The Sea Gate

by Jane Johnson

  ‘What’s happened to the gate?’ she asked. She had been down to the cove to swim only that morning and it had seemed fine then.

  ‘Someone’s cut it all over with a knife!’ Mary declared with possessive indignation. ‘Crosses and triangles and things. It looks horrid.’

  The child meant Hamid’s protective carvings. Olivia almost laughed, but there was no point in baiting Mary: the two of them existed in a state of barely kept truce at the best of times. ‘But those have been there for ages. If you came swimming with me, you’d have noticed.’ And then her demon side won out. ‘It would be good for you to get some exercise, you know – you’re getting a bit plump.’

  ‘Am not!’ Mary folded her arms to hide her body.

  Despite the rationing she had grown quite barrel-like, which made her stand out from the local children, who were quick and thin. It was probably down to Hamid’s cooking: he managed to conjure deliciously rich food out of the scraps and tins they had in the house, the stocks he rendered down from carcass bones, the rabbits he trapped along the coast by night, from wild plants and herbs, from the potatoes and cauliflower and apples Olivia scrumped from the edges of the Roberts’ fields. He would cook while Mary was at school and Olivia would stash his efforts in the pantry, or in a pan with a lid on, so that the child would later find her stirring a delicious stew flavoured with ramsons and mustard seed. Hamid had even set up beehives in their orchard and tended to the bees while Olivia and Mary ate their supper in the kitchen: they had honey every day.

  ‘I hate the sea,’ Mary said fiercely. ‘Besides, if I went swimming with you, you’d probably drown me. You’d love to get rid of me. You wish I’d vanish like my mother!’

  This was so close to the truth that Olivia almost admitted it; she had learned to catch herself thinking uncharitable thoughts and bite back the words she longed to say. Not always, but sometimes. Hamid had chided her for her attitude to the child more than once. ‘Can’t you be a little gentler with her? She’s got no parents, only you. Is it any wonder she’s angry and bitter? There’s so little love in her world, and you can see how she craves it.’ He was right, he was always right. Even though he had never been in the same room as the two of them, he had ears like a bat, and the patience of a saint. He would make little biscuits for the child with the butter and flour Olivia bartered for in the village, the honey from their hives and the hazelnuts they scavenged out of the hedges. Mary scoffed them by the handful without any suspicion as to their origin.

  ‘Back home,’ Hamid would say wistfully, ‘my mother made biscuits from almonds and butter that would melt in your mouth, shaped like gazelle horns and stars; pastries studded with fennel seeds and flavoured with orange blossom water. As a child I used to make them with her, shaping the stars and crescent moons because I had smaller fingers. How I wish I could do that for you and Mary.’

  ‘Anyway,’ said Mary now. ‘It’s not just me who’s fat.’ And with that sophisticated insult she fled upstairs.

  By way of reprisal Olivia made her spam fritters for tea.

  *

  Later that night she lay in Hamid’s arms in the back bedroom, which was as far away from Mary’s room as it was possible to get on the upper floor. They kept it locked at all times. Olivia locked her own room too, partly to stop Mary trying the door and finding out she wasn’t in her own bed, partly to prevent the child pinching hairclips, pencils and coins. There had been, a couple of months ago, a particularly unpleasant quarrel, after Olivia had caught Mary creeping out of her parents’ room with a silk scarf she remembered her father buying her mother as a birthday gift. When she had challenged the child, a tussle had ensued. She had pulled the scarf out of Mary’s fingers – but with it came her mother’s pearl necklace, the three-stringed one she wore in her wedding photographs, and the string on the pearls had snapped, spilling the precious beads all over the floor and down the stairs. When Mary had refused to pick them up Olivia had slapped her hard – she had gone to school the next day with a welt on her cheek, despite cold compresses.

  The next day she had set about Mary’s room and unearthed a trove of magpied treasures from the bottom of her wardrobe: jewellery and perfume bottles, cigarette cases, coloured pencils, stockings, ribbons, a silver whistle, fishing flies hand-tied by her father, old photographs of people Olivia did not recognize, commemorative half-crowns, foreign stamps, boxes of matches and her favourite palette knife. She had taken them all downstairs and laid them out on the dining room table. They covered almost the entire surface. When Mary came home from school, Olivia had ushered her inside. ‘I think I should call Sergeant Richards,’ she said grimly, as the child squirmed in her grasp. There had been tears and apparent contrition. But that weekend some of Olivia’s sketchbooks went missing. Mary did not come home till night had fallen. Olivia had heard a foot on the creaky stair and the door to her room open and close in a furtive manner. By then her fury had ebbed, but she took some satisfaction in knowing the child would probably have gone to bed hungry.

  Since then they had lived in a state of imminent war, each wary of the other’s worst impulses. Olivia knew Mary was snooping, trying to find some insurance against her threat to talk to Sergeant Richards; so they kept the spare room door locked at all times and had taken to making love while Mary was safely at school, and in the depths of the night with their hands over each other’s mouths – Hamid’s eyes shining dark crescents over her pale fingers – but still the bedsprings creaked and often they had to stop, falling away from one another to lie on their backs laughing silently in the dark, before completing each other’s satisfaction with fingers and tongues.

  ‘What will you do after the war?’ Olivia whispered now into the night air. She had heard on the radio that the Allied forces were marching through Germany, besieging Berlin. It was hard to recall a time when life had been normal – she had been a child herself when war had broken out, and memories of the years before then consisted of fleeting images of beach picnics with her parents, lying in the sunny shallows at Porthcurnow, listening to the water lap and suck; her father driving fast through the narrow lanes with the top down in the car they’d had before the Flying 8, her mother clutching her silk headscarf; going to the pictures at the Savoy in Penzance on a Saturday morning to watch cartoons with her schoolfriends; getting an ice cream from Jelbert’s on the way home. These memories had taken on the sepia tones of old photographs. They belonged to another world.

  Hamid was quiet for a long time. Then he sighed. ‘I will go home to Algeria.’

  It was the answer Olivia dreaded. She knew it was what he would say, what he had to say – and do – but she had pushed the possibility to the back of her mind. The war was like an island in the flow of real time, and they had been happily marooned upon it.

  ‘Couldn’t you stay here? It’ll be different when things return to normal.’

  ‘They think I murdered that child.’

  ‘But you didn’t!’

  ‘We can’t prove my innocence, and then there’s Mikael…’

  They both thought about the body interred in the tunnel. ‘It was self-defence,’ Olivia said. ‘Or rather, you saved me from him.’

  ‘Who are they going to believe – a girl of sixteen and a runaway prisoner, or the farmer and all his workers? I’ll have to go, Olivia. There’s no choice.’

  ‘I could come with you,’ she whispered.

  He laughed. ‘And tend goats?’

  ‘You worked in the city. We could be married and I would work in the city too. Perhaps Madame Duchamps would like an English companion?’ She tried desperately to construct an alternative future for them, despite the jealousy of the Frenchwoman that gnawed at her heart.

  ‘Let’s not talk about this now.’ Hamid turned to face her, cupped her cheek with a hand. ‘Don’t try to live in tomorrow, chérie.’

  There were times when his philosophical nature infuriated her, times when it became too clear they came from different worlds. Olivia drew away, then roll
ed onto her side away from him. Her hot tears leaked into the cotton as she fought the urge to bawl into the darkness. When the worst of her misery was spent, she felt the need to bury her face in his chest and let the feel and smell of him obliterate the coming terror of losing him. But she could sense the tension in his body even at a distance, the way he held his body rigid communicating his unhappiness at her vented passion and his powerlessness to do anything about their impossible predicament.

  *

  That Tuesday afternoon Olivia was sitting in the dining room with the wireless on as she did her damnedest to patch a pair of socks when Winston Churchill’s familiar voice boomed out. She did not pay attention as he reeled off a welter of foreign names of generals and air marshals representing high commands and expeditionary forces. It was only when he intoned, ‘Hostilities will end officially at one minute past midnight tonight,’ that comprehension began to dawn. The wooden mushroom she had been using to press out the heel she was darning slipped from her hands and skittered across the floor. The prime minister spoke on, announcing Germany’s unconditional surrender and the Allies’ victory in Europe. ‘Finally,’ he declared, ‘almost the whole world was combined against the evil-doers who are now prostrate before us… The German war is at an end.’

  Olivia stared at her hands. Then she flung down the sock and fled outside, barefoot. It was overcast and the grass was damp from a passing shower that still darkened the sky. She ran down through the orchard, to where Hamid was mending one of the beehives, her emotions battling for supremacy. A sort of rejoicing rose and swelled inside her – for they had won! – but at the same time heavy dread had gathered in her guts.

  Hamid straightened up at the sound of her thundering footsteps, holding his tools as if to ward off attack. When he saw it was Olivia, his shoulders fell and he grinned. ‘Why the hurry?’ he called out, but as she came closer he took in her expression. ‘What is it? What’s the matter?’

  ‘The war,’ she cried. ‘It’s over. Germany has surrendered.’

  He held her close, felt the sobs wracking her. ‘But that’s good, isn’t it?’ he said into the cloud of her hair. ‘That’s good, chérie.’

  ‘I know!’ she wailed, but still the tears poured out.

  There would be cheering and celebrations all over Europe, except for here, she thought, where the two of them stood, a stillpoint in a vortex. It felt as if her world had fallen in.

  She was going to lose him, and she couldn’t bear it. Without a thought for sense or propriety, Olivia began to tear at his clothes, dragging his shirt tails out of his trousers, snatching at his belt. She kissed him so hard, covering them both in salt and mucus, that he laughed and held her away from him. ‘You’re a little wolf,’ he chided her, ‘a lioness – you’re trying to eat me alive!’ But he undid his trousers and kicked them off all the same. When they lay down in the long grass the bees buzzed lazily around them going from bluebell to wild hyacinth, from the apple blossom that garnished the orchard trees to the honeysuckle that twined through the brambles, back and forth, crossing and recrossing the air above their half-naked bodies as if weaving a protective spell with their busy wings.

  *

  It was here Mary found them an hour later, the children having been let out of school early to go home to celebrate the joyful news. She let out a piercing cry that woke the lovers from their doze; even the bees seemed to still.

  As Olivia and Hamid broke their embrace, Mary shrieked, ‘It’s the blackie! The one who murdered Mamie! I’m telling Mr White!’ and took to her heels.

  Olivia shoved herself to her feet and went after her, but the child was faster, being shod, and propelled by terror. Down the steps Mary fled, and with the rattle and bang of the garden gate was off down the lane.

  Hamid gained Olivia’s side. ‘I’ll go after her.’

  ‘No – someone will see you. She’ll be heading down the hill to the barracks and the information post.’ Though whether the sinister Mr White was still there she did not know – she had not seen him these past weeks. Would the men there believe a hysterical child? Did they know the rumours? She could not take the chance. She could catch Mary, she was sure of it. ‘No, I’ll go.’

  Hamid caught her arm. ‘Like that?’

  She was, she realized, wearing only her unbuttoned shirt – and her bra, which was dangling loose across her chest. Her skirt and knickers lay scattered between the orchard trees, as if marking a crime scene. But the shirt was long: she started to do it up with fumbling fingers. ‘Who cares? If she tells them and they come for you they’ll kill you!’

  ‘They’ll have to catch me first! I can run fast and far if I have to.’ He gestured towards the coast.

  ‘There will be people out everywhere – there’s nowhere you can hide.’ Olivia forced her brain out of its rut of panic. ‘Back to the house, quickly!’

  She grabbed his hand and hauled him with her back up the steps. Ten minutes later she sat, dressed and breathless, in the front seat of the Flying 8 as Hamid turned the starting handle and the engine rumbled to life. He opened the passenger door to get in beside her but she shook her head. ‘Lie down in the back and pull the blanket over you!’

  She roared up through the lanes, taking the corners at a dangerously narrow angle, through the little settlements along the crest of the hills and down Chywoone Hill, meeting the coal lorry on the way up so that she had to slam on the brakes and steer hard onto a verge to avoid it. Pulling up by the old quay in Newlyn, she left Hamid with the instruction not to move, no matter what, grabbed her bag and ran out along the enormous old cobbles to where a line of fishing trawlers sat moored, awaiting the tide. She passed the first two boats, but at the third she paused, listening. The men aboard looked up at her.

  ‘Excusez-moi,’ she called down. ‘Vous êtes belges?’

  Belgian trawlers had sat the war out in Newlyn, going out to fish alongside the local boats when the minesweeper had passed through. Olivia had seen the boats, and passed their crews in the street, sometimes exchanging a shy ‘bonjour’ with the men, which made them grin from ear to ear. It was quickly established that they were indeed a Belgian crew, and that they were celebrating the declaration of Victory in Europe. They were beaming, delighted, and just a little drunk. Someone had broken out a bottle of spirits, which they were passing from one to another.

  Olivia said she needed to discuss something. The captain came to the iron ladder and climbed up. A thin man with deep seams around his eyes and a large grey moustache, he took her hand and bowed his head – old-fashioned manners.

  ‘Are you preparing to leave?’ she asked in French.

  ‘When the rest of my crew get out of the Swordfish,’ he chuckled. ‘I’ve sent Denis to roust them out.’

  She opened the neck of the bag and angled it so that he could see inside. He took in the contents and his eyebrows shot up into the shade of his cap.

  ‘To pay for passage,’ she explained. ‘It’s all I have.’

  ‘Why would you want to sail with us?’

  ‘Not me. My friend. He is – ah – French.’

  The man spat. ‘We hate the French. Collaborateurs!’

  ‘He speaks French,’ Olivia said quickly. ‘He comes from Algeria. From Oran. He got captured and they never realized he wasn’t an enemy.’

  The captain looked stern. ‘Your people don’t much like les étrangers.’ Foreigners.

  ‘I know. I hope you and your crew have been well treated while you’ve been here.’

  ‘Magnificently, despite a few local difficulties.’ He shrugged. ‘And the food…! But why do you want so much for me to take him? War is over. He can go home any way he chooses.’

  ‘His mother is dying. In…’ she dredged for a Belgian city, ‘in Antwerp.’

  She could tell from his expression that he knew she was lying, but in the end he grinned and took the bag from her. He turned to his crew. ‘Rémy, Michel, ici!’

  He rattled off a series of instructions then turned bac
k to her. ‘They will come with you. People are much less likely to notice three men with a bottle of brandy than an Algerian on his own, hein?’

  In the shelter of the trawler’s cabin a little while later, Olivia hugged Hamid so hard that he laughed and said she was trying to break his ribs. ‘I’ll find you,’ she sniffed. ‘Wherever you are, I’ll come to you. Write and tell me where you are.’

  ‘I don’t even know your address.’

  All this time… but he had never needed to know. She told him and he repeated it over and over like a mantra. Then he took his prayer beads out of his pocket and slipped them over her hand. ‘Keep them for me.’

  They kissed once more, then the captain stepped back into the cabin. ‘The crew are saying it’s bad luck to have a woman on the boat,’ he said, ‘but I told them you’re just a girl. Best not prove me wrong. Off you go!’

  Olivia stood on the quay and watched the small vessel make its way out into the bay, feeling as if her heart was being pulled on a string which got tighter and tighter as the trawler sailed away. He was gone.

  As she retraced her steps to the car the strains of a popular Vera Lynn song floated to her from the open window of one of the cottages overlooking the quay.

  ‘Some sunny day…’

  It was a melody designed to lift the spirits, to promote hope and gumption, but to Olivia it sounded tawdry and dishonest. She felt sure she would never see Hamid again.

  27

  October 1945

  OLIVIA’S SUMMER PASSED IN HAZE OF GRIEF AND turpitude: she could hardly distinguish one day from the rest, was oblivious to the rejoicing around her at the end of the war, to the return of young men and women from their widespread deployments, to the removal of blackout blinds, barbed wire and troops. Huge world events barely grazed her consciousness: the resignation of Winston Churchill as prime minister when Labour won a surprise landslide victory in the general election; the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the declaration of Victory in Japan. ‘Twenty thousand tons of nuclear power in a bomb the size of a golf ball… This ends war as we know it’, declared the front page of the Daily Express she found in the doctor’s waiting room in Penzance, where she had presented herself one morning convinced she was dying of some mystery illness. She wasn’t, but the sense of pressing doom followed her home.