It’s margarine.’

‘Yuk!’

‘It’s no good complaining, Frances. We all have to make sacrifices, even you, and anyway, you can’t really taste it with all that jam piled on top.’

Frances eyed the jam she’d spread lavishly on top of the margarine. Suddenly alarmed that Mary might suggest scraping some of it off and returning it to the jar she finished off her toast and drank her tea in record-quick time, grabbed her coat and headed for her friend Elspeth’s house.

As it turned out she didn’t need to walk that far. Elspeth and a few other old friends were halfway along the High Street right outside the doctor’s surgery.

They were walking quickly in the direction of the Apple Tree pub and the orchard.

‘Quick,’ shouted Edgar, the youngest of the Martin boys. ‘They’re digging up our orchard.’