The Forgotten
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Praise for The Forgotten
‘Engrossing, heartbreaking and eloquently written, The Forgotten left me breathless. Chamberlain offers readers new perspectives on war, women, espionage and what it takes to survive.’
Lara Prescott, author of The Secrets We Kept
‘Beautifully crafted, elegantly written, with characters to root for – I loved this heart-stopping tale.’
Saskia Sarginson, author of The Bench
‘A masterclass in immersive wartime fiction. While Chamberlain is characteristically unflinching in her portrayal of the grim realities of war, The Forgotten is so much more than a catalogue of brutality. It is a pacy and compelling story of intrigue and espionage, and of how people can survive and love can endure. I loved it!’
Sonia Velton, author of Blackberry and Wild Rose
‘Beautifully written, realistic on the human impact of war, with characters I fell in love with.’
Louise Hare, author of This Lovely City
‘Mary Chamberlain brilliantly explores the devastating toll of war on every side, the price paid by women for survival and the impossible choices ordinary people were forced to make, reminding us that history is never really in the past.’
Sarah Day, author of Mussolini’s Island
‘A riveting drama in the lingering shadows of the Second World War: the inherited, the lived, the choices made and the secrets they bring.’
Cecilia Ekbäck, author of The Historians
‘The Forgotten is a triumph, the kind of novel you hate to finish.’
Carmen Callil, author of Oh Happy Day
Praise for The Hidden
‘A powerful and raw, though elegantly written, character piece dealing with inhumanity and endurance, firmly grounded in real events.’
Alastair Mabbott, Herald
‘Recent novels, such as The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society, have taken the occupation as their subject, but none so potently as Mary Chamberlain’s The Hidden… The realities of life under a ruthless occupying power are slowly, skilfully revealed.’
Sunday Times
‘A heartbreaking yet hope-filled tale.’
Woman’s Own
‘A powerful story, well told.’
Choice magazine
‘Set against the backdrop of the Nazi occupation of the Channel Islands, The Hidden is a powerful, heart-wrenching story of deception and guilt, love and loss; I was completely engrossed, seduced by its strong characters and atmosphere, and intrigued by the mystery at the heart of the novel.’
Saskia Sarginson, author of The Bench
‘Shines a piercing light on the shrouded history of human trafficking and labour camps in the Channel Isles during WW2. A fascinating and powerful story of love, endurance, betrayal and guilt.’
Anna Mazzola, author of The Unseeing
‘This compelling and heart-rending novel is a potent reminder that the horrors of war aren’t limited to the battlefields. Nor do they cease when the guns fall silent. There are those who will carry the scars – emotional, physical and psychological – for the rest of their lives. There is scant justice. But in The Hidden, Chamberlain gives them credence and a voice.’
Susan Swarbrick, Herald
THE
FORGOTTEN
Mary Chamberlain
For Kikelomo, and a kinder world
CHAPTER ONE
London: February 1958
Betty was late. She hesitated at the door, in two minds whether to go in. She hated drawing attention to herself, but she’d come this far. She sidled through, stood at the back, spotted a vacant seat, tiptoed to the row, head bowed, squeezing herself along, excuse me, sorry. Excuse me. Thank you. Her coat snagged on the armrest. She pulled it free. The man in the row in front turned and glowered at her. Sorry. He wouldn’t understand why she had to be here, how personal this was.
She sat down and fanned her face with the programme. She’d had to run most of the way and even though the February day was frosty, she was sweating. She unbuttoned her coat, wriggled her arms free and rolled to one side and the other, pulling the coat’s skirt from beneath her. The man next to her glared and tutted.
‘Sorry.’ Clenched her teeth, opened her lips. Can’t help it.
She folded her coat and bent over, slipping it under her seat, took off her hat and scarf, and laid them on the coat. Sat back, lifting her hair off her neck, enjoying the air on her skin. Leaned forward as she rummaged in her bag, pulled out a notebook and a pencil and began to flip the pages, crackling the paper. Out of the corner of her eye she saw her neighbour twist towards her and put his finger on his lip. She pretended not to see, though she felt his eyes on her, monitoring her. She licked the tip of her pencil, sat upright and began to write.
That historian, A.J.P. Taylor, said MPs who supported the bomb should be hailed as murderers. He was about the same age as her father, in his fifties. It’s not just young people who think like I do, Betty thought. Middle-aged men do, too. She stood up and applauded. Her notebook and pencil tumbled to the floor so when they sat down she had to crawl between the seats to retrieve them.
‘For goodness’ sake,’ the man next to her said. ‘Keep still.’
‘Sorry.’ She smiled, forgive me. He nodded, pursed his lips. He was older than her. There were even a few strands of grey at his temples. He was angry. Was that what happened as you got older? You got moody? Short-tempered? He wore a beige Fair Isle pullover, hand-knitted, out of place among the navy duffel coats and black polo necks. Her mother used to knit her jumpers and cardigans, two ply lambswool which she bought in a skein and called on Betty to hold taut while she rolled it into a ball. Her mother knitted everything, far more than she needed or Betty could use, come to that, chain-smoking as she worked so everything whiffed of stale cigarettes and lavender talcum powder. She hadn’t smoked until the war. The war had changed everything.
Betty sniffed, as if she could conjure it up, pulled her hankie from her sleeve and blew her nose. She still missed her mother, more than ever. More than her sister, perhaps. It was difficult to know. She knew what had happened to her mother, but her sister had just gone. This meeting is for them, she thought. For them. She felt the man glaring at her. She tucked her hankie back and focused on the podium. Who was Alex Comfort? She liked what he said though, about Britain’s moral bankruptcy and ceremonial suicide. That was a good turn of phrase. She wrote it down. There was more applause. She put the notebook between her teeth so it wouldn’t slip away while she stood up again and clapped. It was, she knew, very un-British to behave like that at a public meeting. Still, needs must. She agreed with every word. She’d sign up, or whatever you had to do, immediately.
She removed the notebook from between her teeth and fanned herself again. The hall was packed. How many people were here? She couldn’t begin to calculate. Thousands, at least. All of them thinking like she did. Some of them were quite old, too. Nuclear war was wrong. What did it matter if Russia had won the space race? So what if they could fire an H-bomb from a sputnik? Didn’t mean the West had to copy them. America and Russia were like roosters sharpening their spurs. Or was it a game of chicken? The first to blink – bam! Armageddon. For what?
She couldn’t understand why so many people didn’t see that, harping on about the Red Peril and world domination, about godless Communism and heartless Russians who’d sent the family dog into space and incinerated her alive. They seemed to care more about the dog than they did about people. If there was a nuclear war there’d be nothing left to dominate, whoever started it. What was the point of that? That frightened her far more than the threat of Russia. She didn’t always sleep at night, dreaming of the nuclear strike, the firestorm, the mushroom cloud, the slow invisible blanket of poison. S
ometimes she wondered whether she’d take a suicide pill, like Mary in On the Beach. Was it cyanide? She couldn’t remember.
There was an air of urgency here, in this room. She was breathing excitement, she and all these strangers, linked in this moment. Even the grumpy man next to her was smiling. She’d never felt like this before, part of a vast, unstoppable movement of change. It felt, she thought, like being in love, swept in an avalanche of hope and adventure. Bliss. She listened to the last speaker, a call to action, a march on Aldermaston. Ban the bomb! We will stop it. Yes. Yes.
The meeting came to a close.
‘Excuse me,’ she said to the man next to her, pointing to the exit. ‘Would you mind?’
He stood up with a clumsy gesture while she pressed past him, her coat over her arm, hat and scarf in her hand. She pushed to the end of the row, threaded her arms through her coat and, buttoning it up, walked towards the door. She sensed him stand up and follow her. The crowd was pressing in and she had difficulty walking. She had to elbow her way through, excuse me, excuse me.
‘We’re all trying to leave,’ a man said.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry.’ She didn’t want to talk to the angry man. ‘I have a train to catch.’
She pushed out into the open air, stepped into Storey’s Gate, and cut into Great George Street. The crowd was less dense there. The February night had turned for the worst so she stood on the corner, tying the belt of her coat tight, clamping her red felt hat to her head and muffling her neck with her scarf. The street lamps glowed soft and yellow and she caught a glimpse of the man she’d sat next to, wrapped up in a dark overcoat, heading in her direction. Perhaps she should apologise, step in before he berated her. Or ignore him. She’d probably never see him again.
She hurried into Parliament Street, crossed the road and walked down Whitehall. There was a gathering in Downing Street with banners, home-made jobs on cardboard. She could make out Ban the Bomb in the lamplight. She walked past them, looked back. He was still following. The crowd had thinned by Horse Guards and she sped up, walking fast towards Charing Cross. There was a Lyons Corner House by the post office. It was still open. She had time for some tea before the last train.
Betty could see the man running across the road, entering the shop after her. Oh Lordy, she thought. The nuns at school had warned her about men who followed women, though honestly, what did they know? Still. The café was crowded but there were a few spaces free. She sat at a small table in the centre of the room, head down, rummaging in her bag, and watched as he sauntered past her. Phew. Then he stopped and turned.
‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘Weren’t you at that meeting?’
‘Which meeting?’ She was peeling off her gloves, finger by finger. Poised and sophisticated, not gauche and clumsy.
‘In the Methodist Central Hall. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.’
‘Oh, that,’ she said. ‘Yes.’
‘What did you think?’ He pulled out the chair opposite her. ‘Mind if I sit down?’ His eyes were a soft green-hazel and gave nothing away. ‘Or are you meeting someone?’
She shrugged. ‘I can’t stop you.’ No, she thought, surely? Someone at a meeting like that wouldn’t be an axeman. They were all pacifists, Quakers. Gentle people. Besides, he didn’t seem cross and his face was intelligent.
The nippy came over, young and ill-formed in her black dress and white pinny.
‘May I treat you to a cup of tea?’ he said.
‘If you like.’ Non-committal.
‘Two teas,’ he said. ‘And two iced buns.’
The waitress wrote it down. Her writing, Betty could see, was unsure and immature. She was probably called Gladys, or Beryl.
‘Actually,’ Betty said, ‘I’d rather have a Chelsea bun.’
The nippy scowled, corrected the order, let her notebook dangle on its string and replaced the dirty ashtray with a clean one from the table beside it. The man fished in his pocket and pulled out a packet of Weights. He flipped it open and offered it to Betty.
‘Thank you.’ She took a cigarette and propped it between her fingers, leaning forward for him to light it. He rummaged in his trouser pocket, and the other one, then patted his jacket.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I seem to have forgotten my matches. Do you have a light?’
Betty laughed and peered into her bag, pulling out her lighter. She held up three fingers in a Boy Scout salute.
‘Always prepared.’ She leaned forward and lit his cigarette, and her own, closed the lighter and threw it into her bag. She was in control now, and it made her feel safer.
‘Be prepared,’ he said. ‘That’s the Boy Scouts’ motto.’ He smiled and dragged on his cigarette. ‘Did you come by yourself?’
She lifted her face to the ceiling and blew a smoke ring, a perfect circle. She paused, turned and looked at him through lowered eyes.
‘Yes,’ she said, plucking a strand of tobacco from her lip, flicking it into the air. So what?
‘What did you think? Of the speakers?’ he said, taking another long breath on his cigarette.
‘All right.’ She tapped her ash in the tray and looked past him, over his shoulder, as if she was waiting for someone. ‘What about you?’
‘I thought they were first-rate.’
She turned and studied him. He wasn’t as old as she’d thought. More like thirty than forty, not that much older than her, and his face was kind, good-looking even. Perhaps there was nothing sinister about him, he was just trying to be friendly. But he was awkward, she could sense, as if he was unused to striking up a conversation. Or was expecting a rebuff.
‘I’m sorry if I disturbed you,’ she said. ‘I meant to get there on time but the bus didn’t come for ages. You know how it is, you dither whether to walk or not, and the more you dither, the later it gets.’
‘No worries.’ He smiled. ‘You settled down in the end,’ he said, adding, ‘Sort of.’
She wondered if he was playing with her. She wasn’t much good at small talk either, and wasn’t sure what to say to him.
‘Did you have to come far?’
‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘Only Bloomsbury.’
She stubbed out her cigarette as the nippy approached with the tea and buns, waited while she placed them on the table. ‘Thank you,’ she said to the waitress and smiled at her, turning to the man opposite, who sat stirring his tea, concentrating, as if playing for time.
‘War is so awful.’ She fiddled with the spoon on her saucer, turning it left, right. That sounded naïve and she wished she hadn’t said it. But it was true. Even now, she could taste its horror, as if the memories had coated her tongue in a membrane of fear.
‘I agree,’ he said, nodding, his voice melancholy. He must have been old enough to have fought in the war, Betty thought, so he’d know all right. Buffeted by war, like she was, taking a stand, like her. She wanted to know if he was a pacifist or a unilateralist but didn’t like to ask. She bit into her bun, savoured the fruit and the soft, sweet bread.
‘My name’s John,’ he said, leaning forward, his arm outstretched. ‘And yours?’
‘Betty.’ She wiped her hand on her napkin and took his. ‘A bit sticky, I’m afraid.’
He laughed, shrugged, doesn’t matter.
‘Betty. Nice name. Do you work, Betty?’
‘Of course I work.’
‘Let me guess,’ he said. ‘You’re a journalist.’
‘A journalist? Why do you think that?’ She was flattered. Her guard, she knew, was falling.
‘You were taking notes,’ he said. ‘In shorthand.’
‘Goodness,’ she said. ‘Are you a detective?’ She narrowed her eyes, added, ‘Or a spy?’ He looked the most unlikely spy, or detective, with his Fair Isle pullover and college tie, and she found herself smiling.
‘No.’ He grinned, the hints of dimples, his eyes alight. ‘I’m a teacher. Camden Grammar for Boys. So what do you do?’
‘I’m a typist.’
‘Not quite,’ she said, relenting. ‘Bedford College for Women.’ Bedford or nothing, her father had said. Anywhere else was for him a hotbed of Communism.
‘What did you study?’
She sipped her tea, broke off a piece of bun and shoved it in her mouth.
‘English Literature,’ she said with her mouth full. She could feel a small piece of raisin stuck to her tooth. She curled her tongue and licked it clean. ‘My father’s choice. Not mine.’
‘Oh?’
‘He thinks education is wasted on a woman,’ she said. ‘But literature is at least decorative, does minimal damage.’ She smiled. ‘I had to promise him I’d learn to type when I graduated.’
He laughed again. ‘And what would you have preferred to study?’
‘History,’ she said. ‘Or anthropology, perhaps.’
‘Why anthropology?’
She shrugged again, lifted her cup. ‘I don’t really know. I’d like to travel, see how other people live.’ She wanted to kick herself. Such a silly answer. What she really wanted was to get away from home, see the world. Nyasaland. Jamaica. Perhaps she’d meet her husband there, bring back a native. The thought of seeing her father’s shocked face made her smile.
‘So what do you teach, John?’
‘French. German.’
‘German?’ She swallowed. They always spoke English at home – We must forget Germany, her father had said. She’d worked hard at her accent, spoke English now without a trace, blended in so no one guessed where she was from, like a talking chameleon. She twisted her mouth. ‘Is that a popular subject?’
He shook his head and looked into the distance; she saw his eyes moisten over and his fingers begin to shake.