I had won three or four years of freedom before having to face up to the children and I had every intention of enjoying them. A change of name would make it seem so much more a complete break. Annie Donaldson would not have to be Susannah Parry. Perhaps I need never be Susannah Parry again.
The time passed quickly, we drank the wine and the wide ranging conversation flowed easily. It was one of the most interesting but enjoyable evenings I had ever spent.
Maureen spent most of the next morning on the phone. I heard snippets of the conversation; ‘Oh dear she will be disappointed.’ ‘What a good idea.’ Are you sure?’ ‘I’m sure she would find that very interesting. I’m sure she will.’ ‘I’ll talk to her and get her to call you back.’ ‘Leave it to me.’ I was obviously the subject of the conversation.
“Well well Annie.” She put the emphasis on my new name. “You made quite an impression yesterday.”
“What do you mean?”
“That was Joy on the phone.” I felt certain there had been other calls but if Maureen only wanted me to know about her call to Joy that was fine. I’m sure she had her reasons. “She hadn’t wanted to say anything last night, in fact I had wondered why she was quieter than normal, but she was very impressed with you.”
“I didn’t realise I was on trial.” It showed how much better I was now that I could make a joke of it.
“Not ‘on trial’ more ‘being interviewed’.”
“But I’m not looking for a job.”
“What Joy said on the phone was that you’ve left it a little late for your plan to start a university course this year.”
“Oh.” I couldn’t help showing my disappointment.
“We knew you would be frustrated but she was very helpful. She said she didn’t think there would be a problem for next year, in fact she practically said there would be no problem at all.”
“That’s nice of her.”
Maureen chose to misunderstand. “She wasn’t being nice, sweetie, she was simply saying what would be the case.”
“Max has given me the money and the car, but he’ll be expecting bills for fees, expecting me to be doing something positive. What can I tell him if I’m not doing anything for a year?”
“Don’t worry. Joy had a request.”
“A request?”
“She’s working on a project at the moment, she’s not sure whether it’s going to be a book or not but it’s something she’s been progressing when she’s had time from her teaching. She needs a researcher, someone to do the leg work for her. She can’t travel as much as she’d like to and so it would mean time away from home. Would you be interested?”
“What’s it about?”
“That’s where I thought you would be interested. In central Europe in the 1930s there were a lot of very wealthy people, not all Jews but many were. By 1945 much of their wealth had disappeared. Joy is studying where it went. There are apocryphal tales of much of it ending up in America. Apparently it was not only the Nazis who stole.”
“What does she mean by ‘wealth’?” I was beginning to understand what Maureen was getting at.
“Certainly not just money.”
“Paintings?”
“Certainly. A lot of very valuable and important art was lost.”
“Has this anything to do with David?”
She looked at me sharply and I wondered if I had gone too far. “I mean he knows a lot about art. He was telling me all about Max’s Schieles and stuff like that.” I finished weakly.
She relaxed and answered in her normal, gentle voice. “David knows a lot about a lot of things.”
“What would I have to do?”
“As I said. You must do whatever Joy asks you to do with common sense and intelligence. I’ve never thought they were the same thing.”
“Where would I live? Would I get paid?”
“So many questions! You need to speak with Joy, I said you’d call her back after I’d had a chance to talk to you, but you know you will always have your room here.”
I gave her a hug. “You know when I first met you I thought you were going to be like Kathleen but you’re nothing like her.”
“Should I take that as a compliment?” she seemed amused. “I always thought my sister was very clever and quite beautiful.”
It was the measure of how well we had got to know each other so quickly that I didn’t feel awkward about replying truthfully “I always thought my step-mother was a selfish, bossy, ungrateful, miserable cow.”
“Perhaps she was all those things at different times.”
“Perhaps you should have been my step-mother instead.”
“There’s one problem with that scenario.”
“What’s that?”
“I always disliked Arnold.”
Perhaps now was the time to clear the air in case there was any awkwardness between Maureen and myself. “It was a real shock for Mother when she found out you were Kathleen’s sister. You were her friend and you had never told her though you must have known your sister was her husband’s mistress all those years.”
“Kathleen and Arnold had been close for many years.”
“Before he married my mother?”
“Well before.”
“Why did he marry her then?”
Maureen thought for a few moments before answering “He needed a wife and Kathleen couldn’t be that.”
“Why not? They got married later, when he’d divorced my mother.”
“She would have been totally unsuitable as the political wife Arnold thought he would need. She was far too strong for him.”
“But they had Carl together. Dad arranged for her to marry someone else so his son wouldn’t be a bastard. He probably kept seeing her all the time. You must have known and you never told her.”
“Yes I knew. No I didn’t tell her. I knew if she learned I was Kathleen’s sister she would never want to see me again and then I couldn’t be any good for her could I? She needed a friend to help her through her loneliness and her illness. I had to be that person so I couldn’t tell her.”
I had to admit it made sense. “I’m learning more about her all the time.”
“And all the time you stay with me I’ll try to tell you more. You need to know your mother before you can understand yourself. You know you are very alike.”
I was beginning to realise that many people thought that.
“When did she find out?” Maureen asked almost tentatively.
“It was my fault. I was reading out the death notice from the paper. She had laughed saying she hadn’t realised how much older Kathleen was and then the notice mentioned ‘Maureen’. It could only have been you. She died a few hours later.”
We sat in silence for only a few moments before she spoke again, brightly, as if our conversation had not happened. “You’d better call Joy. What are you going to tell her?”
“Of course I’ll definitely say yes.”
Chapter Three
“David?”
He didn’t answer immediately. I waited for my grandfather to break the silence which, though not uncomfortable seemed to be too long for comfort. We were sitting together in Maureen’s garden taking advantage of the late summer sun, it would soon be September and I would be leaving for the unknowns of working for Joy in Brighton.
I did what I could to help Maureen and be a trouble-free houseguest but she had insisted that I spent my time preparing for the demands Joy would make of me in the coming year. ‘She will expect a great deal from you, you will not let her down.’ Maureen had said as I had read the long list of tasks Joy had set for my summer. I had seen David and Edith two or three times and I had enjoyed telling them how I was progressing and practising my German on David, who spoke the language quite fluently.
The month before Edith had appeared tired and she had lost a great deal of weight. Now I was spending the afternoon with David while Maureen took his wife to a hospital appointment in London. It was my job to take David’s mind off
what his wife might be going through.
“Yes my dear?” David finally answered me, still staring at his fingers which were intertwined on his lap.
“Tell me about your childhood.”
He looked up as if he had been a long way away.
“Ah Annie, it should be so easy.”
“What’s not easy?” I knew I should probably back away, go into the kitchen, leave an old man with his thoughts but I couldn’t. I thought at first he was going to say ‘everything’ or ‘nothing’ but his answer made me think that perhaps I had a lot to learn about what made and hurt people.
“Because in telling you about myself I won’t have anywhere to hide. You will know me. I don’t like people knowing me.”
“Even grandmother?”
“There are many, many things about me she does not know.”
“But you’ve been married for how long? 25 years?”
“Since March 1st 1948. It will be our Silver Wedding anniversary next year. I didn’t think we would have so long together.” Again he fell quiet, perhaps wondering whether Edith would still be with him in six months time.
“I’ll make sure we have a wonderful celebration.” I’m not sure it was the right thing to say but it seemed to help as when he began speaking his voice had its usual lilt.
“For many years we conducted what could be described as an affair of the heart. We met maybe twenty times in as many years before her husband died. Then we married. We have had many good years together but there are many things about my life she does not know. She has never asked me to tell her anything I didn’t volunteer. She loves me as she finds me.”
“I would want to know everything there was to know about any man I married.”
David raised his eyebrow. “I think you will find that you will know only what he wants you to know.”
“How depressing.”
“But human nature I think.”
“Well are you?” I didn’t want to think of marrying again, my first experience of marriage had not been a happy one but I did want to hear about my grandfather’s life. My interest in history was not only academic.
“Am I what?”
“Going to tell me about where you came from, your childhood, your work, how you met my grandmother, why you didn’t marry for so many years?”
“Are you really interested or do you just want me to think of other things?”
It seemed only fair to be honest. “Both.”
He made a show of thinking for a few moments, as if coming to a decision. “I will tell you about how I came to get my first job.”
I wondered later why, of all the things about his early life, he chose that.
He cleared his throat as if about to make a speech. “One Saturday evening I watched my mother, her name was Alice…”
“Alice? That’s very like…”
“Yes it is like the name Alicia. I like to think your grandmother had heard me mention my mother when she decided she wanted a secret name for our daughter.”
“It doesn’t seem like a coincidence.”
“As I was saying, I was sitting in our kitchen watching my mother drying the dishes and putting them away carefully on the rack above the sink, everything in its place…”
“Where did you live?”
“South London, Crystal Palace, in a house like many others, in a street like many others, though they had recently planted trees along the pavement outside our house and it almost seemed like we were in the country. You must stop interrupting me Annie or we’ll never get through even the beginning of the story.”
“I’ll try.” I meant it but I was worried that he would leave something out and I so much wanted to know everything.
“Alice was wondering why my father had had to go to work that particular Saturday. He normally worked on Saturdays but she had asked him to take a holiday on the 29th January, it was her 40th birthday and she wanted him to be at home.”
“What year was it?” I interrupted, biting my tongue as I did but needing to know the answer.
“Nineteen hundred and ten.”
“How old were you?”
“18. I was born on April 2nd 1891. The same day as Max Ernst.”
“Who’s Max Ernst?”
“Another artist you should have heard of. Now, Annie, no more questions.”
All the time he spoke he looked down at his hands, turning them over as if he had never seen them before, stretching his fingers out, turning his hands palm up and then curling his fingers over almost as if he was a nervous interviewee for a job he wasn’t qualified for. But throughout his voice was strong and clear.
Chapter Four
From Monday to Saturday every week Arthur Redhead left his house at precisely ten past nine in the morning to make the fifteen minute walk to the railway station. He always exchanged a few words with the newspaper seller where he bought his copy of the Daily Mail. During the journey into London Bridge Station he read the articles about the main stories of the day and then would turn to the Editor’s page to read what he should believe about the events he could not hope to fully understand. As he approached London Bridge he would carefully refold the paper and place it with the sandwiches that Alice had made that morning in the small attaché case that was part of the uniform for someone of his grade. All the other clerks in Arthur’s department carried identical brown cases which would also contain sandwiches their wives or mothers had made for them along with their copies of the Daily Mail.
Arthur had worked in the same office for fifteen years, since his son David had been a small boy. There were some days when he had found what he did interesting, but there hadn’t been many. He sat every day at his desk alongside four others, spending every working day writing words and numbers on pieces of paper in an identical script. They never knew the entirety of the documents, seeing only a page here and a page there of complex reports which must have meant something to someone. ‘Perhaps the editor of the Daily Mail understands’ Arthur had thought.
He talked about the generality of his work with his son, who, he hoped, would follow him into the service. There was talk, that armies of women would take over their jobs using machines called type writers, that they would lose their jobs to these ‘type writer girls’. It had taken years for Arthur and his colleagues to perfect the Vere Foster script that they, and all civil servants, had to use. Women would be able to copy the documents operating type writing machines just as easily as they could use a sewing machine. Arthur could not afford to lose his job, and he reassured himself that there would always be a need for the experience and skill of proper clerks to ensure the vast libraries of documents required by government were created correctly.
When the government changed in 1906 Arthur found his life transformed.
He still left at the same time in the morning, but it was often well past 7 o’clock in the evening before he left the building off Whitehall to walk over Westminster Bridge and under the dark network of arches and bridges to catch his train to the suburbs. For the first time in his working life he was finding the documents he was copying interesting. For fifteen years he had written many thousands of pages of dry words about taxation followed by more thousands of pages of numbers in neat columns. He had copied them all taking no notice of the content ‘from the eye to the hand without passing through the brain’ he had said. But in 1906 he had been moved to the new Foreign Office. No longer was he copying dry and meaningless figures, now there were memoranda about places and people he recognised from his reading of the Daily Mail. So interesting were they that, not only did Arthur extend his working days, he also began to spend his Saturday afternoons in the library pouring over an atlas of the world to see where these places were that he was writing about.
Arthur was never told why he had been chosen to move from the Finance Ministry to the Foreign Office, he had made no formal application and had not even known there were positions available but it was promotion and a timely one for him personally. David had left sc
hool and was working for his Civil Service exams so Arthur and Alice had not expected to have another child, but the unexpected baby Elizabeth had brought laughter to the household despite the increasing gloom of international events.
Everyone knew a war was coming. Whatever Kaiser Bill said about his friendship with England the Daily Mail knew that the German people would force a war.
It would be over quickly, Arthur told his son, there was so much preparation going on. Although bound to secrecy Arthur told David of the young men in the best public schools being trained to be officers, young and fit men being trained as a Special Reserve, the build up of arms of a quantity more than sufficient to overcome any foe and the lessons of recent wars all learned. “There won’t be a chance for you to cover yourself with glory,” Arthur had said, “Once it starts we’ll have sorted it all out in a few weeks.”
In common with many men of his class, Arthur would never discuss anything of world affairs with his wife. He would never have expected her to understand what he was talking about let alone have an opinion that might have value. The papers, and what they reported, were men’s business and Arthur felt it best not to worry his wife with such details. He did not for one instant think that his attitude was patronising and he was totally unaware that she read every page of the newspaper he gave her at the end of each day. He assumed that she put them to good use for wrapping up the waste or rolling into tight fire lighters, which of course she did for she was a thrifty housekeeper, but not before she had read every word. Frequently she bit her lip when he said she wouldn’t understand or shouldn’t be interested in what occurred in the widening world around them. She kept quiet with Arthur, but spent many happy hours discussing ‘events’ with David.
Arthur was older and more experienced than the other clerks in his department and perhaps that was why he was singled out to do special work. If a particularly sensitive or difficult document was to be copied it would be Arthur who was instructed but he had still been surprised when was called to the front of the room and asked to stay behind after the bell that marked the end of the working day sounded.
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