by P. G. Glynn
“I popped in there … and then went off to Japan.”
“Where’s that?”
“In the Far East – much farther away than Bohemia.”
“Why did you go there?”
“Because I have a friend in London who has been telling me about his war-time experiences and these suddenly came into my head.”
“Will I see your friend, when I come to London?”
“I expect so.”
“What’s his name?”
“Guy Brodie. He has two sons a little older than you.”
“What are their names?”
“Edward and James.”
“Were they in Japan too?”
“No, they stayed in London with their mother, who runs a drama school.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a place where students learn how to act on the stage … or in films.”
“Can I go there?”
“That depends,” Marie told her.
“What does it depend on?”
“On lots of things,” Hugo butted in, looking forbiddingly at his mother, “besides which people need to be grown up before they can even think of attending.”
“Will I be grown up when I’m ten?”
“No, you won’t,” Lucy said, “but already, at seven, you’re good at recitation … so let’s hear one of your poems!”
Suzy needed no second invitation. She immediately left her seat at the long trestle table they’d borrowed for the occasion and struck a pose beneath the branches of the old cherry tree recently laden with blossom.
“‘Abou Ben Adhem,’” she lisped, “‘awoke one night from a deep dream of peace and saw within the moonlight of his room … ’”
Marie clutched hold of the table. She thought she was going to faint. Half-listening to Suzy’s delivery, she was whisked back in memory to another place. The last time she had heard Leigh Hunt’s memorable words was when she recited them to Carla, up in the castle loft after a bat startled them both. How on earth had Suzy learned them?
She closed her eyes, hearing Suzy and seeing the loft-space, smelling the odour from the bats and anticipating the moment when Onkel Emil would rise from a trunk shouting ‘Avast!’ She could feel the warmth of Carla in her arms, the child’s soft cheek against hers. She also felt tears welling in her eyes and threatening to spill over …
“‘ … and lo, Ben Adhem’s name led all the rest.’” The poem had ended. As appreciative clapping began, Suzy ran to Marie asking anxiously: “Nama, why are you crying? You’re supposed to be happy, not sad.”
“I am happy,” Marie said, pulling Suzy onto her knee and hugging her, “and you recited beautifully. That’s a poem I used to … ” she blew her nose, trying to compose herself “ … recite too, but not as well as you. Where did you find it?”
Before Suzy could answer, Lucy responded: “In an old book of Pa’s I gave her. We were looking through it together when Suzy pounced on that poem and learned it in a trice. I’ve never seen a poem learned so fast in all my life.”
Determined to get a word in, Suzy stated matter-of-factly: “That’s because I sort of knew it already. I just had to remind myself of some of it … ”
+++++
There was a curious kind of pleasure in dining with Lenka. For one thing she paid and for another they tended to play cat and mouse games. These amused him, besides which she was still beautiful and he still had an eye for beauty. As far as one could tell she was also sane. She might not be Marie but she was a link – however dubious - with the old days. He saw no reason to sacrifice a free meal for the sake of holding grievances.
Nobody looking at Lenka would guess that she had been married to a monster and spent years in asylums battling for her sanity. Her skin was youthful and as dusky brown as ever and she wore her hair shorter, framing her face. Even her eyes did not give her away. They held no trace that he could ascertain of former torment. Just as there were now no Nazis, so Lenka had skilfully hidden her past. He had met her again by chance, a year after his return to Vienna, as she emerged from her hairdresser’s on the Graben. He had been impressed by how svelte she was – how seemingly untouched by events – and he had seen the shock in her eyes at the sight of him and his comparative shabbiness. She had commented since that until he spoke she thought it was a tramp she was looking at.
They were now dining by candlelight in her favourite restaurant and she had urged him to dress appropriately. Well, at least he was clean and reasonably turned out. The dim lighting helped. It had probably gone undetected that rats had gnawed the backs of his shoes. One of the hazards of living in a basement room was that of an occasional rat creating havoc. Still, clothes were no barometer of a man. Otto was the same now on the inside as when he wore the finest items money could buy. It was just on the outside that he seemed slightly frayed – or maybe even beggarly! He grinned.
“What are you thinking?” she asked him, sipping her wine and eyeing him speculatively. “Or should I be asking who the woman is?”
“There’s no ‘should’ involved,” he responded. “Ask anything you want.”
“Is there a woman … other than the obvious?”
“I’m not sure I understand the question. How is ‘obvious’ meant, in that context?”
“You know very well, so don’t pretend. The thing I don’t understand is what the attraction ever was. As for what it is, with you over here and her over there – that’s beyond comprehension. Are you mad, still hankering after Marie when she clearly doesn’t give a fig about you?”
Otto responded, amused: “To the best of my knowledge I’ve given you no basis for such assumptions.”
“You’ve given me no basis, either, for concluding that you’re over her.”
“I had no idea that you were concerned one way or the other.”
“I’m not,” she said, tucking into her Schnitzel. “It’s curiosity rather than concern prompting my question, coupled with not wishing to compromise myself.”
“Really?” He was intrigued. “How are you at risk of doing that?”
Lenka was silent for a few moments. Then she said: “By making you an offer I might live to regret. Why I’d even think of making it is beyond me, but for some inexplicable reason I feel a degree of responsibility for the state you’re in. I ought to rejoice in it and see it as your comeuppance, but can’t seem to do that – except temporarily.”
“To which state are you referring?”
She looked at him as if at a dimwit. “That of a man who is all too obviously experiencing hardship. The oddest thing is that you don’t seem too bothered about the loss of Schloss Berger and all that went with it. Most men would be incandescent with rage as well as bristling with a sense of injustice. Ludwig … ”
When she stopped, Otto queried: “Yes? Do tell me how your dear husband would have dealt with the consequences of his actions. I’m sure I’ll find that fascinating.”
Lenka glared at him. “Anyone would think Ludwig was the sole perpetrator of what went on. But he wasn’t – and don’t forget that in a sense you drove him to doing as he did.”
“So I’m responsible for how he treated humanity – not to mention me and the family that had taken him in? That’s rich!”
“Are you never going to let me forget his origins?”
Thinking back with pleasure to Lenka’s initial disbelief and outrage when he acquainted her with her husband’s parentage, Otto grinned: “It wouldn’t be in my interests. Let’s face it, you’re at your best when stirred.”
“You bastard!”
“No, not I – the man you married. Ludwig had that distinction and I just wish I’d been the one to tell him who his mother was.”
“You’re making me wish I’d invited someone else to dinner.”
“Ah, yes,” he said, “I seem to remember that your invitation came with strings. You were on the brink of making me an offer ... ”
Glowering, she told him: “Instead of which I’ve a good mind
to leave immediately and let you settle the bill. You really are impossible.”
“So I’ve been told.” He drank heartily from his glass and the Herr Ober returned to pour more wine and bring a further supply. “It’s an art, I suppose. Settling the bill won’t be a problem – as long as you leave me the funds to settle it with!”
“And why would I do that?”
“Probably because it’s on your conscience that Ludwig, as a usurper, wasn’t – strictly speaking – entitled to the money that now keeps you in style. There’s also, perhaps, an element of guilt in the fact that true Bergers lost all they had, whereas … ”
“Stop that!” She looked stricken, managing simultaneously to look angry. “Oh, Otto – as ever, you bring out both the best and the worst in me! I never know where I am with you - which is why, tonight, I was trying for the umpteenth time to find out where you stand with Marie. Not that that much matters. You see, I feel we could work out a deal, you and I, whereby you have a better standard of living and I salve my conscience to a degree. Understand that I’m at a loss to fathom why I feel remotely guilty, since I’ve suffered more than most to bag such comforts as I have.”
“More than those gassed or otherwise dispatched by Hitler’s henchmen?” he enquired mildly.
“No, of course not! I meant … in other respects. Let me finish, Otto, or what I have to say will never be said. I’m offering you a bed in my apartment – somewhere you can sleep, or,” she moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue, “not sleep, as the case may be, in somewhat more comfort than your current surroundings. Certainly you wouldn’t be troubled with rats gnawing your shoes!”
“So you noticed?”
“I’m not blind, Otto.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but what you’re offering sounds a costly arrangement.”
“Costly for me. It won’t cost you a Schilling.”
“I wasn’t thinking in monetary terms.”
“Oh?”
“No – more in terms of whether or not comfortable Nazi-funded digs, coupled perhaps with sex on tap, could ever justify selling my soul. And the answer to that, dear Lenka, is … thanks for your offer but, gosh, I’m fonder of rats than I realised!”
56
Suzy felt as if she would burst with excitement. Today was the day – the one when she was finally off to stay with Nama in London! She seemed to have been waiting forever to reach the age of ten … and then had had still more waiting till the summer term ended. But now it was all actually about to happen and Daddy would soon be taking her to her train.
She would be travelling to the big city where the little princes had been murdered in the Tower and where, only last month, Princess Elizabeth had been crowned Queen in Westminster Abbey. There had been great celebrations for her Coronation, with schools closed for the day so that children could have a holiday. Nama had written saying that London had been filled with people waving flags as the glass coach went by and that the sunshine had added to all the happiness. She said the weather was appropriate, just as it was on the damp and dismal day last year when King George’s funeral procession wound its silent way through those same streets. When Suzy read Nama’s letters she felt as if she were there, watching events herself. She could hardly believe that she soon would be there, seeing Buckingham Palace and going to Primrose Hill.
This sounded such a pretty hill, but back in the sixteenth century Mother Shipton had prophesied that once London surrounded it the streets of the metropolis would run with blood. Nama told the most amazing stories about places and people and she made history come alive. And Mother Shipton was right: first the magistrate who heard Titus Oates’s evidence on the Popish Plot was found face-down in a ditch, killed with his own sword, and then three more men were convicted and hanged. Later on much more blood was shed when men killed each other in duels and when wars darkened the skies above London. Suzy could listen to Nama’s stories forever.
It was odd, but the twins weren’t bothered about them. They preferred playing with their tin soldiers or toy trains to listening to Nama. They thought Suzy was lucky to be travelling on a real train but didn’t envy her her destination. Robert and Daniel weren’t interested in going to London and didn’t love Nama as Suzy loved her. They didn’t even seem to see the same person Suzy saw. Nor did Daddy. Suzy sometimes thought that Daddy didn’t love Nama at all. But then she remembered that he must love her, because everyone loved their mother. They did, didn’t they?
She had begun to wonder whether they did. She also wondered whether everybody saw something different when they looked at a person. When Hetty, her best friend, looked at Miss John she saw a horrid old stick who kept picking on her whereas Suzy saw someone who turned English lessons into discoveries. How she loved learning new words and poems and exploring her mind to write stories! Miss John said she showed promise as a story-teller because her imagination was fertile. Suzy had looked up ‘fertile’ in her dictionary and it meant …
“Unless you finish your breakfast,” Hugo said, “you’ll miss your train.”
Shocked from her reverie, Suzy pushed her plate away and jumped down from the table saying: “I’m too excited to eat. Can we leave straightaway? I’d die if I missed my train to London!”
“No, you wouldn’t,” said Daniel. “You’d just stay here with us.”
“I don’t want you to go,” said Robert, dipping a ‘soldier’ into his boiled egg and helping himself to his sister’s unwanted toast. “When are you coming back home?”
“Not for a whole week,” Suzy told him, closing her eyes blissfully, “and Nama says we can stretch that out if we make the most of every minute – which we will. I hope my time with her will never be over!”
Hugo, vexed at endlessly hearing about this visit and picturing his beloved daughter preferring being with Mama to being with him, could not stop himself asking: “Aren’t you going to be even a little bit homesick?”
Suzy looked incredulous that he could ask such a question. “No,” she said, “of course I won’t! I’ll be with Nama, which will be better than being at home.”
Her words stung him so acutely that he struggled with his conflicting emotions. Helena, seeing his expression, quickly said: “Suzy didn’t mean that to be taken literally. You didn’t, did you, Suzy? I expect you just meant that for the coming week it will be better.”
“I meant … ” Suzy began, before sensing a change in the atmosphere, when she altered course slightly, “ … that … I think being here is probably best … but then I haven’t seen London yet.”
+++++
Marie had reached Paddington a full hour before Suzy’s train was due. She had allowed for mishaps and for the train being early. Not that trains ever were, especially since the nationalisation of the Great Western Railway. But one never knew … and not for the world would she be late for Suzy.
They had both waited so long for their week together that it must be nothing less than perfect from beginning to end. Her heart sang at the prospect of having Suzy all to herself. It would be sheer bliss to have her here, far from Gilchrist and from Hugo’s reproachful presence. The wonder was that he had actually agreed for Suzy to travel to London without him. He was so over-protective that, but for Suzy’s insistence, he would never have permitted her to make the journey all on her own. His daughter, though, was a force to reckon with! When Suzy made her mind up to do something there was simply no deterring her. Marie could see herself in her granddaughter. They were kindred spirits, she and Suzy, both headstrong and born with a sense of having a destiny to fulfil. Suzy’s destiny was known only to God at the moment. Marie had strong suspicions, though …
The disembodied British Rail voice announced over the loudspeakers that the next train to arrive at platform three would be the eight-fifteen from Swansea. Marie’s heart missed a beat. Suzy would be on board, wouldn’t she?
Through the clouds of steam she found the guard’s van and climbed the steps to where her precious girl was standing, weari
ng a smile as wide as Paddington. She also wore a blue dress with a white cardigan and asked in awe: “Am I really here, Nama?”
Scooping Suzy up in her arms, Marie answered: “Yes, my darling, here you really, truly are – at last!”
Then it was just a matter of giving a generous tip to the elderly guard as a ‘thank you’ for watching over Suzy on the long journey and setting off with her small suitcase to start their great adventure. Her hand securely in Nama’s, Suzy skipped through the crowds milling about and found it little short of miraculous that she had stepped on to a train in Wales and off it in London. Why didn’t everybody do the same? Why would anybody stay in Newport when all this was just a train-ride away?
From their black taxi-cab Suzy saw that Paddington was only the beginning. Nama’s city stretched endlessly and they hadn’t seen anything yet. The streets went on and on and there were gaps between buildings where once bombs had been dropped. She was glad that there was no danger now of bombs. “Is Buckingham Palace near here?” she asked.
“Not on your nelly!” responded the cabbie, whom Marie had instructed to tour before taking them to Dalmeny Avenue. “You wouldn’t catch our new Queen and her kind in this neck of the woods. They’re up West, where we’ll be soon.”
Her nose glued to the window, which kept misting up and needing a wipe with her hankie, Suzy said: “I can’t see any woods.”
“That was just a figure of speech,” Marie told her, seeing the sights through Suzy’s eyes and smiling.
“Gorblimey!” said their driver. “You won’t find no actual woods in these ’ere parts, though we’ve a fair few trees in our parks and at Kew Gardens.”
“We certainly have,” agreed Marie. “Have I told you, darling, that Kew was the first place I went to with your grandfather?”
“No,” Suzy answered pensively before asking: “Do you mean Grandpa Gwyn or Nandad?”
“Nandad. I met him on a boat on the Thames while out for a picnic with my friend Nell, whom you’re about to meet. Soon after we left Westminster he rescued me from a troublesome bee and then invited himself to lunch with us.”
