The Foreigner

by P. G. Glynn

  It is a sad fact that currently you live in London and I in Vienna, but our geographical locations make us no less married than if we lived together. One day that will be as apparent to you as it is to me. I’m confident that in time you will come to see that I am and have always been your destiny.

  Why don’t you accompany Hugo and his family when they come to see me? We could have a true reunion and all be happy together. Could there be a better opportunity to show solidarity? I am so looking forward to seeing Hugo, Helena and Suzy again and to meeting the twins. Come with them, do! I miss you.

  I remember all we once were and await the day when we resume our marital state.

  Ever your loving husband, Otto’

  Hardly had Marie digested the letter’s contents, standing there in the hall, before Nell rushed along the passageway saying: “I’m so glad you’re back! I had to call the doctor earlier. Charles has taken a turn for the worse.”

  Her anger with Otto evaporating, Marie ran to Charles. He was in his pyjamas, lying on their bed in the semi-darkness. She said: “I’m here, my darling!”

  His expression registered her presence as she went to him, taking one of his hands in both hers and stroking it. “Have you heard?” he asked.

  Thinking he was referring to the doctor’s visit, she answered: “Yes, Nell said that he’d been. I was in such a hurry to come to you, I didn’t ask her why he was needed.”

  Making an impatient gesture with his free hand, Charles said: “I meant … from Otto.”

  “Yes,” she told him.

  “And …?”

  Marie could see the effort it cost him to speak … could see how much he needed to hear the right words from her. It was also clear that his mind was lucid at the moment. So whatever she said now would reach the part of him needing to be reached.

  “He has agreed to divorce me. We can finally be married, my beloved.”

  The tension went from him tangibly. He gripped her hand and breathed: “At last, my Marie! At long last you are Mrs Brodie!”

  Those were Charles’s last words. Marie held him in her arms as he subsequently left to go where souls went. Remembering his utterance in her darkest hours, she was glad that she had enabled his passing to be content.

  +++++

  Coming to terms with his physical absence was hard. Marie had known that it would be, but was still unprepared for the degree of pain intrinsic in his departure. A kind of numbness preceded the tears that seemed for a time to stem from a bottomless well. How could she possibly exist without him? How could she go on, now that he had left her for some unspecified shore?

  She had no answers to these and other questions. She felt adrift in an alien world where nothing made sense. Everything seemed so hopeless …

  “It’s like losing Carla all over again,” she told Nell a week after the funeral. “I haven’t felt as bleak since back then. How is one supposed to cope with the sheer emptiness?”

  “I don’t know how,” said her friend, as they sat in the kitchen drinking tea. Marie kept being tempted toward something stronger but as yet had resisted hitting the bottle. “I only know that, just as you found with Carla and I did with Bill, time helps eventually. Where Charles is concerned, I’m also finding it helpful to think how much better he must feel for being rid of his tired old body and the muddle his mind was in. Just imagine the freedom of being shot of those restrictions!”

  “True enough,” Marie agreed, seeing Nell in a new light suddenly and realising too that she was far from alone in her grief. “He must be relieved. I’m sorry. I’m so engrossed with my own feelings that I’m not thinking of him – or indeed of you, who did so much for him, especially latterly. Could you ever have imagined, back in the old Tavistock days, that Charles would live here and become so dependent on you?”

  “Never!” Nell said. “And I’m thankful for that. I was once so in awe of him that the thought of having him under my roof would have been petrifying. Our perceptions of people are strange, aren’t they? He was soft as butter under that crusty exterior – which none of us would ever have discovered, but for you doing as you did in taking over from Dolly! I grew fond of him, once I got through to the buttery bit.”

  Marie smiled. “It showed. Guy told me just after the interment how grateful he is for the care you gave his father. I hope he told you, too?”

  “He did, bless him! Not that I need gratitude.” Nell reached impulsively across the table for Marie’s hand and squeezed it, asking: “Was that a letter from Suzy I saw on the doormat this morning?”

  “It was,” Marie answered with a sigh. “She wrote briefly saying how sad she was about Charles.”

  “That was a big sigh, darling.”

  “I know. Even allowing for her sadness, it still wasn’t the old Suzy writing. I wish I knew why she’s different.”

  “Best not to dwell on it. Everything will come right in the end. It always does, especially when love in such abundance is present. Focus on her being the Suzy we both remember and she will be again.”

  Marie smiled. “When and where did you acquire all your wisdom, Nell?”

  Smiling back, Nell said: “Through being your friend.”

  +++++

  There were the practicalities of death to be dealt with. Charles had left possessions, including the clothes he had worn and had no need of any more. It was sobering how when a person died their belongings remained behind. Everybody went as they arrived. There were no rich or poor in heaven, except in terms of soul-riches. People took with them what they were, not what they had possessed while on earth.

  Guy asked Marie: “Do you want to keep these?” He was indicating bundles of newspapers. Yellow with age, they dated back in some cases to last century. He had found them in a box on top of the big Edwardian wardrobe. “I’ll dispose of them if you don’t.”

  “Let me see.” Leafing through a paper dated 1895, when Charles would have been eleven, she found a heavily ringed item telling of Henry Irving’s elevation to Sir Henry and of this being the first theatrical knighthood ever awarded to an Englishman. A few pages on, also ringed, the paper reported: ‘We noticed young Charles Brodie in the cameo role of A Boy in MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING at the Lyceum. His was a presence that made itself felt. Only time will tell whether he has talent in the true sense.’ Marie smiled at Guy and commented: “Time did tell, didn’t it? Oh, here’s a strange thing!” She read aloud from a paper dated eleventh November 1897: “‘William Terris, leading actor at the Adelphi Theatre, was stabbed to death last night at the stage door after the performance. It was Mr Terris, some readers will remember, who a year ago arrived at the Lyceum wet through one night after rescuing a drowning girl from the Thames. The police have yet to establish whether there is any connection.’ Your father has scribbled in the margin ‘Reckon there is!’ I wonder what he knew that the newspaper didn’t. It’s odd, isn’t it, to think of him as a boy when we only knew him as a man?”

  “Yes, it is,” Guy agreed reflectively. “Though I suppose that throughout our lives we all cling to the child within.”

  “So you’re still the sad little boy who used to wait for me in the wings, while I … ”

  “Go on,” he prompted, sitting on his haunches beside a pile of Charles’s books as he looked at her. “While you are …?”

  “The precocious small girl reciting in Sunday School concerts and dreaming of the day when I could leave my village far behind me and make my name on the West End stage,” Marie smiled. “And now Suzy’s dreaming similarly. I hope that when her dream materialises she’ll hold on to it better than I did.”

  “Did I detect a note of regret?”

  “Suzy asked that question. I answered that I try not to have regrets. They’re futile, aren’t they? But I suppose I’ll always wonder how far I could have gone on the stage, had things been different. The reality of my existence was and is so much the opposite of the dream. Silly me!” She quickly went on: “Getting back to Suzy – were you impressed with her, on
the night of the party?”

  “Hugely! I’d have no hesitation in offering her a place at the Brodie School … though I suppose you’ll be thinking in terms of RADA?”

  “As Suzy’s grandmother, decisions on her future won’t be down to me – especially since I think I’ve upset Hugo somehow. He’s jealous of the bond between Suzy and me, you see.”

  Guy was all too familiar with jealousy. He said: “You arouse strong emotions in people and always did. Judith thinks … ” Marie’s smile encouraged him to continue: “She thinks I should have stayed a bachelor sooner than marry her while in love with someone else. I can now see her point, though my rashness in marrying her doesn’t in my view begin to excuse her behaviour back when you went to see her professionally – yes, she told me about that! As for her ongoing association with Dolly – words fail me. I find their friendship, or whatever it is, really odd.”

  “Odd in what way?”

  “I’d sooner not put it into words,” he said bleakly.

  Intrigued, Marie knew better than to press him. She asked: “By ‘someone else’, you meant … ?”

  “Yes – you,” he answered. “For me, young though I was in the beginning, it has always been you, Marie.”

  Touched to the quick she asked him: “My past actions haven’t blighted your life, have they, Guy?”

  Under her loving scrutiny he felt as young and inept as when he first fell in love at the tender age of ten. “Far from it,” he said. “I’ve been enriched by your very essence and have no regrets, except … ”

  “Say it,” she suggested gently. “Saying things often helps.”

  “I’ve always regretted that you loved Father best.”

  +++++

  Suzy was confused. Everything used to seem so simple and now it didn’t. She wasn’t sure of herself any more. She wasn’t even sure whether Daddy loved her. Ever since her return from London things had been different from how they were before – or maybe it was she who was different. Sometimes she almost envied the twins the simplicity of their existence. Life had not changed for them and they were content with living in Gilchrist.

  They weren’t affected, either, by the news of Charles’s death whereas Suzy would never forget opening Nama’s letter and reading that he had died. When she was with him in London he had been so alive. How could he be dead? How could she bear the thought of never seeing him again? Even worse was the thought of Nama without him. Yet when Suzy had expressed her feelings about him dying and about Nama being lonely now, Daddy was just cross and went on about Nandad’s loneliness over there in Vienna.

  Suzy didn’t understand Daddy and it was obvious that he didn’t understand her. Mummy said it was because he loved Suzy so much that he reacted as he did. Suzy was not at all convinced. She wished she could talk to Nama about it. She wished she could still talk about Nama without Daddy getting upset.

  Almost the only talk at home now was about the trip to Vienna, which was coming closer by the minute. Robert and Daniel were crossing days off on the calendar and longing to fly in an aeroplane. They were forever pretending to be flying … and Daddy had been teaching them all German words so that they could converse in Nandad’s language. Suzy couldn’t see the sense of it, since Nandad spoke English, and nor could she see the sense of going with them to Austria when she would so much sooner stay in London with Nama. But she dared not mention that again. Whether she wanted to or not, Daddy said she had to go to Vienna.…

  +++++

  En route for London Airport, where she would soon be seeing Hugo’s little family off, Marie’s attention was focused on Lenka. How could she warn Suzy about her great-aunt without alarming her? She must find out how. Whatever anyone said about the past bearing no relation to the present, Marie could never trust Lenka again. It troubled her that Hugo could not seem to see there was a potential problem. Had he forgotten the fear he felt when Lenka tried to strangle him? He could not have done. Therefore he was simply being perverse in telling her that his children were not at risk. It seemed to Marie that these days her son was perverse in most things.

  They had long since lost the tentative understanding they had reached soon after Suzy’s birth and she regretted that. However, there appeared to be no resurrecting it – or not at present. Hugo wanted his daughter all for himself and had yet to learn that one did not own one’s children. The lesson would not be easy for him but once learned would make him a bigger person. Marie smiled at her philosophising. Anyone would think that she had finally grasped the meaning of life!

  London Airport was bustling with activity but Marie spotted Suzy almost immediately. She was standing slightly apart from the rest of the family, looking in the opposite direction from them. While Hugo, Helena and the twins all had their gazes fixed on the big window beyond which planes could be seen arriving and departing, Suzy had her back to it and was scanning the faces of people entering the Departure Lounge. Suddenly seeing Marie, her face lit up and she rushed into her Nama’s arms.

  “Oh, my darling,” Marie breathed, hugging her and wanting never to let go, “it’s so good to hold you again! Have you been here long? I’d planned to arrive before you, but the traffic was so bad that short of my taxi lifting off and flying the cabbie couldn’t have transported me any faster.”

  “We’re going to fly,” said Daniel, sauntering over before spreading his arms like wings and racing round making whirring sounds, “but not in a taxi.”

  “No, in a proper plane,” said Robert, pointing to the scene beyond the window. “One of those.”

  “My!” Marie commented, looking very impressed. “You’re the luckiest boys I know. Which is your plane, I wonder?”

  Her question led to considerable conjecture between the twins, during which Marie kissed Hugo and Helena, asking them: “Are you all set for your adventure?”

  “Yes,” answered Helena. “That is, I think so. The thought of flying alarms me rather.”

  “There’s nothing to it,” Hugo told her, before asking his mother: “Do you have any message for Papa?”

  “None that comes to mind. Should I?”

  Hugo shrugged. “I just thought you might, since you’re seeing us off this end and he’s meeting us the other end.”

  “Do you expect to meet up with Tante Lenka while you’re in Vienna?”

  “Yes. Papa mentioned that she’s coming with him to greet us.”

  “Good grief!” Marie was shocked rigid. “Are she and your father such friends, then?”

  “In a sense. She sometimes gives him a meal when he would otherwise go hungry.”

  “I see.”

  “And you disapprove?”

  “It’s obvious from your expression that I’m not meant to. How come that everyone but me has such short memories? I’d turn her down flat if Lenka ever offered me a meal! I’d far sooner go hungry – or, heaven forbid, work for a living – than accept her charity. Doesn’t your Papa worry that she might poison him?”

  “Oh, Mama – that’s in the past, when Tante Lenka was sick! Her sickness is behind her and she’s been well for years now. So don’t go frightening my children.”

  Beside herself and beyond trying to work out how to warn Suzy without scaring her, Marie told him: “I’ll frighten them as much as I like if, in the frightening, I save their lives. Isn’t that what you’d do, Hugo, if it were your daughter she had murdered?”

  “Aunt Lenka’s never a murderer!” said Daniel, his eyes wide like saucers. “She isn’t … is she, Nama?”

  “She’s a murderess,” Marie said, looking at Suzy who was eying her apprehensively, “and while in Vienna, my precious, please don’t ever forget it.”

  58

  Lenka had insisted on accompanying him to the airport. He could have refused her, of course, but had he done so who would have paid for the taxi? Lenka had her uses and Otto was not averse to using her.

  He supposed that they used each other. She fed him periodically and he bedded her when there was mutual need. He never as
ked whether she also slept with Fritz Meyer, who now lodged at her fine apartment. In a sense it was appropriate for Fritz and Ludwig’s widow to live together. They could talk over old times to their heart’s content and laugh over their pretence that there were no Nazis left in existence. They were two of a kind, Fritz and Lenka, and were welcome to one another. Otto could view them dispassionately because he felt far removed from them. Lenka often said that he had ice where his heart should have been. She could not credit that his heart was still beating for Marie.

  And now he was waiting to greet Hugo and his family at the end of their journey, while Marie had undoubtedly waved them off at the start of it. How ironic! What he would give, to begin afresh! With Charles at last dispatched, Marie surely had need of a man – and who better than her husband? Otto was perhaps less attractive than he had been, both in terms of looks and financial means – but he could do something about his finances, at least. Why, with Marie as the prize, he might even consider changing the habits of a lifetime and decide to work for a living!

  There would be some sense in working, if he had her. And if she wouldn’t come to Vienna he was willing to live in London. On reflection he would be quite glad to get away from the rats. The drawback of a basement room was that rats seemed to see it as their rightful domain … and he was tired of sharing his space with them. Not that he was often home, except to sleep. Why would he be, with such a city on his doorstep? Otto took pleasure on every awakening in hearing Vienna prepare for the day ahead. He heard street-sweepers, rubbish-collectors, cheery (and not so cheery!) greetings and the patter of footsteps as well as the clanking of trams carrying workers to work. All those people out there working while he took his ease, feeling integral to the Viennese scene. He had never yet experienced boredom, for he saw each new morning as a gift with endless possibilities. He might receive a cheque from Hugo or from some other kind benefactor … he might meet a beautiful woman and wine and dine her at the Sacher. Why dine elsewhere when, with money in his pocket, he could afford to dine there? Time enough to think about not having money when he hadn’t got it. While he had, he felt like a rich man … lived like a rich man, because in his thinking he was rich. Why, he owned Vienna! He breathed her air, walked her glorious streets, sat in her coffee-houses for hours on end … made many friends. These were riches, so he was hugely privileged