Somewhere Over England

by Margaret Graham

  Her mother held Christoph’s hand as Helen lifted him high on to her shoulders.

  ‘That’s right, then he can see and tell his own children, poor little mite,’ her mother said, glaring at the man behind who clicked his teeth and moved so that he could also see.

  ‘But he won’t remember surely? He’s only three,’ Helen commented.

  ‘You always said you remembered your father taking you to the stream at that age. He was on leave,’ her mother said with an edge to her voice, a voice which had been more mellow since Helen had begun to take Christoph to see her every two months. Alone of course. Her mother was looking back at the procession now; it was almost past.

  Helen looked up at the grey sky. She must go to the stream and take Christoph. She touched his knee briefly with her ungloved hand. The wind was sharp now and her fingers were becoming numb. She lifted her camera to her eye again and took more photographs because she did not want to think about why she had not thought of going to the stream with Heine.

  ‘You’ll get the backs of all these people,’ her mother protested.

  Helen smiled. ‘I know, Mother,’ she said as she took more and more, glad of her interruption. ‘That’s what I wanted to do, to somehow catch the bowed shoulders of the people, the hats being removed, the sadness against the pomp.’

  ‘Oh really, Helen, you don’t sound like a mother at all. What is this poor boy growing up into. All he’ll know about is camera angles, public meetings, distant views. It’s not right. And all those men cluttering up the house. It’s just not decent, you know. I can’t imagine what your neighbours think.’

  Helen didn’t know either because she did not ask them. She covered the lens with the cap and shrugged, lifting Christoph down, holding him close.

  ‘We do all right, don’t we, my darling? You have lots of uncles and I take you to the swings. And he has his books and toys and his own room when they smoke too much.’ She did not add that these days she too stayed in her own room when the processing was finished for there seemed no place for her. But her work was becoming more popular and it enabled them to help more of those persecuted by that mad Austrian.

  She lifted him into his pushchair, brushing the hair out of her eyes. ‘Anyway, tonight there is no one there, not even Heine. He’s taken three of them to Liverpool to board a ship.’ Helen pushed a way through the crowd for them both and did not see the smile on her mother’s face. The pushchair caught on a lamppost and she heaved at it, pulling it clear.

  That night they sat in front of the fire and Helen enjoyed the clean air, the sound of the gas spluttering and hissing, the click of her mother’s knitting, and for the first time since last winter she too picked up wool and needles and began a jacket for Christoph. They did not talk but listened to the wireless and then they drank cocoa and said goodnight. Helen was glad that she had replaced the hair brushes, stacked away the camp beds and made the spare room her mother’s, just for tonight. As she watched her close the door she realised that this evening she had not been lonely.

  As she lay in bed she felt her limbs relax and grow heavy and again she wondered why she had not thought of taking Heine to Hemsham, to the stream. She watched the clouds gust between the moon and earth, blocking the light and releasing it, and faced now the separateness of their lives. She did not ask for Heine’s company these days because, with a blown kiss, he would refuse. Too much to do. Too many important things to do, he would say. Some other time when it is over. But when would that ever be, Helen wondered, turning over and holding his pillow to her, pushing back despair, breathing in his scent.

  A New York magazine bought Helen’s pictures but addressed the letter to H. Weber, Esquire. Heine was pleased at the news and said the cheque would pay the telephone final demand and the extra food bill which was larger still this time.

  By August 1936 unemployment was falling in Britain but Hitler’s troops had entered the Rhineland and Mosley’s Fascists were pinning up anti-Semitic posters in the East End. Helen left Christoph with Marian and went to photograph these and was hit across the face by one of the blackshirts and called a Jewish bitch. She told Heine as the pain throbbed through her face and he said that now she knew how his friends felt, but that their treatment was much worse, and he did not turn from the letter he was writing.

  She looked at the back of his head and wanted to scream that she already knew how his friends felt, hadn’t she listened to them and cried with them, cooked and washed for them, soothed their nightmares and not resented one moment? No, it was not that she resented but she said nothing, just turned from him and bathed her face in cold water and then slept that night with her back turned to his still body.

  The next day she took Marian and her daughter Emily and Christoph on the train to Eastbourne for Bank Holiday Monday. The sun was hot and soaked deep into her skin, reddening her arms and her legs where she had pulled up her skirts. The deckchair dug into the backs of her thighs but she watched Christoph hold his face to the sun and forgot the ache in her cheek. But the sun could not warm the coldness she felt deep inside.

  They ate sandwiches curled at the edges and ice-creams which a man in a red and white-striped apron and cardboard top hat dug out of a round tin container with a scoop which he dipped into a jug of water first. Christoph smeared his across his face and up into his hair as well as his mouth but Emily licked hers carefully and her dress was not marked either. Helen took photographs of them both and of Marian and Marian took one of Christoph and Helen together and as the sun at last lost its heat they straggled back to the station.

  They took an Underground train from the station and Helen waved goodbye to Marian before climbing the stairs to the flat. No one was there and in Christoph’s room his small bed had gone and there were two camp beds. For a moment she felt as though the air had gushed from her body but then something deeper than rage gripped her, mobilised her.

  She turned and walked through to her own bedroom and there was the small bed jammed tight next to theirs with his toys on top. She laid her child on their double bed and washed his face and hands, gently soaking his hair while he was asleep. She eased his loose limbs into his pyjamas, then draped the sheets and the two blankets around him, kissing him, smelling the sun still on his skin. And then she left the room.

  She walked to the small bedroom and picked up the camp beds, the blankets folded on top, and threw them across the sitting-room, not looking where they fell, not hearing the crash of the vase they hit. She moved then to the darkroom, not able to spare the time to shout the anger that she felt, the outrage, the hurt.

  She heaved at the hinged board which Heine had left on one end beneath the sealed window, saying that they had no need of it. But oh God, they had need of it now. Yes, they damn well had need of it now. She dragged it into the bathroom, sweeping Christoph’s rubber duck on to the floor, wedging the board on top of the bath. She moved the developer into the bathroom, came back for the enlarger, the chemicals, everything she needed. Finally she dragged the cabinet across the frayed carpet, across the cracked lino in the passage-way into the bathroom too.

  She took the chisel, hammer and nails from the cupboard under the sink and wrenched the hardboard from the darkroom windows, going back for the saw when she saw that it was too big for those in the bathroom. Leaning on the hinged top, she sawed the boards to the correct size, then, holding the nails in her mouth, she stood on the edge of the bath and hammered them in. Heine came in then. He stood in the doorway and said, ‘What in God’s name are you doing, Helen?’

  She did not turn but said, ‘Get out. Get out before I kill you.’ She leaned her head on the wall. It was cold. ‘Get out and only come back when I have finished.’ There were others there. She could hear them and so he left because she knew he would not care to be embarrassed.

  She had to keep the electrical equipment away from the water so she used an extension lead which could be plugged into the hall socket when power was needed. She hung a heavy opaque curtain from a
rail above the doorframe. There was already a louvred vent above the door. She turned out the light to check that it was lightproof and it was.

  She turned on the light again and ran her hands down her dress. She had not put on an apron and she was dirty but it did not matter. Sweat was running down her back but that did not matter either. She carried in the stool so that she could work at the hinged board comfortably. She lifted the board easily, peering into the bath, knowing that it would be adequate for the wet work, for the cascade system which she had made for herself. She set up the trays one above the other beneath the taps, then watched the water fall from one level to the next and realised that she was crying.

  She put the board back and set up the portable red light then went to collect her camera. Using the changing bag, she loaded the film on to the tank reel inside the bag, then put the reel in the tank. Later, much later, she had developed, printed and enlarged the photograph that Marian had taken of her and Christoph. It was lopsided but they were both smiling, holding hands, and it was full of love. She carried it to the bedroom and took from its frame her wedding photograph, throwing it on the bed. She then inserted the one of herself and her son and placed it on her bedside table. Then she took Christoph’s mattress through to his old room, and dragged his bed after her. It caught on the door but she unscrewed the feet and there was room. She took the toys, the books and finally her son, carrying him close to her, whispering into his hair before placing him in his own bed, in his own room. She then sat in the sitting-room, which was also their dining-room, and waited.

  Heine came in alone at two in the morning, his face white, his lips tight. His grey jacket was unbuttoned and he smelt of cigarette smoke and beer. He threw his hat on to the square table.

  ‘How dare you?’ he said. ‘How dare you shame me before my friends? Are you a child that you behave like this?’

  He stood before her, looming large, but she was not intimidated. The smell of beer was stronger now and she could hear his breathing, heavy but fast. His keys bulged in his trouser pocket.

  ‘Sit down, Heine,’ she said. Her voice was not hard or cold. It held nothing. ‘Sit down.’

  But he did not and so she stood, pushing herself up from the chair, feeling its wooden arm beneath her hand as she did so. ‘I am not a child. Your child is in that room, in his bedroom where he will remain. Is that quite clear?’

  Heine shook his head, shrugging his shoulders. ‘What a fuss about nothing. Does it matter where a child sleeps?’ He pointed to Christoph’s room. ‘In there, or in our room. What does it matter?’

  ‘It matters to me. I am his mother, he is my responsibility.’

  ‘I am his father, he is mine too. I love him.’ Heine’s voice was rising, his hand gripped her arm.

  ‘Do you, do you really?’ Helen was shouting now. ‘So where were you today? Where have you been for the four years of his life? We love you but we don’t know you any more.’ She pulled from his grasp. ‘We were going to fight the battles together.’

  He grabbed at her, spun her round. ‘You are a child, you see? It is only yourself you care about. Only yourself. Can’t you see that we are just fragments in comparison to this great tragedy? Just fragments.’ His face was close to hers now and she could smell the cigarette smoke on his breath and the beer, stronger still.

  She reached up and gripped his lapels, shaking him backwards and forwards. ‘How dare you call my son a fragment? Or me. We are not fragments, we are people. We are your family. You will not ignore us, you will not watch me cooking for your friends, working for money to feed them and then call us fragments.’ Her knuckles were white, her voice high, loud, insane. What was she saying, for God’s sake? Whose mad voice was this coming from her mouth, shaking the man she loved? What had happened to them?

  He slapped her then, breaking her hold on his jacket and she fell across the chair, and for a moment there was silence until Helen turned awkwardly, pushing herself up, aware that the grunting noises she heard came from her. That she was crying like an animal, that her mouth was open and mucus from her nose and eyes were running into it and past it. That she tasted blood in her mouth. She pushed him from her as he came to her, his face shocked.

  ‘I love you, Heine.’ Her voice was strange, she could not find the breath to end her words. ‘I love you but I wonder whether you love me.’

  Heine came towards her again, his arms outstretched, his own eyes full. ‘I do love you. I love our son. I’m sorry, so sorry.’

  ‘Don’t touch me,’ Helen said and backed towards the hall. He mustn’t touch her until she had finished. She did not want hands on her, pushing her into cupboards, gripping her in anger. She was tired of it. No, she was not a child or a fragment but a person.

  ‘I insist on becoming a partner. I produce more work than you. I earn more than you. I want it to be offered under my own name.’ It was important to her now that she had something of her own, something that would keep her son safe for she could not trust her husband to do so. Somehow she feared that she could not trust him at all any more and it broke her heart because of the loneliness that the thought brought.

  He came to her then, holding her, soothing her, stroking her hair which was damp with sweat. ‘My love, my love. Forgive me. I love you, love you. Believe me, I love you.’

  Helen nodded in his arms, wanting to be soothed, wanting their lives to go back to the sun-filled days when it was simple. But those times had gone, for now at least, and so she said again, ‘I must be a partner. I can only rely on myself.’

  CHAPTER 4

  Helen watched Heine as he turned over the second page of his father’s letter. It was a colourless November day in 1938 and her husband looked older, and very tired, but then they both did. His eyes met hers and he reached across for her hand which was already stretching to meet his. The new flat was smaller, the kitchen had damp walls but it had not known their bad years, the pain of a life too full for them to reach out and touch one another as they did so frequently now. It had not heard the blows of that night, the grunting despair of a woman she could not recognise as herself. It had only known Heine as a man who loved his wife and child, who held them as though they must never leave him. A man who had said as he had looked at his wife, sweating, bleeding on that dark night, that life was too short to wait for a time for themselves, that time must be carved out, no matter what else needed doing. That he had been a fool. That he would prove to her that she could trust him.

  That night when her lip had split and blood had flowed on to the carpet he had held her, but she had fought. He had soothed her but she had shouted. He had promised her that it was over, that he would make room for her, for his son. That they would be loved as they should be loved but she had not believed him, seeing only the loneliness of the life she had led with her mother and then again with him. Each day, after that night, she had watched and listened as he spoke to her and Christoph. Each day she held herself upright, and had merely nodded when he brought the partnership papers to be signed. Each day throughout 1937 and into 1938 she had watched and waited until, with the coming of spring she had allowed herself to love again and be loved. To trust in this man.

  Helen watched now as Heine put the letter on to the small pine table they had brought from the other flat. They had moved from Alton Mews after Chamberlain landed at Heston Airport in September, two months before, waving his piece of paper, calling to the waiting press and photographers, ‘Peace for our time’. Heine had taken no photographs but had driven without stopping, back to London.

  He had rushed up the stairs, into the sitting-room, wrenching his coat off, calling out to her that they must now sell the flat as they had talked of doing. It was time to buy the cheaper flat near Stepney and send the balance of their capital to America with Claus, the refugee they were sheltering. He had held her as though he needed support, his hands cold, his face pinched. Chamberlain has not opposed Hitler, he had groaned into her neck before moving past her to the desk, picking Christoph u
p from the floor, holding him on his knee as he searched for the sale agreement in the large compartment. He had scattered papers on the floor as Helen watched.

  We must do as we agreed, he had said, his hands shaking. Hitler will never believe that anyone will stop him. There will be war, but when?

  Helen remembered nodding, feeling the chipped gloss paint of the door frame, watching, wondering how much longer peace would remain. Wondering whether England would allow the Weber family to remain in its midst once war was declared or would its people be like some of the neighbours they had danced with at the Jubilee – those who had no longer stopped to talk as the Munich crisis had deepened?

  She had watched her husband as he scanned the papers he had prepared for partnership with Claus. There might not be war, she remembered saying. Russia has sided with no one yet, but Heine had not heard. She had run her hand up and down the paintwork again. She would sandpaper and paint and the smell would take thoughts of war away, for a moment at least.

  Claus will take our money to America when he goes in April, Heine had said, turning his head, talking to her over his shoulder. He will establish the studio that will support us too. We will go to America if we have to; if war comes and Germans are really not welcome here. But only if you can bear to leave, my darling.

  She watched now in her smaller kitchen as Heine put the letter from his father back into the envelope, his face set.

  ‘Is it bad news?’ she asked, coming to him, holding him against her, wondering when Claus would be back from the ticket office, when Joseph would wake. He had arrived from Germany only last night, carrying just the ten marks refugees were allowed to take but a firm in the city had been persuaded to sponsor him and so he had been allowed entry. He had cried for his Jewish parents who would not leave their house because it would be confiscated and they would be aliens with no pride, with nothing. He cried for his parents who thought the whirlwind would pass. Would it pass, she wondered. What would Russia do?