The English Girl: A heartbreaking and beautiful World War 2 historical novel

by Sarah Mitchell

  The Fuchs file contains a note about woodworking skills. It seems that Thomas Fuchs crafts owl boxes from old grocery crates and hangs them in the cluster of elms beyond the Nissen huts. Apparently, he has obliged two British officers by making them each a bird box to give to their children. Is this a positive contribution to the camp? Fran supposes that it must be – everyone likes owls after all. But who is Thomas Fuchs? The Thomas with the blistering gaze who absorbs her every thought like sand does water. Or a complete stranger? She turns to the file of Thomas Meyer. No mention is made of carpentry skills or gifts to children, but there is an entry at the back of the file on A4 paper that has the appearance of having been scrawled in haste.

  While returning to camp at approx. 17.00 hours we encountered a female cyclist who requested aid to help the victim of an assault. Since the truck could not be left unattended, I asked Thomas Meyer to provide assistance. I was subsequently informed by the female cyclist he did so successfully and that the involvement of the police was not required. In so acting, and displaying no inclination to abscond, I am pleased to record that the prisoner justified the trust placed upon him.

  While the signature is indecipherable, the date is not: 1 November 1946. The shock of serendipity – the confirmation of both Thomas’s identity (Thomas Meyer, she turns the name over in her mouth) and his entitlement to a Christmas invitation (surely this must be precisely the sort of thing Major Markham had in mind?) – ripples a shudder through Fran’s spine like she has seen a ghost.

  Or the future.

  Quickly, she attaches her mother’s letter to the outside of Thomas Meyer’s file with a paperclip, then adds a second clip to be certain. For a while she stares at the coupled paper as if the hand holding it belongs to someone else. If mere minutes in his company feel incendiary, how much more electrifying, how much more perilous is the possibility of a whole day together? It’s as reckless as lighting a thousand matches and throwing them into the woodshed one by one. She swallows and lets the seconds stop. Outside, the weather squalls. Whatever happens now, she thinks, she will probably remember sitting in Daisy’s chair, the empty, watchful room and the wind, gusting at the windowpanes, for the rest of her life. After a minute she pushes the Meyer file to one side and lifts the others onto her lap.

  By the time all the Christmas invitations have been secured to a pale brown folder, the ebony of evening has taken hold and Fran’s head is heavy with facts and decisions. To avoid an inevitable flurry of questions from Daisy, she buries the Meyer file into the middle of the pile, immediately below the invite that will also be sent to prisoner Fuchs. Finally, she carries the entire heap of paperwork into the connecting office. Daisy is right, she notes in passing. The surface of Major Markham’s desk is pristine. Devoid of clutter, of pens, of a diary, of any sign of industry whatsoever, and across the leather case of his magnifying glass lies a delicate film of dust. From the door she casts one look backwards. Although none of the individual files are visible, Fran fancies she can see the glow of her mother’s handwriting pulsing upwards through the paper, like the cautioning lamp of a beacon or lighthouse.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Christmas Day, 1946

  From behind the screen of her book, Fran watches the mantelpiece clock. The minute hand is climbing towards the twelve and the prisoners, they have been told, will arrive before the hour. Prisoners. Plural. At the last minute the government forbade the issuing of individual invitations, so her parents are now hosting two of them. Perhaps, Fran supposes, a single prisoner cannot be trusted with an enemy family and a second, restraining influence is needed. Or does the protection flow the other way? Maybe it’s the British families of whom the government can’t be certain, who might be less interested in peace and reconciliation than they are in revenge.

  Sitting in the loose-covered wingchair, her father is dressed in his only suit. Hands resting lightly on each knee, he makes no pretence at reading. Fran wonders what dilemmas are playing across his mind. The only clue is the speed of his breathing, the painful process of inhaling and exhaling that sounds both faster and a little more shallow than usual, together with the damp sheen of perspiration spread across his forehead.

  There was a period after the accident when it seemed the Christmas visits might not happen at all. Toby Markham was not at the camp to approve the paperwork and nobody else appeared to have authority to do so. When Fran dared to raise the matter with Daisy, she was met with a rather shocked indifference, as if Fran was being callous beyond belief to be asking of anyone but the Markhams.

  ‘You have no idea how awful it was when Mrs Markham didn’t come home,’ she told Fran for the third, or possibly fourth time. ‘I thought she must have been delayed by the weather and so I put Alice to bed. Even after Major Markham came back, I didn’t like to leave. I think I must have known deep down that something was wrong. And it was just as well I stayed because when the policeman arrived the major practically collapsed – he could barely string together a sentence. Luckily the policeman offered to take him to the hospital, because the major definitely wasn’t up to driving himself.’

  Daisy gazed into the middle distance, as if reliving the heavy rap of the policeman’s knock all over again. ‘She could have been killed, you know. The driver died at the scene and one of the passengers has broken his back and will never walk again. Reminds you of the war, doesn’t it? When everything felt so fragile and someone you knew seemed to die or nearly die practically every week.’ She sighed heavily. ‘I thought those days were over for good.’ Fran bit her lip, and each time someone in the camp mentioned Vivien Markham tried to quell her own selfish motives for hoping the woman’s recovery would be quick enough for Major Markham to make an appearance before Christmas.

  At the growl of an approaching truck, she meets her father’s eyes.

  ‘There’s no need to get up,’ Fran says. ‘Why don’t you wait in here?’

  Her father lifts his hands from his knees, places them decisively on the arms of the wing chair. ‘I’m not being introduced to any German soldier while I’m sitting down’ – a ragged in-breath, a ragged out-breath – ‘but you’ll need to help me, Fran.’

  Fran cups her hands under her father’s armpits and tries not to notice the stringiness of his wasted muscles, the dank, cellar-like smell coming off his skin. While he pushes down on the chair, she makes an almighty effort to haul him upwards and loops his arm around her shoulders the instant she has dragged him upright. She wonders how a body can be so withered and still so heavy; her father looks as though the merest breath of wind would blow him down, yet the weight around her neck is a sack of coal. They are inching across the sitting room when she hears the front door open. By the time they reach the hallway the door has closed again. Two German prisoners are standing on the threshold as if their boots have been nailed to the floor.

  Fran tries not to look at Thomas but fails. She sees the surge of surprise that intensifies the blue of his irises, and the effort he makes to keep mute. Silent questions blaze from his face.

  ‘Don, Fran, this is Thomas Meyer.’ Her mother’s tone is that of a rather nervous teacher bringing children together on their first day of nursery. ‘Thomas, this is my husband, Donald, and my younger daughter, Frances.’

  Fran feels her father’s spine stiffen. He thrusts out his palm and opens his mouth, but the intended words stay trapped within his chest. Instead he swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat, and withdraws his arm the instant the Germans release their grip.

  Fran holds out her own hand. ‘Hello, Thomas.’ She has to avert her gaze as the pressure of his fingers throbs through her arm.

  ‘And Fran dear, this is Reiner Krause.’

  Fran hauls her attention to the other prisoner, who is short and slight and staring intently at the floor through heavy-rimmed spectacles. His name is vaguely familiar from the files. When her parents agreed to have a second guest for Christmas, Major Markham must have chosen one of the youngest men because Rein
er seems no older than a schoolboy, an impression exacerbated by the regular sniffing he makes no effort to stem. On hearing his name, he lifts his head. He looks, Fran thinks, on the verge of tears.

  ‘Come this way,’ her father manages. ‘Come into our sitting room.’

  Fran throws a glance up the staircase. At breakfast June asked what time the prisoners were due to arrive, and thirty minutes beforehand took herself upstairs, closing her bedroom door with a thump that was plainly intended to be heard throughout the house. While Fran is angry, she is also relieved. If any part of her feelings for Thomas were visible, June would be sure to notice. And even if they were not visible, June might still notice, in the way they each had the ability to discern buried vulnerabilities in the other that no one else could.

  Thomas clears his throat. ‘May I use the lavatory, please?’

  ‘Of course.’ Her mother appears a little flustered by the request. ‘Fran, you show our guest where to go and I’ll help your father take Reiner into the sitting room.’

  Fran leads Thomas through the kitchen and into a covered passageway. When Fran was a child they lived in a house where the lavatory was in the back yard. Here, it is connected to the house by a corridor with brick walls and a roof which rattles with whatever weather happens to be thrown upon the corrugated tin.

  The moment they are out of the kitchen, Thomas grasps Fran’s upper arm. ‘Wait!’

  She swings around to face him.

  ‘How is this possible?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘For me to be here. Did you arrange this?’

  The urgency in his voice quickens Fran’s pulse as if her heart is trying to run away.

  She focuses on the bulk of his shoulder, which is no more than twelve inches from her own.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Look at me.’

  She can’t.

  ‘Look at me.’

  She is shivering, trembling. It might be the cold, but it might be something else. All at once she starts, as if touched by an electric wire. His thumb is on her cheekbone, caressing back and forth over a small patch of her skin. She tries to step backwards but there is nowhere to go, only the wall pressing into her back and the fact of Thomas before her, his shocking, unbelievable proximity.

  ‘Fran’ – his eyes are searchlights – ‘I don’t believe you.’

  For a split second she has forgotten what he is talking about.

  ‘I think you did arrange for me to come here.’

  This time she says nothing, abandons the pretence.

  His mouth widens to a smile. She is close enough to see the strongly angled planes of his face, a chipped front tooth, the small, puckered whorl of a scar on his forehead, and the extraordinary eyes which wash her away in their flood of blue light.

  ‘Fran!’ From another world her mother’s voice slices through the moment. ‘Where are you? What’s taking so long?’

  Fran lowers her lashes. Opens them again. Thomas is still there.

  ‘My mother is calling.’

  ‘Yes.’ He drops his hand. Moves further away.

  ‘The lavatory…’ Fran gestures vaguely along the passageway. She feels entirely cold now, as if she has just removed her overcoat or thrown off a blanket.

  ‘I don’t need…’ He stops. ‘You go back. I will come in a minute.’

  * * *

  Fran’s mother and father are waiting in the sitting room together with Reiner, who is balanced on the very edge of the sofa cushion. Every so often he pushes his spectacles up his nose to counteract the downward tilt of his gaze which is still focused on the floor.

  Her mother gets up. ‘There you are,’ she says, her relief evident. ‘I need to go and see to the dinner or else we’ll be eating at midnight. I don’t think’ – she lowers her voice – ‘I don’t think Reiner speaks any English.’

  It seems her mother is right. Fran starts by asking Reiner where he lives, if he has a family, speaking as slowly and clearly as she can, but she elicits no response until Thomas returns and begins to translate her questions. From working at the camp, Fran has become used to the sound of German. Even so it is strange to listen to the language being spoken in her own home, incomprehensible and foreign, the tongue of war, of the enemy. She glances at her father, sunk within the wing chair beside a stack of her mother’s dressmaking patterns. He is watching the German men with the appearance of impassiveness, yet Fran sees his arms are crossed as if he is holding himself together, his fists tucked into his upper arms, his chest labouring like a bicycle pump.

  Reiner provides his answers in short, quiet sentences. There’s a small delay between each question and the response that gives the impression of something awkward being hauled by a clinking chain from the bottom of an ocean. Little by little, they learn that Reiner comes from Frankfurt. That he is nineteen years old. That his father is a mechanic. That he has a younger brother. That he has an older brother. Then Reiner stops. Pushes the spectacles up his nose. Corrects himself. No older sibling. A younger brother now.

  The room falls into silence, broken only by the rasp of breathing from the wing chair.

  A minute passes. Eventually, Thomas clears his throat. ‘I have a gift,’ he says, ‘a Christmas present.’ He reaches into his overalls, where a cigar-shaped wedge protrudes from the top right pocket. Unfurling a piece of paper, he walks over to Fran’s father and crouches beside the chair. ‘I like to draw,’ he says. ‘Although it is hard, when something is beautiful, to show in a picture what makes it that way.’ He throws a glance at Fran before turning back to her father. ‘This is the view from a hill close to here, I think—’

  ‘Yes.’ Fran’s father interrupts. Inhales. Exhales. ‘I see exactly where it is.’

  Fran gets up and comes to the empty side of the chair. Observed from the highpoint of the heath, Thomas has sketched the coastline. Sparsely shaded in tones of blue, grey and green, his strokes capture the washed-clean light, the peppering of flint and brick, a windmill with its spinning arms. The unity of sea, sky and salt marsh. And a possibility, beneath the loveliness, of emptiness and desolation.

  Fran’s father gently runs a yellowed fingernail along the shoreline. ‘It’s good. Very good indeed.’ A pause. A breath. ‘Do you like it, Fran?’

  She keeps her eyes on the artwork. ‘I think it’s wonderful.’

  He holds the drawing out to Fran. His eyes are brighter than she has seen them for some time. ‘Yes, it is. We must put it on the mantelpiece.’

  ‘The mantelpiece?’

  He nods. ‘Where we can all see such fine talent.’

  Fran crosses the room slowly. The mantelpiece is bare apart from the clock and a brass-framed photograph of Robbie in his army uniform. Her brother’s eyes seem to be watching while she props the sketch against the wall. Does he mind? Will her mother mind? She knows without asking that June will cause merry hell. Once June understands who drew the picture, she is more likely to tear the paper into pieces and throw them into the fire than let the gift occupy the same location as Robbie. Before Fran can decide what, if anything, to say, her mother calls that lunch is ready.

  The kitchen smells of roasting meat, and cinnamon and spiced fruit from the pudding warming on the hob. Vegetables steam gold and green beside a tall jug of gravy while a crisp brown turkey occupies the space by her father’s seat. Fran shows Thomas and Reiner to the table, where they stand behind their chairs and gape as her mother bustles forwards with one further dish of stuffing, gesturing at the Germans to sit, please sit. June, who is draining carrots from a saucepan, doesn’t take her eyes from the sink.

  Eventually they are all seated, apart from her father who remains on his feet, bearing the silver scythe of the carving knife. Fran is next to Reiner, whom she has placed opposite June in Robbie’s old place, and Thomas is beside June. The table appears to have shrunk in size. Every so often Fran’s knee or elbow brushes against the bony promontory of Reiner and whenever she raises her head Thomas seems to intercept her ga
ze.

  Her father pierces the turkey with the carving fork. Juice runs over the blade. Propped against the lip of table, he is managing to dissect the bird without assistance. Beside Fran, Reiner chews his lip impatiently.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ she says, before remembering Reiner doesn’t speak English.

  This time, however, he seems to understand. ‘Yes.’ He holds out his plate for the first slices of meat. Like a child, Fran thinks, at a Sunday lunch.

  Her father has just served himself, when there is a nudge against Fran’s thigh. About to jerk her arm away she spots that Reiner has taken her mother’s hand, that his head is bowed, his eyes closed. Hesitantly, Fran encloses Reiner’s fingers with her own and one by one the rest of them link hands until the only missing connection is between June and Thomas. Fran sees her sister’s face fill with rage at the ambush, her back lift and tighten as she pushes back her chair.

  As Reiner begins to mutter soft words of German, Thomas holds out his left hand to June, rotating his wrist so that his palm faces upwards. ‘Please.’ June shuffles her chair forwards again, but then with a glance at Fran places her right hand very deliberately on top of the cloth.

  After the grace, they eat. Soon, stoked by food, the warmth of the kitchen, and some small glasses of apple wine, Reiner’s spirits appear to lift, and he begins to offer animated snatches of conversation in broken English. Eventually, after what she judges to be a respectable amount of time, Fran takes a sip of wine and turns to their other guest.