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

by Sarah Mitchell

  ‘Just stepping out, are you?’ The felt hat tilts sideways. ‘Well, that’s definitely the one I would have picked if you’d let me, no question at all! As I say, I’m quite an expert in this department. Those wedding bells are just around the corner, you mark my words. And I do like a tall man…’ She breaks off as Martin arrives and turns her owl’s gaze on him. ‘I was just saying to this pretty young lady of yours, what a lovely couple you make.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Although he throws Fran a bemused glance, she can tell he’s pleased.

  ‘A sight for sore eyes.’

  ‘That’s very kind…’

  ‘I get such pleasure from seeing young couples out and about, having fun. After all we’ve been through these last years. And the pair of you look so fine, so unscathed by the war, if you know what I mean. Particularly you, young man!’ Plucking Martin’s sleeve, she adds conspiratorially, ‘This is what you fought for, isn’t it? I’ll bet the thought of this beautiful girl waiting at home was what kept you going against those Huns! Well, you enjoy yourself, my dear. You deserve it.’

  There’s a second of frozen silence before Fran snaps to attention. She gives the woman a glacial stare. ‘Do please excuse us.’ She drags Martin away and as soon as they are out of earshot squeezes his arm. ‘What a ridiculous creature! How dare she be so familiar.’ She glances over her shoulder, not caring how abrupt she seemed or even whether the woman can hear her.

  Martin’s mouth is set in a grimace.

  ‘She didn’t know about your heart,’ Fran persists. ‘I mean, how could she? Otherwise she would never have been so tactless.’

  To her surprise he doesn’t reply. Instead he takes her arm and heads towards the auditorium with his gaze fixed ahead. Eventually, at the entrance he stops. ‘It doesn’t matter. We mustn’t let something silly like that spoil our evening.’ She has a brief glimpse of his face, a resolute smile that fails to mask a simmering, sad kind of anger before they are plunged into the gloom of the cinema and the glow of the usherette’s torch is directing them to the back of the stalls.

  The newsreel begins as soon as they sit down, making further conversation impossible. At first Fran is relieved – what could she possibly say to raise Martin’s spirits? – but soon her thoughts are tumbling over each other in a horrible kind of soup. The heartbreak of the encounter with Thomas churns miserably with the absurd premonition of the woman in the felt hat and the wretched business of Martin’s weak heart, which seems, she now sees, to haunt him everywhere he goes. She feels terrible for him, as if the pain were her own, or at least the hurt of a very close friend – which, she supposes, in many ways he is. Confused, she peeks sideways. His focus is directed squarely ahead, but Fran would bet her life that he isn’t concentrating on the black-and-white news clips either.

  In the interval before the main picture Martin insists on going to buy them both ice creams. On his return he holds aloft two pots triumphantly. ‘Glad I was near the front of the queue, they’re about to run out!’ Although the notion of eating anything makes her feel quite sick, Fran takes one of the tubs with murmurs of appreciation and watches Martin open his own with enthusiasm. Settling down, he crosses his legs and turns to her with determined cheeriness. ‘Now, you must tell me what it’s like, being in the camp. I bet you have some tales to tell, but I can’t imagine how anyone manages to do a stroke of work sitting in the same room as my sister!’

  Somehow the time passes. Eventually the lights lower, and Fran sinks into the darkness as if it were a mattress, using a moment when Martin is searching for his handkerchief to slide the untouched ice cream under her seat. He appears more relaxed now and she realises with a lurch of guilt just how much he is enjoying himself. When Joan Greenwood appears on screen, he briefly touches Fran’s knee, as if to register the moment, and as the best jokes happen, he laughs loudly and happily before glancing sideways to check she is amused too. Although she manages to smile back, her mind is so agitated that she can barely follow the plot.

  Towards the end of the film she becomes aware of a weight in her lap. In a slow, almost dreamlike kind of way, she feels Martin’s hand enclose her own and then his thumb press against her palm, encouraging her to open her fingers. He has shifted position and is now leaning slightly towards her seat so that if she should lean back, if she should turn her head, they would be close enough to kiss.

  She stays stiller than ever. Although she longs to pull away her arm, she cannot bring herself to wound Martin again, not when he has only just recovered from the business in the foyer. Instead she focuses on not moving her fingers, on not giving him the slightest encouragement to make any further advance. As her hand grows clammy and hot she stares straight ahead until her arm seems to detach itself from the rest of her body altogether.

  * * *

  ‘Are you ready to go?’

  To her amazement the credits are rolling.

  Most of the row the far side of Martin are on their feet and he is half-standing too. He smiles, ‘You seem in a bit of a daze.’ If he feels let down by her response, her chilliness, he is hiding his disappointment well.

  On the journey home there is no Frank Sinatra. Martin fiddles with the radio with increasing impatience, but in the end they have to settle for a gardening programme and an earnest discussion about the relative merits of different spring flowers. As they leave the town the snow becomes heavier. A laborious squeak accompanies every sweep of the wipers and Martin perches forwards on the seat, peering into the swirling vortex with a frown of concern. By the time he finally draws up outside her house, Fran feels emptied out, as if she must have lived the day several times over. She releases the passenger door with a sense of relief just as Martin appears by the window to open the door for her. When she gets out, he barely shuffles backwards so that she can’t move without squeezing rather obviously between him and the car.

  ‘I’ve had a wonderful evening, Fran…’ He pauses. ‘I hope you enjoyed it too?’

  ‘Of course, I’ve had a lovely time.’ She is blinking back the flakes, desperate to get inside.

  ‘Good. Good. That’s marvellous.’ Oblivious to the weather, he is obviously plucking up courage to kiss her, and avoiding his embrace is impossible unless she pushes straight past him and makes her rejection crystal clear. An instant later he places his arms around her waist. She is fleetingly aware of the bulk of his approaching body, the yearning adoration splayed across his face, before his lips press against hers. She tastes the sweet trace of vanilla ice cream and the salty, cushiony swell of his tongue as his grip around her back tightens.

  Within moments he straightens up again, loosens his hold and draws his wrist across his forehead. ‘I shouldn’t have done that. It was very forward of me. Please forgive me for letting my emotions get the better of me, I’ve had rather a difficult time of it recently. Of course that’s no excuse, if you didn’t want… don’t want.’ His voice tails away and he considers her anxiously. ‘I do like you so very much, Frances. Very, very much indeed. You really are quite the best thing in my life. To be honest, if it wasn’t for you, I think I might start to wonder why I was even bothering to get up in the mornings.’

  Fran makes herself meet the desperate shine in his eyes.

  It is impossible, utterly impossible, to say what she intended to say, what she ought to say.

  Immediately, she drops her gaze. ‘I really must go inside now, Martin. If my mother heard your car, she’ll be wondering what’s going on. Besides, it’s absolutely perishing out here!’ She is only just managing not to rub the back of her hand across her mouth.

  ‘Of course, of course you must go inside. How selfish of me!’ He takes a large step sideways. ‘Do get into the warm quickly before I make you freeze to death! Perhaps next week, another film or even dinner…?’

  She hurries past, pretending not to hear, and when she calls over shoulder, ‘Goodnight, Martin,’ his answering farewell ripples uncertainly behind her.

  Once through the door she head
s straight to her room and collapses onto the edge of her bed. If only her affections for Martin mirrored his feelings for her, the solution would be beautifully, wonderfully simple. She thinks of the woman in the felt hat. Her stupid premonition: Wedding bells just around the corner. Both her parents and June would be delighted to see her marry so well, and to such a nice man. What a fortunate girl, to have fallen on her feet like that. And she would be lucky, she knows it. Both she and her whole family would be showered with kindness, want for nothing.

  Fran touches her mouth. The skin feels numb.

  She remembers the heady, helpless sense of falling as she kissed Thomas. That overwhelming sugary heat. Closing her eyes evokes the electric gaze she could follow to the ends of the earth, the startling sense of authenticity whenever she sees him, as if the rest of her life is merely the backstage preparation for those precious few moments.

  All at once she gets to her feet and hurries downstairs. When she returns, she is holding a piece of paper and an envelope from her mother’s stationery drawer. Didn’t she hear on the radio that prisoners of war were now allowed to receive letters from members of the public? Well, she knows exactly where to send one to reach Thomas. Sweeping the bottles and jars on her dressing table to one side, she finds she is trembling even before the pen makes contact with the page. Thomas, she writes, as if calling out to him, and then, I’m sorry, and then, I love you. Over and over again, the same two phrases – I’m sorry and I love you – until the sheet is full of words and her sobs have swelled and spread the ink into a watery black howl of longing.

  Chapter Twenty

  25 February 1947

  Viv stares out of the window. Snow has engulfed the country, drowning the land in a frozen canvas that obliterates everything but treetops, telegraph poles and church towers. The news is all about the weather. Animals are starving to death in the fields, the Thames is as solid as a skating rink, and yesterday The Times carried a photograph of two women in Northampton delivering milk by sledge with ropes tied around their waists. Having endured the war, it hardly seems fair. All at once, winter has become the new enemy, the alien invader, grounding the delivery vans and coal trucks so that the shops are nearly empty and the country can barely generate heat. Viv carries their one electric fire with her from room to room, despite the fact the two small bars seem to make little impression on the dampness of the air. Besides, even electricity is rationed now and for five miserable hours a day all the power is turned off completely.

  Shivering, she pulls her coat tighter. These days everyone wears their outdoor clothes inside, and since the accident she feels the cold like a poker, prodding and poking her with sharp aches of pain. Why can’t the fuel trucks get through? Great big lorries like that ought to be able to cope with a snowdrift or two. Sighing with frustration, she peers over the front hedge for any sign of traffic on the street beyond.

  Her worry about the roads is not only because of the coal. She has convinced Toby the highways are still passable for the simple reason that they have to be. There is no other option. His appointment today with the doctor feels like a lifeline, something she’s gripped with increasing intensity as his behaviour has deteriorated. After the awful business with Winston she hid his gun at the back of her closet, tucking the deadly metal behind dresses of emerald silk and pink chiffon. She can hardly believe she ever wore them; the woman who floated on the arm of the handsome army captain is as ethereal and elusive to her as a figure from a dream. Now she listens to the same man turning the house upside down – hunting, she knows, for the rifle. Every so often, when she’s certain Toby is downstairs, Viv opens her wardrobe door and reaches behind the soft folds of fabric to check the weapon is still there. And when Toby isn’t searching the outhouses or ransacking cupboards, she finds him sitting with a whisky at his side, his body hunched, rocking gently, backwards forwards, backwards forwards…

  On the other side of the glass nothing is moving. All the while Viv has stood by the drawing-room window nobody has ventured past their front gate, either by car or foot. The grey sky seems to bulge with the weight of the elements while glass-like daggers hang from the bird table. The city might as well be the North Pole rather than thirty miles away.

  Viv scans the deserted street. She could, of course, arrange an appointment with the local doctor. However, she has finally found someone who professes to have an expertise in mental disorders. Besides, seeing a local doctor would be even riskier than braving the ravaged roads. How long would it be before news of Toby’s illness became common knowledge, a source of whispers in the street, the theme of jokes in the public house? A day? Two days? A week at tops, and only if they were lucky. Soon after that would follow his dismissal from the camp.

  And he cannot lose that too.

  Not when he’s about to lose Viv and Alice.

  When Alex takes them to America.

  Viv’s train of thought trips as if over a paving stone, before she pushes quickly onwards. No, the roads to the city must be driveable. And Dr Dandy must be in his surgery, because she simply can’t bear to think what might happen otherwise.

  Mechanically she raises her hand to the scar on the side of her scalp. The gesture is frequent and automatic, her fingers feeling for the rough rope of skin to assess how much her hair has grown. Although the stubble has blossomed into the downy softness of a baby’s pelt, the colour is turning silver and will, she fears, make a badger’s stripe through the centre of the black as soon as the strands are long enough.

  ‘What are you doing, Mummy?’

  Viv swings on her heels. Alice has come through the door trailing a dolly with a single button eye and stuffing oozing from the seam at the back. ‘I was looking out for Daisy,’ Viv says truthfully. Since the classrooms are unbearably cold and most lavatory pipes have frozen, the government shut the schools two days ago. Viv has had to ask Daisy to mind Alice while she takes Toby to the doctor. Not that she has given Daisy any hint of the purpose of the outing. Even when Daisy seemed reluctant to oblige, Viv only tried to impress how badly she needed help, assuring her that Major Markham really wouldn’t mind her not attending camp for one day.

  ‘How long will you be gone?’ Alice tugs Viv’s skirt. Her eyes are big and round and anxious. Ever since the accident, Viv’s comings and goings have to be carefully managed. Alice needs to know exactly when Viv is leaving and when she will be coming back – there’s no room at all for spontaneity or poor timekeeping. Once, when Viv was half an hour late after a hospital appointment of her own, she found Alice curled up by the front door like a kitten, refusing Toby’s attempts to prise her away.

  Viv squats down and takes hold of both her daughter’s tiny wrists. ‘I’ve told you already, darling. Mummy and Daddy have something very important to do today. We might be away until teatime, but Daisy will stay here until we get back and I shall be home in time to put you to bed. ‘Now’ – she considers her daughter’s pinafore dress and jumper – ‘where are your cardigan and mittens? You must be so chilly!’

  ‘They were scratching me. I took them off.’ Pulling from Viv’s grasp, Alice points through the window. ‘Someone’s coming. Is it Daisy?’

  The top of a woollen hat is visible over the garden fence. A second later the wearer unlatches the gate and turns into the driveway. The postman, who has swapped his peaked cap for a thick balaclava and submerged his uniform beneath an overcoat, is picking a route up the front path.

  Viv’s chest tightens. The taste of anticipation rises in her throat. She has the same reaction each time she sees the postman approach or an envelope lying pale and promising on the hall floor. Yet the subsequent disappointment has become so habitual that even as she hears the clunk of the letter box and the gentle rush of falling paper, she’s already steeling herself for the let-down. She tells herself there’s no point in looking straight away, because Alex won’t have written. That is, not unless she waits. If she can make herself last at least half an hour before checking, there will be a chance, a sma
ll possibility, that today might be the day her future lands golden and bright on the door mat.

  Less than ten minutes later she interrupts a game of snap with Alice and the one-eyed dolly, placing her cards face down on the rug. ‘Mummy just needs to fetch the post, darling.’

  Alice frowns through wisps of white-blond hair. ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m expecting something important. And I ought to see if it has arrived before I go out with Daddy.’ She gets up before Alice can voice an objection. ‘I’ll only be a moment.’

  The envelope is conspicuous even from the doorway of the drawing room. Despite being brown, the colour of correspondence from the bank or a utility bill, the document is plainly not official because their address is scrawled in large black lettering across the entirety of the surface. Hurrying to the door, Viv grabs the letter from the pile and sees straight away the handwriting does not belong to Alex. The disappointment is a physical blow, a punch to the stomach that knocks the air clean away. An instant later she spots with another jolt the postmark is stamped Sculthorpe. About to rip the paper, her fingers suddenly freeze. The only explanation for why someone other than Alex would send her a letter is because Alex can’t write one himself, and the only reason for that is because he is ill – or worse. Viv’s heart falls off the edge of a cliff. There must have been another dreadful accident. Much more slowly, she slides a trembling thumb under the pasted flap and eases the envelope open.

  Inside rests a single sheet, thin with inked lines of pale blue that appears to have been torn from a notebook. As she unfolds the page, a snapshot flutters to the ground. Viv is too transfixed, too numb, to pay any attention to the photograph. The letter is only three lines long and composed by the same unruly black pen. She can read the words almost instantaneously, but their implication seems to penetrate in stages, each surge of understanding bringing a fresh wave of anguish.