Going Gently

by David Nobbs

  She went with Walter to protest. She enlisted the aid of the Aliens War Service Department. She got an appointment with a Home Office official for her and Walter. They explained the important nature of Heinz’s work.

  ‘It’s ridiculous to keep him behind barbed wire,’ said Kate. ‘It’s bloody ridiculous.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the official. ‘That is exactly what it is. We’ll send out an order releasing him.’

  ‘Oh, thank you,’ exclaimed Kate.

  ‘Good. That’s that. Thank you,’ said Walter.

  ‘Exactly where is he?’ asked the official.

  They stared at him, open-mouthed.

  ‘Which camp is he in? Where do we send the order releasing him?’

  Five days later, Walter called round, and Kate could see, from the gravity of his expression, that he had bad news. Her heart raced. She put Elizabeth in her play-pen rather more curtly than she had intended. Elizabeth bawled. She led Walter into the kitchen and collapsed into a rough pine chair, which snagged her stocking, as if that mattered, but the stupid little setback made her want to cry.

  ‘What’s happened?’ she asked.

  ‘He’s fine,’ said Walter. ‘I should have started with that.’

  The relief was so intense that it hurt. Kate let out a great sigh.

  ‘You know where he is?’

  ‘I know where he is.’

  ‘Thank goodness. Oh, Walter, well done. Where is he?’

  ‘He’s on His Majesty’s Troop-ship Dunera.’

  ‘On a ship? Where’s he going?’

  ‘Australia.’

  Walter offered to continue to pay Heinz’s salary, but he knew that Kate would refuse. She took a job as an ambulance driver instead.

  Her parents offered to have the children for August. Kate felt that Elizabeth was too young, but she took the boys. Her neighbours in Dollery Road had young children, and would help to look after Elizabeth when Kate was working.

  The boys loved the cheery house in Eaton Crescent. They loved the bays of Gower. They loved the red Mumbles trams. They loved their grandparents, and Enid and Annie.

  Kate took them by train. She was almost hurt that they were so excited.

  She took them to Langland Bay and they played cricket on the hard sand left by the receding tide. Nigel liked to bat and always batted a long time because he rarely got out. Timothy liked to bat and always batted a short time because he often got out. Maurice didn’t want to play at all, he joined in for the sake of family unity. Elizabeth bawled because she was too young to play.

  The next day they went to Bracelet Bay instead. There wasn’t so much sand there, but there were lovely rocks to climb and rock pools to explore. Nigel was happy damming streams, diverting water courses, and making scientific notes about the content of the rock pools. He even tried to measure the salinity of the water. Timothy bought a notebook with his pocket money and began to write. He was writing a novel. It was about stoats. Later he would tear it up because it was uncommercial. Later still, when Watership Down came out, he regretted that he had torn it up. Maurice built huge sandcastles and stood beside them, rather listlessly, watching the tide come in and demolish them. He would stand there until the very last traces had disappeared. Kate sensed that he longed to grow up and found this activity a suitable symbol for childhood.

  Nigel almost caused an incident when he insisted to three nuns that they were German parachutists in disguise. Kate had to intervene and mollify them. They waddled off like terrified penguins.

  Every night Kate dreamt that Heinz had been torpedoed. Every night she dreaded going to sleep.

  Enid was still teaching at the High School. Kate listened to her tales about the children and wondered what had happened to all the children in her class in Penance, Lily Gardner and Margaret Penhaligon and the rest. She felt sorry for Enid and asked her if she’d ever thought of leaving Swansea. ‘Somebody’s going to have to look after Mother and Father, Kate,’ she replied. ‘They’re growing old, you know.’

  Kate hadn’t really noticed, but she did now. Her father had retired, but still looked a fine figure of a man. He was getting very deaf though, and a little absent-minded. Bronwen’s hair had gone grey, it looked as if a fine dust had settled on it, and her face had become very lined, but the lines were a map of kindness, they were the contours of generosity.

  Walter came to fetch Kate and Elizabeth. Kate answered the door to him, and he said he didn’t want to come in.

  ‘That’s silly,’ said Kate.

  ‘Your father’s eyes will bore right through me. I’m an adulterer. I was unfaithful to their daughter.’

  ‘That was years ago. He knows how supportive you’ve been. All that’s forgotten now that I’m married again.’

  ‘I’m using black-market petrol.’

  ‘That’s more serious. But he won’t realise it. He isn’t worldly.’

  So Walter came in and stood there, uncomfortably, like a little boy, this powerful maker of armaments.

  ‘How are you, sir?’ he said.

  ‘Very well, Walter, very well, on the whole,’ said John Thomas Thomas. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Very well,’ said Walter. ‘Well, we’d better be getting along. We need to beat the blackout, and of course there are no signposts anywhere.’

  As they drove off, Walter said, ‘Well, that was hardly a conversation worth going in for.’

  ‘I’m pleased you did, though,’ said Kate, and Walter gave her a look.

  A couple of days later, he telephoned her.

  ‘I’m just ringing to see if you’re all right,’ he said. ‘I thought you might be feeling lonely.’

  ‘I am. Elizabeth’s very sweet, but at two she’s hardly what you’d call company. I’m clattering around a house that suddenly seems very big.’

  ‘Are you working this evening?’ he asked, trying very hard to sound casual.

  ‘Not this evening, no.’ She tried hard to sound casual too.

  ‘Would you like to come over for the night? With Elizabeth, of course. The spare bedrooms are aired.’

  She smiled at his tactfulness. She had to admit he was learning.

  ‘All right. We’ll come.’

  ‘Good.’

  So Kate returned to the second of her marital homes, but this time as a guest. The house seemed even larger than she had remembered.

  ‘I may move out for the duration,’ Walter said. ‘They could billet half a regiment in here.’

  After Elizabeth had gone to bed, Walter cooked a chicken. Kate was astounded to find that he could. It wasn’t brilliant, and it was probably black market, but it was good.

  He produced some 1926 Gevrey-Chambertin. Kate drank sparingly, which was a shame as it was excellent, but she wasn’t entirely sure of his intentions.

  ‘I suppose you haven’t heard from Heinz,’ he said, as they ate and drank at opposite ends of the long table.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, I suppose you wouldn’t have. He’ll still be on the ship.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Sunning himself in southern seas.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re very monosyllabic.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Wishing you hadn’t come?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good. Chicken all right?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘I’m sorry if I’m not more sparkling, Walter. It’s a compliment really.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I’m relaxing. I don’t relax very often.’

  ‘Good. I thought you might find it difficult, being back here.’

  ‘I thought I might. I don’t.’

  ‘Good. Stuffing up to scratch?’

  ‘Very creditable.’

  ‘Surprised?’

  ‘Very. Sorry.’

  ‘I’m a changed man, Kate.’

  ‘Are you, Walter?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh. Good.’

  ‘I see.’


  ‘I didn’t mean that to seem awful, Walter. You’ve been very kind and very supportive. Is there . . .?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How did you know what I was going to say?’

  ‘Change of tone. You put on an “Is there anyone in your life?” voice. No, there isn’t. Never.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I imagine when Heinz gets to Australia they’ll get the message to release him and send him straight back again.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Silly business.’

  ‘Yes.’

  They went back into the lounge for their coffee. Kate hated the word ‘lounge’ and hated herself for hating it.

  They sat at opposite ends of the larger of the settees. It could hardly be described as dangerous proximity.

  Kate wasn’t absolutely sure why she began to cry. Perhaps it wasn’t surprising. To be back here in her old marital home, with her ex-husband being so polite, and her present husband on his way to Australia, and the thought of the horrid war and the ever-present possibility of invasion, and Nigel going to be old enough to fight in less than three years, no, it wasn’t surprising.

  ‘How long do you think the war will last?’ she asked, just managing to keep the crying under control.

  ‘Difficult to say. Quite a long time, I hope.’

  ‘You hope?’

  ‘Kate, we’re losing. If it ends within the next year, we’ll be Germans. We have a lot of tables to turn. We can do it, but it’ll take time.’

  ‘I hope Nigel doesn’t have to go and fight. Oh, Walter, it will be over by 1943, won’t it?’

  She began to cry uncontrollably. He came over to her and put his arm round her and hugged her. Her tears flowed on to his face.

  ‘Oh, Kate,’ he said. ‘Oh, Kate.’

  His lips were on hers. She could feel his hard penis. Then he broke away, and stood up.

  ‘Damn,’ he said. ‘Damn damn damn and blast. I didn’t mean to do that.’

  She gave her nose a long blow.

  He sat down again, on the settee, near her, but not touching her.

  ‘I promise you, Kate,’ he said. ‘I solemnly promise you, that will never happen again.’

  Kate was more than somewhat disappointed to find that she felt more than somewhat disappointed.

  Kate continued to see Walter during the long months that followed, and it never did happen again, and she really began to think that he was a changed man. Although he had little time, he did what he could to get Heinz back. When Kate expressed her gratitude, he said that he wasn’t doing it for her but for himself, he needed Heinz, but it was Kate’s belief that Heinz had done his job, and the rest was relatively routine, and Walter was either punishing himself or being genuinely unselfish. As she grew older, she felt more and more that it was better to treat people according to their actions and not their motives.

  Walter was always happy to help Kate out by having the children. They brought some life to his great mausoleum of a house. So Kate was free, on her days off from her ambulance driving, to make trips. On one of these she went to West Hampstead, to see Daniel and Olga, who had refused to be evacuated to the country. ‘Jews are urban people. That’s why I couldn’t paint well at Tregarryn.’ They both looked paler than ever. Their faces were pinched. They didn’t get enough to eat, though their children did. After the night at the Bandalero, Kate had made a conscious decision to like Olga more. Being a woman of considerable will-power, she did.

  They had another visitor. Daphne Stoneyhurst didn’t look pale or pinched. She was a mature, successful woman. Her hair was streaked with grey, which made her look more formidable than ever. She had taken to smoking cigars, and drank only whisky. Her voice had an ever more masculine timbre. Kate found herself thinking that it was a shame that such superb child-bearing hips should be wasted on a lesbian.

  ‘Daniel and I have been working hard on the Home Office over this ridiculous internment of aliens,’ Daphne told her, to her amazement.

  ‘Well, I have a lot of Jewish friends who’re interned, mainly on the Isle of Man,’ said Daniel. ‘Artists of every kind, gentle people fleeing Nazi persecution, imprisoned as Nazi spies. I can’t stand by.’

  ‘It gives me a feeling that maybe my life isn’t utterly pointless after all,’ said Daphne.

  ‘When this battle’s over, we’ll all enlist as war artists,’ said Daniel.

  Daniel had opened a bottle of cheap wine which Kate could hardly drink. He’d never had any idea about wine, and now he couldn’t afford anything decent anyway. They’d already drunk the bottle that Kate had brought. She’d have to go on to whisky. Daphne had brought plenty of that, and Daniel and Olga weren’t really drinkers.

  The children drifted in and out of the room. The Begelman children didn’t seem like children. They seemed like small adults, tough and mature, testimony to Olga’s iron will.

  Kate and Daphne grew drunk slowly. Daniel returned to the subject of internment. ‘It’s wicked morally,’ he said. ‘It undermines the whole reason for which we’re fighting. It’s stupid practically. It denies us the aid of some of our finest minds and most gifted scientists.’

  That evening in West Hampstead Kate learnt for the first time of the scale of the internment. Many years later, she met the Amadeus String Quartet after a recital and learnt that they had all first met in the internment camps in the Isle of Man. She looked at those gentle, musical men and wondered what kind of person would consider them a security risk and waste valuable manpower guarding them. That night, in West Hampstead, she felt reassured at discovering how many other deported and interned people there were but also alarmed by it. Her dear Heinz would be lost in its immensity, become just a number.

  ‘I feel as though he’s slipping through my fingers,’ she said. Only her pride and her will-power kept her from crying.

  ‘You can’t go home tonight, either of you,’ said Olga. ‘You’re too drunk.’

  ‘Have you room?’ asked Kate.

  ‘The children will sleep on the floor,’ said Daniel. ‘You and Daphne can share a bed.’

  Daphne looked at Kate and smiled ironically.

  ‘Don’t look so alarmed,’ she said. ‘I won’t eat you.’

  Kate thanked the children for agreeing to sleep on the floor. Reuben, thirteen years old, sallow and solemn, educated in Palestine, the Peloponnese, Salamanca and West Hampstead, said gravely, ‘Our home is your home.’

  And so Kate and Daphne shared a bed. It was a very large bed. Normally, all three children slept in it, the girls on the two outsides.

  There was no need to feel awkward. There was plenty of space between her and Daphne. But it was one of those beds that sag in the middle, and every now and then they rolled towards each other and touched accidentally. At first Kate thought it was accidental that Daphne’s hand was touching her bottom, but as it crept gently over her buttocks she realised that this time it was no accident.

  She removed the hand and gave it a tiny smack.

  ‘Sorry, Daphne,’ she said.

  ‘Are you still our little chapel girl deep down?’ whispered Daphne. ‘I believe you are.’

  ‘Not at all,’ whispered Kate. ‘I have my code of honour, that’s all. I wouldn’t be unfaithful to my dear Heinz ever, be it with a woman, a child, a hermaphrodite, a transvestite, a goat or the best-looking man in the whole world, not ever. Good-night, dear Daphne. Sleep well.’

  Many people worked for the release of the aliens. Notable among them were Angela Rathbone, Colonel Josiah Wedgwood and George Bell, Bishop of Chichester. There were several debates in Parliament on the issue, and the case for their release eventually prevailed. It cheered Kate to find that the British sense of justice had not been entirely destroyed by the chaos and panic of war, and that common sense did eventually prevail, in the end. But it didn’t do Heinz any good. Everyone acknowledged that a mistake had been made, but rectifying it was another matter. There simply wasn’t th
e transport available from Australia. The troop-ships were needed for the troops.

  Every now and then a letter arrived from him. He was in a vast camp in the vast interior now, living in dry, dusty heat. He was being well treated. He was healthy. His letters should have cheered her up, but they were curious, cautious affairs. Perhaps he felt that a censor might read them, and so, being a particularly private man, he avoided anything too personal. Or maybe he was censoring himself, so as not to make her too emotional. Or maybe, in his situation, he didn’t feel able to be emotional.

  She wrote to him, and her letters were equally impersonal, partly because his letters were so impersonal that it seemed inappropriate to reply in any other way, but also because she found that she just couldn’t bring herself to write the words that she wanted to write.

  She drove her ambulance determinedly, never fearlessly, never recklessly. She drove with the sound of sirens and bombs outside, and the sounds of human agony inside. She drove along roads carpeted with broken glass and rubble. Searchlights picked out the skeletons of buildings. Walls hung loose from buildings like severed thighs. She thought of her children, who might become orphans, and of Heinz, who might find nobody to welcome him when at last he returned. You could not allow such things to affect you, in war. War was total. War consumed you. Kate did her bit, and was consumed.

  Other people did their bit in Swansea, when three nights of bombing destroyed almost all of the huddled, muddled centre of the town. Kate grieved, bitterly, for her home town.

  War was total, up to a point, but nobody would have expected Kate to drive her ambulance on the day of Heinz’s return. For return he did, in 1942. At last a place had been found for him on a troop-ship. As the day of his return drew nearer, Kate grew more and more nervous. Losses at sea were heavy. He could still be torpedoed. Every night now, as before, she dreamt that he had been torpedoed. She dreaded going to bed.

  On the eve of his arrival she didn’t dare go to bed at all. The previous night she’d dreamt that she’d been taking part in an orgy in a bombed building in Swansea. It was the shell of Jones and Jones, still smouldering, and she’d been making love to Walter, with Gwyn watching, Gwyn still eighteen. Herbert Herbert Cricket had been having it off with Mrs Herbert Herbert Politics, and Mrs Herbert Herbert Cricket had been unbuttoning the flies of Herbert Herbert Politics, and Gwyn had laughed lecherously, and then a naked postman had arrived, tripping though the wreckage with a telegram, and Kate had known what the telegram contained. Heinz had been torpedoed. And Walter had said, ‘Thank God for that.’ It had been a dreadful dream. She couldn’t have faced another dream like that. She sat up with endless cups of coffee, and read Proust.