Jean Grainger Box Set: So Much Owed, Shadow of a Century, Under Heaven's Shining Stars

by Jean Grainger

  Still, it meant he needed to spend more time in Dunderrig, and it was wonderful that Ingrid was happy to come along. Helmut Clissman was a very understanding employer and seemed absolutely fine with Ingrid taking off to West Cork whenever she wanted to. In fact, it was often at his suggestion that she take the trip. The educational exchange was much quieter these days, he said, given the travel restrictions, so he could easily manage without her. James wasn’t exactly sure what she did there anyway – she didn’t seem to be a proper teacher, and Elizabeth took care of all of the paperwork. Perhaps Helmut was employing her as a favour to Otto – people always seemed happy to do favours for him, which wasn’t surprising since Otto was such a genuinely nice character. James tried several times to find out what business Otto was in and eventually Edith told him that he was in gold and art – the buying and selling of it, apparently. James had no idea how that worked, but Otto must have been extremely good at it because judging by the lifestyle he and Edith enjoyed, business was booming.

  Though some of Edith’s friends were exactly as James imagined Nazis would be, it was virtually impossible to equate Otto and Helmut with the others. James thought being German must be a bit like being Irish. If you were from outside, you might imagine that every Irish person was fiercely, even violently nationalist and a member of the IRA, when in fact, what most people wanted was a quiet life to do what they wanted and not get involved in political struggles, armed or otherwise.

  Ingrid always changed the subject whenever the progress of the war came up. When he told her about Juliet joining up, she just shrugged. ‘Her boyfriend is in the airforce so naturally she wants to be somewhere she can see him, just like I go to Dunderrig to be with you. It is the curse of us girls, chasing boys all over the place.’ The fact that his sister was now actively engaged in the effort to defeat Germany left her unperturbed.

  ‘CAN WE JUST GO INTO the village on the way home?’ she asked after their long day in the sun. She sat close to him in the car and stretched luxuriously. James fought hard to keep his eyes on the road.

  ‘Of course, what do you want to get?’

  ‘I wish to visit the post office. And I need a few personal things from the chemist.’ She gazed out of the window.

  James reddened then berated himself. He was a grown man in a proper relationship with a woman, yet the mention of women’s things still embarrassed him. He was a doctor’s son and brought up by a very liberal Frenchwoman so he should be more comfortable talking about anything intimate, but he wasn’t. He couldn’t even find the right words to tell her how much he loved her, how much he desired her. Whenever he tried, she just said, ‘I know,’ which put him at ease. He could never have imagined having a girlfriend as wonderful as Ingrid.

  ‘Can I go to the post office for you while you get your…things…from the chemist? The post office closes at six and so does Miss Cunningham’s so you won’t make both – it’s quarter to six now.’

  ‘No, thanks. I’ll make it. I just need to send something to Helmut, something I forgot to give him. It’s all wrapped up, but I’m not sure how much it would be to post.’

  ‘Sure don’t be silly, I’ll just put it on the Dunderrig account – is the address on it? And you can get whatever you need while I’m in there. What is it anyway?’ James was pleased to be able to help.

  Ingrid hesitated for a second, ‘It’s just a roll of film. He’s putting a new brochure together of the school and wanted some beautiful landscape shots in it to entice prospective students. I told him there was nowhere more beautiful than Dunderrig.’

  As they parked beside the green in the middle of Dunderrig village, it was five to six.

  She rooted in her bag and eventually produced a small brown parcel addressed to Helmut.

  ‘I can’t imagine why women need such enormous handbags. Juliet and Solange are the same,’ James joked. ‘But then I never really know what women keep in handbags anyway – for all I know you could have old anchors or jars of jam or hand grenades in there.’ Still chuckling, he kissed her on the cheek as they parted to opposite sides of the village square.

  ‘Ah James Buckley, ’tis yourself back down from Dublin,’ announced Mrs Kelly, the postmistress and local font of all gossip and scandal. James’s father had insulted her only last week by remarking that her ability to proclaim what was abundantly obvious to everyone with a pair of eyes in their heads was truly staggering. He must have been fed up with her trying to pump him for medical information about the whole parish. Mrs Canty had looked thrilled as she regaled James with the story over breakfast the next morning; she and Mrs Kelly were old rivals. Apparently, Mrs Kelly had her eye on Eddie donkeys years ago.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Kelly. How are you?’ James was always polite. His father might be a bit short with people sometimes, God knows he had very little patience for what he termed ‘idle gossip’, but he’d always brought them up to be decent and kind. Richard Buckley was a lover of the plays of Sean O’Casey and would never have tolerated his children having ‘notions of upperosity’.

  ‘Ah sure, James, you know yourself, I’m a martyr to the corns. ’Tis being on my feet in here the whole time has me half crippled.’ She added pointedly, ‘Your father doesn’t seem to be able to do much for me, so I think I might go into Skibb to Doctor O’Connor – he trained in Ireland, you see, not England, so he might have a better idea, no disrespect to Doctor Buckley…’

  ‘Of course not, Mrs Kelly, I’m sure he just wants to see you back on your feet again. And you know, you’re probably right, two very different animals, the Irish corn and the English corn. My father probably can only sort out the English variety. I’d say we’d have a different class of corn here altogether.’

  Mrs Kelly looked at him sharply, unsure if he was making fun of her or not, then clearly decided against engaging in battle with two Buckleys in a week.

  ‘Well, yes. Now did you want something?’

  ‘I just want to get this in the post, please?’ James put the parcel on the counter with a huge smile.

  ‘And what is it?’ Mrs Kelly looked at the parcel and the name of Helmut Clissman on the front of it as if it were an unexploded bomb. ‘We must ask, on account of the situation with the emergency, you see.’ She smiled a sugary smile.

  James was quite sure she had no jurisdiction over the contents of parcels posted within Ireland but decided it was easier to play along with her.

  ‘It is camera film, for my girlfriend’s employer, whose name you can see marked clearly there as Mr Helmut Clissman. He lives in Dublin.’ James’s voice betrayed none of his frustration.

  ‘And that would be your German girlfriend, would it? Sending a parcel to her German employer?’ Mrs Kelly was writing on a notepad.

  ‘The very one.’ James was struggling to remain civil. ‘Though thankfully, Mr de Valera is keeping us neutral so that sort of thing doesn’t matter, does it?’ He never lost the cheery tone in his voice.

  Mrs Kelly weighed the package and angrily affixed the necessary stamps. ‘No harm to keep an eye out all the same. A very high-up member of the Gardaí was in here recently and made a point of asking me to note any unusual activity in the village, so I am perfectly within my rights. There were Special Branch men here too last week but obviously I can’t discuss what they wanted. Will I put it on the Dunderrig account?’ she replied, glad she’d shown James that she had the ear of the authorities.

  ‘Yes please, Mrs Kelly, that would be marvellous if you could do that and my father will be happy to settle up with you. And I’m sure there isn’t a secret service anywhere in the world with access to talents such as yours. I feel so much safer knowing you are keeping an eye on things.’ James smiled innocently. Walking out of the post office, he saw Ingrid was waiting for him outside. In an uncharacteristic display of passion, he put his arms around her and kissed her for a long time, in full view of Mrs Kelly. Now, that would give her something else to wag her tongue about.

  That evening
at dinner, Ingrid was chatting with Richard and James about the history of shipping off the West Cork coast. Richard was regaling her with tales of wrecks, sunk when they hit one of the many hidden rocks in the bay. The West Cork coast was notoriously treacherous if you didn’t know where you were going. Ingrid was explaining how all things nautical was a mystery to her. Solange watched her animated features as she held them enthralled. She really was a beautiful girl and so full of life and fun, and she did seem very fond of James. Solange felt guilty because although the girl had never given her a reason to dislike her, she just couldn’t warm to Ingrid. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she just knew there was something about the younger woman that made her uneasy. James was utterly besotted and even Richard seemed to have really taken to her. Mrs Canty just kept saying how much she missed Juliet as if Ingrid’s presence made her even more lonely for the girl.

  Juliet. Solange had cried so many tears for her; she raged at her in private yet defended her when Richard called her irresponsible, flighty, and downright stupid. He was heartbroken that she had joined up, but he expressed that sorrow and pain as anger. The letter had read so unlike Juliet’s normal communications – usually her sentences tumbled over each other, a stream of consciousness hopping from one subject to the next. This last letter had been well-constructed and written in measured tones, yet lacked any detailed information. Either Juliet was so anxious about telling them her news that she wrote and rewrote the letter before sending it, which was entirely plausible, or, she was lying. Something told Solange it was the latter.

  If Juliet had really done as she said she had and joined the Women’s Royal Air Force, then that was a frightening enough prospect. She would be living at a base, a base that Hitler would be targeting, and so she risked being blown to bits. Solange couldn’t picture her doing a clerical job. Juliet was disorganised at the best of times. Perhaps, she was being trained as a mechanic or something practical. That was easier to imagine. However, if as Solange suspected, Juliet was telling them a lie, then where on earth was she and what was she doing? And why hadn’t she at least told Solange in advance? No, there was something else going on, she just wished she knew what. She couldn’t confide her fears to Richard; he was worried enough without imagining all sorts of other intangible possibilities. Jeremy had always teased her about her active imagination so perhaps that’s all it was, but Solange feared for Juliet, and the feeling just wouldn’t leave her.

  Last night, with Mrs Canty gone to bed, she and James had been washing up after dinner. It had been nice to have him to herself, to speak in French.

  ‘T’as des nouvelles récentes de Juliet?’ she had asked.

  ‘Non, rien, et toi?’ he replied, turning to her with a smile. ‘T’inquiète pas, elle m’a indiqué dans sa dernière lettre qu’ça pourrait être difficile…’

  ‘Oui, oui, je sais bien, mais…’

  Richard had walked into the kitchen, putting a stop to any plans Solange had about cross-examining James to see what he knew. She would try again. The twins were completely loyal to each other, she knew that, but she was so worried she was determined to get it out of him if he knew anything. Juliet was impulsive enough to do anything. She was definitely gone from Belfast. Kitty had written to Richard saying how much she missed Juliet and that she was resigned now to go into an old people’s home. Richard had written back, inviting her once more to Dunderrig but had as yet received no reply. She was not convinced that old bat Mrs Kelly in the post office wasn’t delaying their post on purpose. Mrs Kelly had never liked anyone from the house since she and Mrs Canty fell out years ago, and Richard’s caustic remarks the other day would have done nothing to help their cause. She wondered if Juliet had avoided writing the truth to her father for fear it would be steamed open by the nosy postmistress. Yet could she not have written to Solange, in French?

  ‘Where is that book we had, Solange? You know, the one about the coast of West Cork? Ingrid wants to see it.’ Richard’s voice broke through her reverie.

  ‘Pardon? Oh, excuse me, I was thinking of something else. That book is in the hall – remember Corny Davis asked to see it while he was waiting to see you last week. He was saying to anyone who’d listen that all that unprotected coastline was only asking to have the Germans invade us.’

  Richard laughed. ‘You’re right. I knew I’d seen it somewhere odd recently. Poor Corny has been on about that for years. Sure he used to say back in the days of the troubles that we were completely exposed to a British invasion too, as if they would have any interest in invading us when they had their Tans and Auxies and G-men crawling all over the place. He’s half-cracked, always was. His latest thing is that the Germans are in cahoots with the IRA. According to Corny, the Germans are going to give the six counties back to the Republic if the IRA helps them to defeat the British. It’s bad enough having to deal with his imagined ailments without listening to that old guff every time, too. Best thing is just to agree with him, I’ve found.’

  James grinned at Ingrid, pouring her another glass of wine. ‘I’d like to see a German try to get past Mrs Kelly – he wouldn’t be here five minutes, and she’d know what he had for his breakfast! You should’ve seen the fuss she made over me posting something for Ingrid earlier, trying to let on that the Special Branch were around the village and asked her to keep an eye out.’

  Richard nodded. ‘Well, there have been a lot of guards and even plainclothes fellows down from Dublin around in past weeks right enough. I suppose they are just cautious, and I doubt very much if they’ve chosen Mrs Kelly as their source of reliable information. That one always has something to say. In fact, she’s been telling the parish how you two were making an exhibition of yourselves on the public street for all to see. She just happened to mention it to me when I was coming out of Molly Murphy’s – her poor old mother’s arthritis is bad at the moment. Mrs Kelly was watching out for me, I’m sure of it.’

  James grinned unabashedly. ‘See, what did I tell you? She’s below now writing up a secret report on public displays of affection. I’d say the guards will be very interested in that all right.’

  Ingrid didn’t react to his joke. She was lost in thought. ‘Hello…Ingrid,’ James waved his hand in front of her face, ‘you were miles away.’

  ‘Sorry,’ she replied recovering. ‘I was just thinking about something else, what did you say?’

  Chapter 30

  ‘On the count of three.’

  Juliet made eye contact with the young RAF flight sergeant who was shouting at her over the noise of the Lysander’s engines. This was her fifth and final practice drop, a night-time one. She felt like a trussed-up chicken in her flying suit with the heavy parachute on her back. The earlier drops had been by day, and she’d been terrified enough but to voluntarily drop out the hole in the plane into pitch darkness was a whole other level of dread. Her instructions were to land safely, gather her parachute, and make her way back to Dunham House where she was billeted.

  The move to Dunham had been the next stage in the training. None of her fellow students from Wanborough had come with her, but whether that was because they weren’t accepted for further training or had been sent somewhere else, she had no idea. She was simply told she had done satisfactorily after her time in Wanborough and to proceed to her next posting in Cheshire. Here she was to learn how to be dropped safely behind enemy lines.

  Though they tried to teach safe landing techniques at the large hangar at the RAF Ringway Airfield – converted for that purpose using ropes and swings and an old plane with a hole cut in the fuselage – nothing prepared her for the sheer terror of the real thing. Some of the others she met at Dunham said they quite liked the sensation once they got the first one over, but for Juliet it was always nothing short of petrifying. She was determined not to put a foot wrong with this part of the training though, so she never voiced her fears to anyone.

  Taking a deep breath, she jumped. Freefalling, within seconds she felt the f
amiliar tug of the chute opening and she relaxed slightly. Now, to remember to keep her feet together and to fall sideways to minimise injury. The area was open fields, but she had been warned there was a chance of thickets of trees. It wasn’t uncommon for a trainee parachutist to be found dangling, their chute caught in a tree. The instructors never saw the funny side of it, even though the sight of someone frantically kicking to release themselves several feet from the ground was often comical.

  She could just make out the shapes of the landscape as it seemed to rush towards her. Toggling left and right as she had been trained to do, she aimed to land in the middle of a large field. Within seconds, she hit the ground. The speed of her descent seemed much faster than earlier drops, and she landed on the hard ground awkwardly, her hip taking her weight. The parachute silk billowed around her, threatening to pull her along the ground if she didn’t get it gathered quickly. Ignoring the ache in her hip, she bundled the parachute into her backpack. Sitting in the dark field, she rooted in the side pocket for her torch, compass, and map. The torch wouldn’t work; the impact must have broken it. She only had a rough idea where she was. The pain in her hip was bad but not debilitating so she knew nothing was broken. Walking to the ditch, she decided to follow it until she came to a gate and hopefully, a road. All of the signposts had been removed in England to confuse the Germans should they invade, so navigation was tricky. Juliet thought as she limped along that if she’d known what she was letting herself in for, she would never have signed up, but it was too late now. Solange and Daddy wouldn’t believe their eyes if they could see her. She eventually found a gate and made her way over it, though her hip throbbed. She trudged in the darkness, navigating with her map and by the light of the moon down endless small country roads. Three hours later, soaking wet from the thunderstorm that had started an hour earlier and with every bone in her body aching, she turned up the avenue.