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

by Sarah Mitchell

  ‘What about you, Thomas? Tell us something about your life in Germany. Whereabouts do you come from?’ When she tries to look at him, it’s like being dazzled by the headlights of an army truck. She concentrates instead on the mechanics of eating and drinking. Positioning her glass back on the table, cutting with her knife, loading her fork. It feels as if each action is something she has learned to do only recently.

  ‘A small village, I don’t think you know the name. It is close to the town of Eisenach.’

  ‘Near Berlin?’

  ‘It is south-west of Berlin. Not so close.’

  ‘And your family,’ Fran’s mother interjects, ‘are they still there?’

  There’s a pause.

  Fran risks a glimpse across the table.

  Thomas is staring into the depths of his wineglass. ‘I have had no contact with my parents for almost two years. Towards the end of the war Eisenach was bombed very heavily. There were many fires in the town. Too many to stop. A lot of homes were destroyed, and a lot of people killed.’ His tone is neutral, as if he is delivering a news bulletin. Fran wonders how much effort this takes and, suddenly, if after all it is wrong for them to be sitting here together, when the suffering is so recent. Whether the meal is tantamount to sharing a picnic over the rubble of a burned-out home without daring to acknowledge the ruins underneath.

  Her mother leans forwards. ‘If your parents live in a village, they may have escaped the bombing. Do they know where you are, where to write?’ She seems oblivious to the fact her sleeve is trailing into her plate.

  ‘I sent a lot of letters as soon as I arrived, to my family and our neighbours. I wrote also to the German Red Cross.’ He hesitates, ‘No one has replied.’

  There is silence. They have all stopped eating, apart from Reiner, who is working steadily through his dinner. Fran can see her mother hunting for something positive to say but the seconds fall away from her. Eventually, she touches her napkin to her lips. ‘Perhaps there is someone else, apart from your parents?’

  ‘Do you mean a girl, a sweetheart?’ There’s a sudden weight to Thomas’s voice.

  Fran’s heart leaps as if from a starter’s pistol.

  Her mother dabs the napkin again. She looks a little perplexed. ‘I suppose so, yes.’

  Fran raises her eyes to Thomas and finds he is gazing back at her.

  He shakes his head. ‘No. I have a sister, that is all. A younger sister who lives with my parents.’ He pauses, before saying more quietly. ‘My sister’s name is Gisela. I have heard nothing from her either.’

  Fran’s mother smiles. ‘That’s a pretty name.’

  ‘And is she the girl in the photograph?’

  There’s another pause, fractional but long enough for Fran to wonder how she could have been so thoughtless, so reckless. It was the relief, she decides, uselessly, still slightly giddy from the rush of it.

  Inevitably, June lifts her head. ‘What photograph?’

  ‘I carry a picture of Gisela in my pocket. Here—’ Thomas extracts the creased snapshot from his pocket, placing it on the table in front of June. Though the image is upside down, Fran can discern the small figure beside the garden bush, the cloud of white-blond hair.

  June ignores the photograph. Her gaze flies back and forth like the carriage of a typewriter. ‘I mean, how did Fran know about it?’

  ‘She saw it before. I dropped the photograph and she picked it up.’

  ‘I didn’t see you drop any photograph.’

  Thomas’s face creases with confusion. ‘Not here. Another time.’

  Fran closes her eyes. Opens them. Waits for the string to start unravelling.

  ‘So, you have met before then?’

  June sounds like a lawyer, Fran realises. Cold, curious and logical. If her sister was less bored, her mind more occupied, might Robbie’s death consume her less? Perhaps June does not merely disapprove of her job at the camp, maybe she is jealous too?

  ‘Yes, we have met before.’

  There’s no reason, of course, why Thomas should understand the suspicion this will inflame, or know that Fran has never mentioned the incident in the alley. She steels herself for the inevitable. ‘One evening,’ she begins, ‘as I was coming home from work…’

  ‘We saw each other in the camp. I was showing the photograph to another prisoner and it fell from my hand as Frances was passing. She picked it up for me. Very kindly.’ Thomas smiles at June. Lifts and drops his shoulders. ‘That is all.’

  June glares with disbelief. Fran begins to eat, clearing her plate in a business-like fashion although the food is now almost cold.

  After a moment June says to Thomas, ‘Your sister is much younger than you.’

  ‘Gisela is only three years less than me. The picture was taken when she was a child.’

  ‘Isn’t it rather odd, that you carry a picture of her when she was small. I mean, rather than—’

  ‘For heaven’s sake!’ Her mother’s cheeks are splashed pink. ‘That’s quite enough! Thomas and Reiner have come for Christmas dinner, not to be interrogated.’

  ‘It’s all right, I don’t mind.’ Thomas looks directly at June. ‘Gisela was in an accident. A tram collided with another tram and came off the rails. My mother was not badly hurt, but Gisela had many injuries and has to walk with sticks now. Afterwards she did not like to have her photograph taken, and besides…’ He falters. ‘Besides, I like to remember how she used to be.’

  There’s an uncomfortable pause.

  Fran glowers at June, who stares straight back at her.

  After a moment, Thomas says, ‘For many years we had a nurse, an English nurse, who helped to take care of Gisela. She lived with us until the war meant it was not safe for her to stay in Germany. That is how I learned to speak your language.’

  ‘And you’ve learned to speak it very well indeed. Now’ – their mother prods June’s arm – ‘will you please collect the plates while I fetch the plum pudding. And if I can find a tot of brandy, I’ll make it flame so we can all have a wish.’

  June begins to stack the china. Her hand hovers over Fran’s dish. ‘What will you wish for, Fran?’ The question sounds innocuous but the tone is enough to reveal her sister hasn’t been fooled. She’s well aware something is up, even if she might be struggling to identify precisely what it is.

  Fran gets to her feet. ‘If you tell someone your wish it won’t come true. We both know that. I’m going to help Mother.’

  The rest of the meal is without incident until Reiner discovers a sixpence in his pudding. Spitting the coin into his hand, he gazes at the silver with disgust, and when Fran’s mother attempts to explain the tradition appears so bemused that the rest of them burst out laughing. Even June’s expression lightens briefly. Fran’s mother gets up and fetches another bottle of the apple wine. Circulating the table, she tips two inches into each person’s tumbler. Once back in her place she remains standing and lifts her glass.

  Slowly, raggedly, the rest of them rise to their feet.

  A hush descends.

  Fran looks around the table.

  The air seems to be quivering like the string of a violin.

  ‘To peace,’ her mother says. ‘And friendship.’

  ‘To peace,’ is the echo. ‘And friendship.’

  And everyone drinks their wine.

  As the glasses clink back on the table, the spell is broken.

  Fran’s mother says, ‘No need to help me clear up, girls, you must entertain our guests.’

  June says, ‘Nonsense, you can’t do all of that on your own.’ She appears slightly winded, as if shocked by her participation in the previous few minutes. ‘Besides, once we’ve finished in the kitchen, I have another letter to write upstairs.’

  Fran’s mother sighs. ‘Well then, Fran’ – she touches the sleeve of her younger daughter – ‘why don’t you show Thomas and Reiner the garden? I expect they could do with a breath of fresh air after such a big meal.’

  ‘The garden?�
��

  Although the first wave of snow has waned, the prospect of the sodden lawn, of creating a show from the dormant vegetable patch and the bare-stemmed roses, is not enticing. Yet there is no obvious alternative to occupy the remainder of the visit. Once Fran has helped her father to the sitting room, she searches out suitable garden attire for Thomas and Reiner, something warmer than their insubstantial prison dress. She intends for Thomas to wear her father’s coat, and smaller, slighter Reiner to have Robbie’s navy school one. Yet when she comes to distribute them, she finds herself passing Robbie’s coat to Thomas.

  Outside, the temperature is even colder than she anticipated. The path that leads towards the greenhouse glistens with frost, and the tangled stems of the shrubs and bushes are black with the impending dark. Reiner hunches against the wall, delves into his trousers and pulls out a tobacco pouch. When Fran gestures at the garden, he continues to gaze at the bruise-coloured sky with the same sad, closed-off expression as when he first arrived.

  ‘Leave him.’ Thomas’s voice is next to her ear. ‘Show me instead.’

  Thrusting her hands into her coat pockets, she braves the icy paving stones. While her fingers toy with a coin and crumbles of grit, she’s aware only of the space between herself and Thomas, which seems to connect them like rope or an electric current. Every time she takes a step, she feels the tug of him beside her.

  Dutifully, she points out the dark-green viburnum etched with rime, the red-edged hebe, and the holly trees. On each occasion she pauses, waits, but he says nothing, and she starts to doubt if his English is even good enough to understand plant names. Finally, they reach the end of the path where she halts next to the greenhouse. More snow begins to drift from the heavens, and she has to blink droplets away from her lashes. ‘This is where we grow tomatoes and cucumbers. Peppers too, sometimes. My mother once planted a grapevine, but the grapes were too small and bitter to eat.’ Given the interest either of them has in the potential of the greenhouse, she might as well be reciting nursery rhymes or the contents of the telephone directory.

  Thomas nods. ‘Is this the end of your land?’

  ‘No.’ Fran gestures at a small wooden gate in the wall. ‘On the other side is our vegetable garden. The people who lived here before used to keep a swing and slide, but we dug it over to produce food.’

  ‘Shall we see?’

  ‘There’s nothing to show you at this time of year. Just a lot of brown earth and maybe a few onions and some garlic.’

  ‘I’d like to look anyway.’ Thomas has stepped ahead and is already unlatching the gate. Fran follows. Her pulse is jumping in her throat. They are moving further from the house, out of sight of the downstairs windows. It’s possible that Thomas is anxious to view the winter yield of an English vegetable patch. Possible, but not likely. Not remotely likely.

  Carefully they circumvent the growing area, keeping to the narrow strip of grass surrounding the chocolate soil. When they reach the corner furthest from the gate, Thomas spins around. Fran almost walks into him, stopping just before she collides with his chest.

  ‘Fran, I think you like me?’

  Flakes are tumbling from the sky, as if a feather pillow has been emptied. She watches the crystals of ice settle on his nose and forehead, before dropping her gaze.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I like you too.’ He grasps her forearms so that the gap between them drops to practically nothing.

  Fran shuts her eyes. She feels the cold, wet swirl of snow on her cheeks, her fingers balled and frozen, then his mouth on hers hot and sudden. It is both astounding and a relief, as if an inevitable journey, both feared and longed for, has begun at last. Before she can respond, he draws away.

  ‘Fran?’

  She says nothing, eyelids pressed tight. Lips naked.

  ‘Fran, talk to me. Do you mind? Do you mind that I kiss you?’

  Blindly, she reaches forwards, cups her hands around his face and tugs him towards her.

  Eventually it is Fran who breaks the connection. Thomas is staring as though she is an apparition about to disappear. He brushes a snowflake from her left eye socket with the underside of his thumb.

  She catches hold of his wrist. ‘I shouldn’t… We shouldn’t.’

  ‘But we did.’

  She swallows. The taste of him is still on her tongue, melting her from within. All she wants to do is press her mouth to his again. She must have hoped for this to happen from the minute she watched him arrive at Salthouse, from the second she arranged the Christmas visit, from the first click of the latch on the little wooden gate. Yet how can she be this certain of what is so plainly wrong? She feels her eyes prick with tears.

  ‘Thomas! Wo bist du?’ From the top of the garden, Reiner’s voice. ‘Was machst du?’

  ‘Warte, ich komme sofort!’

  Gently, Thomas lifts her chin. ‘Reiner is wondering where I am. We must go.’

  She knows this is true, even though the turn from this moment to the next, where they must exist again in separate worlds feels unbearable. She buries her face into the navy wool of his coat. Only of course the coat doesn’t belong to Thomas, but to Robbie. Used to belong to Robbie. Until he was killed by a soldier, a soldier very much like the one she has just kissed and is longing to kiss again. A sob churns her ribcage. Arms encircle her back.

  ‘Thomas! Wo bist du?’ Closer, this time.

  She feels Thomas’s lips graze her hair.

  ‘Ich komme!’

  Fran steps back. She drags the back of her hand over her face, rubs away the snow and tears.

  ‘Are you ready, Fran?’

  * * *

  Reiner is waiting for them on the other side of the gate, cowering miserably by the greenhouse. On seeing Thomas, he stands up. There is a sharp exchange of German which Thomas translates for Fran.

  ‘Reiner wonders what we were doing. While he was freezing his balls off.’

  ‘What did you tell him?’

  ‘That you were explaining how to grow the different vegetables.’ He must catch her look of unease because he adds in a steady voice. ‘Reiner only asked questions because he is cold. He wants to go indoors.’

  As they pick their way back up the path, the upstairs curtains twitch and when they come inside Fran’s mother is drawing the downstairs drapes as well. Against the light of the living room, the windows are blank, black rectangles. Fran thinks of the invisible garden cloaked by the night. It seems as if a part of her is still out there, standing with Thomas in the falling snow.

  Her mother says, ‘Goodness, you were a long time. You must all be perishing by now. Anyway, they’ll be here soon. The transport from the camp, I mean.’ And right on cue the rumble of an engine swells and then cuts outside the house.

  Fran’s father stays in his armchair while Fran and her mother escort the German prisoners to the door. All the while Fran keeps her gaze on Reiner, on her mother, on the floor, anywhere but Thomas. The pitch and toss of her emotions feel like a freight train passing through her body. Yet when she glimpses herself in the hall mirror, she is astonished to see she looks perfectly normal.

  The doorbell rings. Fran’s mother shouts into the stairwell. ‘June! Our guests are about to leave, come and say goodbye.’

  There is no movement from above.

  ‘I expect June is busy,’ Fran says. All at once she is desperate for her sister to stay away. A mirror is one thing, but her sister is likely to observe a good deal more than Fran’s reflection.

  ‘Goodbye, Fran.’

  Thomas is halfway over the threshold.

  For a fleeting moment their eyes lock.

  ‘Goodbye.’

  The door shuts.

  Shakily Fran climbs the stairs and sits in the dark on the edge of her bed. Why does she feel as if someone has taken a hammer to her heart? They will see each other again at the camp. Surely, they can find a way to do that. She thinks of Daisy, the soldiers in the camp, June, her parents. All the people from whom she will have to h
ide everything she does, everything she feels. Suddenly she doubles over with her head in her hands, her forearms pressed together and her ribcage shaking with sobs.

  Some time later the grunts and shuffles of her mother helping her father climb the staircase become audible. A door opens. There are footsteps on the landing. June says, ‘I’ll take the left side.’ Fran knows she ought to be helping too. Instead she waits, listening, until she is certain the trio are in her parents’ bedroom – hoisting her father onto the mattress, untying his shoes, plumping pillows – before slipping downstairs and into the sitting room.

  From the mantelpiece she plucks the drawing. She couldn’t possibly stand for Thomas’s present to be lost or destroyed by her sister in a fit of temper. Besides, her father will not venture from his bed again for days, and it is doubtful either June or her mother were even aware of the gift. Upstairs she studies the sketch for a long while, imagining his fingers curled around the coloured pencils, his frown of concentration, the quick scan of the horizon before the focus upon the page. Closing her eyes, she presses the paper against her cheek. The silk of the crayons feels like a balm, a comfort, and at the same time the most beautiful piece of artwork that she has ever seen.

  Chapter Sixteen

  3 January 1947

  ‘Is that the operator? Good. I want a City of London number, please. The name is Sands. Dr Sands.’

  Martin is standing in the drawing room beside the Christmas tree, which has shed most of its needles onto the Chinese rug and is ready to be carted outside and converted into firewood. Although he has offered to perform the task several times, his mother has insisted on waiting until the gardener returns. Probably, Martin thinks bitterly, because she’s worried that lugging the nine-foot monstrosity into the garden, not to say chopping the gnarly old trunk into logs, might finish off his heart completely. And since the snow has barely stopped plummeting in each of the ten days since Christmas, there’s no telling when the gardener might be back. Nor, for that matter, when his own firm might re-open. Even the camp office is closed. Daisy and Fran have been told to stay at home until Monday so that an electric heater can be found.