by Esther Freud
‘It’s a country house. The house where our grandmother and her sisters were brought up.’
They both looked at me, alarmed. ‘How do you know these things?’ Kate frowned, and Natasha burst out, ‘I thought they were brought up in Berlin.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, they were, but they had this place as well.’ I stopped, responsible suddenly for the glories of the past. ‘Dad says they may have got it gambling. His grandfather may have won it in some kind of bet, or else it was given to him instead of payment.’ I remembered the warehouse full of props. ‘Money owed for grain, I think.’
‘Gambling sounds more fun.’ Natasha crunched the end of her cornet, and we all agreed it did.
‘Dad used to go there apparently when he was a boy, and once the village children came up to sing for him when he was ill.’
‘I just hope it wasn’t contagious, whatever he had.’ Kate laughed, and Natasha muttered, ‘Can you imagine, ghastly German songs?’
I stopped to catch my breath. Ghastly German songs, I thought, and I looked at Sonny asleep against my chest, his head rolled sideways, his mouth pressed open like a rose, and thought, But he was German then.
‘So what about it? What about the house?’
‘It’s come back,’ I told them. ‘I mean it’s ours. Well, not ours, but it belongs to the descendants of Marianna Belgard. Dad and his cousins.’ And I realized that I was beaming.
‘Marianna who?’ They both looked cross, and I tried to explain to them, my illegitimate family, what I’d pieced together from small scraps.
‘So how many cousins are there?’ Natasha wanted to know. But I wasn’t sure. There was Bina’s eldest son, Johann, and there had been another sister Martha, who’d stayed on too late.
‘Did she have children?’ I looked down at Sonny and I shivered suddenly for how little we’d been told. ‘I think the children survived. And there was Emanuel, their elder brother.’
‘Are you sure? A brother?’
‘Yes, definitely, a sort of black sheep. They never mentioned him apparently.’ And for some reason I kept the secret of his photo to myself.
‘Did the black sheep have any children?’
I didn’t know. ‘He married somebody unsuitable, I think.’
‘He probably did in that case, loads and loads.’
We strode on up the hill.
‘Talking of unsuitable children,’ Natasha said, once we’d stepped onto grass, ‘have you heard anything from Mike?’
We were heading for a large green tree, shrouded from the path by flowering grass and with a view over the lake. ‘No,’ I said, ‘I haven’t.’ But the admission met with such a flurry of abuse that, overwhelmed with guilt, I admitted that he had been calling. ‘I leave my answerphone switched on,’ I said. ‘I’ve told him I don’t want to see him.’ And, exhausted, I slumped down against the tree.
‘Quite right.’
Natasha shook out a blanket, billowing it onto the ground, but Kate looked up, perturbed. ‘That’s so harsh,’ and she crawled across to gaze down at Sonny’s face. ‘You can’t keep them apart, it’s cruel.’ She looked as if she might be going to cry.
‘Kate!’ Natasha glowered. ‘It’s got nothing to do with you.’
But already I was filling with remorse. ‘We managed all right with just a mother,’ I argued, ‘didn’t we?’ But even Natasha agreed it might be different for boys.
‘And anyway,’ Kate smiled, ‘we did see Dad occasionally.’
And it was true that, occasionally, we had.
When I got home I replayed Mike’s most recent message, banked up with the others on the tape. ‘Hello, you two.’ His voice was strained with cheerfulness. ‘Just checking in to see how it’s all going. Give us a ring. I’ve got something to tell you, actually.’ And he repeated his number slowly and deliberately, twice. I made myself a cup of tea and put Sonny in his rocker, singing to him as I worked out what to say. ‘Right.’ And then the phone rang, almost in my hand, splashing hot tea right up my arm. ‘Pam, how are you?’ I shivered with relief, and then for twenty minutes without stopping she told me what a bastard Bradly Teale was turning out to be.
‘But it’s hardly unexpected.’ I felt her sharp intake of breath. ‘I mean . . . Oh, Pam . . . so what will you do now?’ And I listened for another ten minutes as she discarded plans. I glared at Sonny, cooing like a dove, blowing bubbles and for once quite happy to be sitting on his own.
‘Pam,’ I finally interrupted her, ‘I’ve got to go. Sonny’s . . .’ I couldn’t use him as my excuse. ‘Look, I’m leaking down the front of my dress.’ She apologized for going on. ‘No, no, I’m sorry.’ I promised to call her back when I had time.
My ear felt hot and itchy and my fingers ached from clutching at the phone. Right, I thought, looking at Mike’s number, and then Sonny began to howl. ‘You’re all right.’ I stroked his head, brushing his face with kisses, and then without warning his crying rose up into a scream. I scooped him into my arms. ‘What is it?’ But his tongue had curled into the sharp end of a drill, shrilling through me, rattling at my heart. ‘Shhhh, shhhh, shhhh,’ I hushed for both our sakes, and I walked him round the room, up the two steps to the bathroom, down again, round and round the tiny hall. I took him over to the window. I could see people in the street below looking round, squinting into the sun and, worried they’d locate us, accuse me of sticking pins into my baby’s eyes, I pulled down the sash. My hands were trembling. I sat down and stood up, unwrapped his nappy, and attempted to distract him with his beetroot face reflected in the mirror. I turned the cold tap on and off, and then the hot, until all I could think of was to lie down with him and cry against his dark red screaming mouth. For the first time in his life he didn’t want a feed and just as we lay desperate in each other’s arms the doorbell rang.
‘Oh my God.’ We tramped downstairs, half hoping to come across a policeman prepared to take us both away. Sonny’s head bobbed on my shoulder, his screams dipping and rising with each sharp step and as we turned on to the last flight down he burped and his crying lost momentum. I felt his back relax, his stiff arms soften, and just as I stretched out to open the front door he stopped.
‘Hello, there.’ It was Mike. He had on a white T-shirt, broad across his chest, and old trousers from a suit I’d loved. ‘Is it a bad time?’ I looked down at my dress, all stained and splashed, and Sonny, slippery with tears, and I held the door for him to come in. ‘I’ll take him, shall I?’ and he scooped Sonny off my shoulder, transferring him to his own, so that I could see his face, perfectly happy as he bumped back up the three flights of stairs. I went into the bathroom and sprayed water on my face while Mike rocked his boy around the room.
‘So, how’s the work situation?’ It was the one thing I’d planned not to say.
‘All right,’ he said, surprising me. ‘In fact I’ve got a job.’
I dropped two teabags into cups.
‘Starting tomorrow.’
I felt tempted to ask him if he took milk and sugar. ‘How long for?’
‘Six months, it’s a series for television.’ I nodded my congratulations, wondering why life couldn’t have been easy like this last year. We sipped our tea in silence, Sonny propped up against his father’s knee. ‘He’s enormous,’ Mike said, and I looked at Sonny, for the first time at a distance. His hair was turning gold like Mike’s and even his feet were wide and boyish.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I muttered, ‘he’s tiny. He’s a tiny little baby.’ And I got up and went into the kitchen. It was difficult to know quite what to do. My hands felt empty, and my arms hung light and full of air.
Mike leant against the door. ‘You look exhausted.’ He had the concerned look I hated most.
‘Thanks,’ I sneered.
But he shook his head. ‘No, I just meant, seeing as I’m here, why don’t you go and lie down for an hour?’
‘Well, I . . .’ and then, seeing I could only lose by arguing, I walked through to the bedroom and
threw myself onto the bed. What if he cries or needs a new nappy? I thought, as I pulled the quilt over my legs. What if Mike runs off with him? And then I remembered it was Mike who didn’t want him. Didn’t want either of us, and I sighed a long sigh of relief and slipped off into sleep.
At first I dreamt about nothing, convinced I was still awake, and then black sheep crept in, nosing along and munching at the grass. They trotted along in a neat long line, their wool dusty, their faces turning white, while their hard hoofs clipped against the cool stone floor. And then I was in the country by the sea, and my grandmother, a young girl dressed in white, was showing me where I could sleep. It was a high bed mounded up with pillows and outside my window in the attic I heard the sheep bleating, the whole flock crying like a cat. I woke up and realized it was Sonny crying for his evening feed. ‘He’s hungry.’ I stretched out my arms automatically and Mike, who was hovering in the doorway, handed him down. I unbuttoned my dress while Sonny, his nose twitching, his mouth poised, searched round wildly in the folds of cloth.
Mike looked tactfully away. How ridiculous, I thought, and once the baby had latched on and was gulping noisily I started to laugh.
‘Feeling better?’ Mike asked, but I didn’t want him to take any credit so I stopped.
‘Sarah,’ Mike was looking at his shoes, ‘there’s something I ought to tell you about this job. It’s set in Scotland, right up near Skye, on an island,’ and he looked briefly out of the window before going on. ‘There’s a ferry that only goes over once a week, so I don’t think I’ll be getting back much during the next six months, if at all.’
My body hardened, sharp as knives. ‘I see,’ I said, adding quietly, ‘He’ll be practically grown-up by then.’
‘You could send me photos?’
Sonny choked on an overflow of milk.
‘Or, even better than that, you could turn the job down.’ I raised my eyebrows into mocking curves. ‘Tell your agent you’ll only work in London.’ Mike looked at me, alarmed, and I smiled brightly. ‘It’s all right, I’m only joking,’ and I had to stop myself from telling him it wouldn’t matter if he went off to live at the North Pole.
Sonny gulped and coughed and I took a breath, anxious that the poison of my thoughts didn’t run through into the milk.
For ten minutes we sat in silence, Mike staring down into the street while I watched Sonny’s eyes roll back and flutter into sleep.
‘Right,’ Mike said at last, ‘I’d better be off. There’s packing to be done.’ And he came and stood beside the bed. ‘Goodbye, son,’ he said, ‘goodbye, small fella,’ and without meaning to I began to cry.
‘Sarah, don’t. . .’
‘Go away,’ I said, and repeated, ‘go away, go away, go away,’ until finally he believed me and let himself out on to the stairs.
Chapter 13
Bina had decided to become a nurse. Eva lay with her on the cool floor of the Gaglow nursery, leafing through her practical guide. There were illustrations of white-aproned women, serene and smiling, carrying basins of water over to the bedsides of lightly wounded men. The soldiers all had gleaming bandages wound around their heads, or arms slung in sashes to hold up splinted elbows, and they were all without exception startlingly handsome. Eva leant across her sister’s shoulder and examined their illustrated features, the unshaven chins and pencilled hollows of their cheeks, the strong shoulders, the bright, polite eyes. She found, as the pages turned, that she was holding her breath for Manu. ‘Bina, will you be sent off to the front line, to a field hospital?’ she asked.
Bina flicked through to the end with irritation. ‘There is all this to learn first. There are thousands of experienced nurses just waiting to get to the front. Anyway, I’m only an untrained volunteer, anyone could do it.’ And she smiled and shot a look at Eva, knowing that this was not entirely true.
‘Well, I expect the war will probably be over by the time you’ve learnt the first thing about it,’ Eva responded, and she picked up the discarded letter. They had to have a letter ready to send Schu-Schu, Bina insisted, for when they located her address. Eva read slowly through the words, aware that any criticism would not be welcome. It struck her how closely Bina had picked up their governess’s own tone, with lists of reasons and lightly veiled threats of what was due and owed. She shivered. Schu, she thought, Schu-Schu-Schu, and she closed her eyes, immersed in an instant by the huge enveloping of her arms, the memory of how it felt to arrive home to a house that existed completely and without rivalry for them.
‘As soon as we get back to Berlin,’ Bina lowered her voice, ‘we’ll start the search again. You and Martha might have to begin without me after school, but as soon as I’ve amputated a leg or two and siphoned off some poison, I’ll be home to join you.’ She made a gruesome face and they both laughed, shivering and gleeful, so that when Martha called to them from the next room they jumped in shock, then, catching at each other’s hands, rolled over on the floor with helpless shrieks of laughter.
Martha called again, a real, terrifying shout for help, and Bina and Eva, their blood falling away, scrambled to their feet.
‘It’s Omi Lise,’ Martha choked, and there, bent against her bed as if in prayer, was the stiff, hunched body of their nanny. The three girls approached her slowly. ‘Omi?’ Martha whispered, and when she didn’t answer they all bent down and Eva touched her hand. ‘She’s still warm.’
A tiny straining voice rose from the bedclothes. ‘Of course I’m still warm. You won’t get rid of me that easily.’ And Martha’s face flooded with colour, her tears falling onto the old woman’s bony head.
‘Let’s try and move her,’ Bina said, her few medical weeks assuming new importance, and between them they lifted her light, brittle body and laid her on the bed. ‘Fetch some water,’ Bina ordered, and Martha brought a glass and rested it against her lips. Eva slipped her arm behind Nanny’s head. She took a tiny sip and lay back exhausted on the pillows.
‘I think we should look after her ourselves. Up here.’
Martha and Eva both froze with the force of Bina’s words. ‘Omi,’ Martha leant back over her, ‘how are you feeling?’ But Omi Lise seemed too stunned to move her lips.
‘They’ll miss her at supper,’ Eva said.
Bina shook her off. ‘We’ll send down a message for a tray and then offer to bring it up to her ourselves.’
‘No,’ Eva said. ‘I don’t know.’ She looked into the creased and funnelled face. ‘She wouldn’t like there to be any lies.’ But Bina glared at her with such determination that she found herself slipping limply into line.
‘Can we get you something from downstairs?’ Martha asked. Nanny’s eyelids fluttered and then lay still as if she had worn too thin to tell them one more time what they should do.
The gong for supper sounded, and Omi Lise, when they left her, seemed to have fallen into a light and even sleep. ‘She may be herself again tomorrow,’ Bina said. ‘She probably just needs a bit of rest.’ But they walked down the wide wooden staircase without the usual clatter, trailing into the dining room with dark, preoccupied eyes.
Bina, Martha and Eva kept an all-night vigil by the side of Omi Lise’s bed.
‘She doesn’t seem to have a temperature.’ Martha placed a light hand on her forehead.
Bina jerked away her arm. ‘Of course she hasn’t got a temperature. She’s not ill. She’s just exhausted.’ And Eva lifted up a fork of delicately prepared rice and held it, hopelessly, close to her lips.
The three girls sat in silence as the night wore on, watching for the dawn, which spread darkly red and earlier than they would have thought. With the light of a new day, Nanny’s face had turned as old as parchment. ‘What age is she, do you think?’ Martha asked, and they spent the slow hours trying to untangle it.
‘We could carry her down to sit out in the sun,’ Bina pondered, once they’d given up on the multiplication, and they all leant forward to check the cool flow of blood still running in her veins. Nanny’s face was
traced with green, and her hair was the faded colour of a primrose.
‘I think she might like some porridge,’ Eva said. ‘Would you, Omi dear?’ And to avoid suspicion they all went down to breakfast.
‘Dolfi, could you ask Cook to make an extra bowl of porridge?’ Eva caught her mother’s lowered look, and to lessen the improbability of the request, called after her, ‘With extra milk.’
The porridge sat congealing at her elbow as she scraped the lining from a precious hard-boiled egg. Bina and Martha had slipped away, and she was only waiting for her mother to rise and leave the table.
She began to spoon the food in a ring around the edge. Marianna looked over at her. ‘What are we to do?’ She shook her head and, without waiting for an answer, folded up her napkin and left the room. Eva watched her mother’s shadow disappear from the doorway then, covering the dish of porridge, she pushed back her chair and ran out into the hall. She slowed on the stairs, in an effort not to slop the milk, and paused for breath on the second landing.
‘Eva.’ She heard her name hissed, urgent, from above and, rushing, she hit her foot on a step and the silver spoon resting in the bowl jolted out and rattled down the stairs. ‘That is too much,’ she muttered, using Omi’s own disapproving phrase, and setting the dish on a step she ran back to retrieve it.
‘Eva?’ Her mother was in front of her, the bowl in her hand. ‘What are you doing, rushing your breakfast round the house?’ Eva looked past her, up through the twist of banisters to the round circle of the top floor. Tears came to her eyes and, without intending it, she pushed the spoon into her mouth for comfort. ‘Are you hiding someone hungry in the nursery?’ Marianna asked, amused, then the corners of her mouth turned down and the colour drained out of her face. She dropped the bowl, hitched up her skirts and sped up the last flight. Eva stared down at the gluey mass of porridge, jagged with bone china. She sat on the bottom step, her toes stained with little strings of oatmeal, and waited for her mother to come back down.
