Somewhere Over England

by Margaret Graham

  Chris came out of his bedroom looking at his father as he drew coloured circles on the paper hats and then he walked over and leaned against his leg, taking up a pencil, colouring in the circles, and Helen turned away because she did not want him to see the tears which would not stop running down her face and into her mouth. It was the first time he had touched his father for weeks.

  All that week she came home from work into a house full of secrets and excitement and voices which stopped when she entered the room. The first of December was a Friday and so the party was planned for Saturday.

  In bed on the night when their son was seven, in a room guarded from the moonlight by the blackout, Heine held her, telling her that he wanted to give her something to show how much he loved her, how he would never, ever stop loving her. That tomorrow he would be away for the morning but would be back in time for the party and Helen said he must because it would be the first one he had attended and they loved him so much. She stroked his smooth skin. His warmth and his lips were on her body and as the night wore on they loved one another as though there was no tomorrow.

  Helen baked on the morning of the party, while her mother talked and her son played in the cowboy outfit Helen had sewn during the evenings while her eyes ached with the strain of wartime Britain. He drew his cap gun in and out of his holster, firing at Mrs Simkins in her garden and then at his grandmother. She would not play dead but Helen did, gurgling and groaning until he shrieked with laughter.

  Before lunch her mother put on her coat and hat and said that she would walk for a while in the fresh air to build herself up for the next few hours. She had a slight headache. Helen laughed and watched her mother walk down the street, her gas mask in a tin box hanging from her arm. The war had pulled them together, she thought, watching through the windows which were criss-crossed with strips of sticky paper to protect against stones as well as bombs.

  The children arrived at three o’clock and her mother’s head had cleared. She was laughing and joking in a way which Helen had never known. There was a happiness in the older woman which warmed the daughter. Some of the children who came were English, but some were the children of refugees and it was good to hear laughter from other children, not hissed profanities. It was good to see Christoph’s face loosen and hear his laugh too.

  At four o’clock Heine had still not returned and Helen could not watch the children for more than a few minutes before going to the window and looking down the street. Dusk was falling, a chill mist was settling and soon the parents called to take their children home before dark. They were friendly and kind before they left and Helen wished that Heine could have been there to feel the warmth of friendship. She must talk to him, they must meet these people again, but where was he?

  She walked again to the window, wiping her breath from it with her hand. Beads of moisture remained. Worry tore at her. She looked towards the High Street and then towards the Church but no one stirred. Chris stood by the window now, watching, crying, and her mother said, ‘He’ll be fine. He’s just been held up I expect.’

  ‘But where has he gone? Where would he have gone?’

  Then Chris turned. ‘Grandma knows. I heard her tell Daddy what you would like more than anything.’

  Helen turned to him. He was rubbing the window where his breath too had condensed. She held his hand still and turned.

  ‘Nonsense, Chris.’ Her mother’s voice was sharp as she carried plates from the table to the kitchen. ‘Come now and help me carry these things.’ Helen watched as she pointed to the hats which the children had discarded by their plates.

  Chris walked across and picked them up, then looked at his mother.

  ‘Daddy made nice hats,’ he said. ‘I wish he had been here.’ It was dark in the room now. Helen pulled down the blackout blind, and then the curtains before putting on the light. She walked to the kitchen.

  ‘Where has he gone, Mother?’ she asked because fear made her cold.

  ‘I don’t want to spoil his surprise,’ her mother said without turning.

  ‘He said he would be back. He promised. It was important to him.’ Helen knew she was shouting. She could tell from the look on Christoph’s face. ‘I’m sorry, my darling. I just want to know where Daddy is.’

  ‘But Grandma knows,’ Chris said, standing by the sink as his grandmother ran the tap, her flowered overall pulled tight across her breasts.

  Helen turned again to her mother but then the knocking started on the door, started and did not stop, and Helen ran to it, seeing Chris behind her, seeing her mother turn.

  It was the police. They had come to tell her that Heine had been arrested in possession of a camera in Hemsham. He would not be returning. He was in custody and would be interned, probably on the Isle of Man. He was considered Category A now, a danger to the country.

  ‘The police had acted on information received,’ one of the policemen told her because he was a friend of theirs and had drunk wine with them last month.

  ‘But you can’t just take him,’ Helen said, holding Chris in front of her, keeping her voice calm. She must stay calm or she would not get Heine back and she could not go on without him.

  ‘But you can’t just take him. He’s not dangerous. Bill, you know he’s not.’ She wanted to reach out and touch Bill Rowbottom’s arm but he looked different in a uniform.

  ‘We can, I’m afraid, Mrs Weber. We don’t need a judicial warrant for his arrest. We act under the Royal Prerogative. There is no charge necessary to imprison enemy aliens.’ He paused. ‘But, Helen, what was he doing outside the five-mile limit? And with a camera? He’ll be interrogated. This is very serious.’

  Helen just looked at him, at his eyes which were not unkind, at the badge on his collar, the helmet which he had not removed.

  She gripped Chris tightly. An enemy alien. How could Heine be an enemy alien? And she wanted to shake this solid, kindly man but instead said, ‘When will he be back?’

  ‘I don’t think he will be, my dear. Not until all this is over. Not until the bloody war is over.’ He nodded at the other uniformed man who left to wait downstairs. Helen knew he was there because she had not heard the front door open.

  ‘Now I need his passport and some clothes.’

  His passport was in the top right-hand drawer, beneath the letters from his father. She packed pants, shirts, trousers, pyjamas, toothbrush, shaving kit, mirror, hairbrush, saying the words aloud. She carried the case back to Bill. It wasn’t heavy, she told him. ‘It really isn’t heavy,’ she said again and again, until he prised the case from her and left.

  But she didn’t see him go. All she could see was Heine’s face, tired and drawn and full of love, all she could feel were his lips on her body and now they had taken him.

  She stared ahead at the door and saw that it was dirty. There was jelly on it. There was red and green jelly on it, bloody jelly.

  Her mother was there behind her, holding her arm, shaking her.

  ‘It will be all right now, Helen. I am here. I can look after you. It will be all right. It will be just the three of us now.’

  ‘There’s jelly on the door, Mother,’ Helen said, pulling herself free, sitting Chris in the chair, reaching for a cloth from the table, rubbing at the marks. How dare they take him? How dare they take Heine? He was good and kind. How could she cope without him? How could she face the stones, the hate? Oh my God. But what was he doing there and with a camera? How could he do it? He should have been at the party.

  ‘What was he doing there?’ she said, leaning her head on the door, crying now, shouting the words. ‘What was he doing there?’

  She turned, leaning her back against the wood, seeing the fire flickering low, the debris of the party, her son sitting curled against the dark red cushions of the chair, his eyes large and alone. She went to him and held him, stroking him, telling him it was all right and then he was crying and talking and his words came together into a sentence.

  ‘Grandma told him to go and get a pictu
re of the stream for you.’

  Helen could not move her body but her mind became clear, rapid and cold, and she remembered Bill Rowbottom’s words and now she looked at her mother. At the smile which was playing on her face, at her happiness this afternoon. At the words she had spoken – ‘There will be just the three of us now’ – and knew without a doubt where her mother’s walk had taken her; knew who the informant was.

  And then she screamed, ‘Mother.’

  And all the hate in her body was in that word.

  CHAPTER 6

  The plain-clothed police had been waiting for Heine when he stepped from the train. They grasped him by the elbows, pushing him over towards the waiting-room, pressing him up against the red-brick wall, his back flat to it. He felt the strap of his gas mask digging into his shoulder, saw the faces of passengers as they paused, looked, then hurried on. The train drew out, noisily with sparks flying from the wheels.

  ‘Your registration card, sir?’ the uniformed policeman said, stepping back, taking it from Heine’s hand together with his ticket; looking, nodding to his companion who tightened his grip on Heine’s arm. ‘It’s him.’ They did not give him back his registration book.

  ‘Your camera?’ The policeman spoke again and this time there was no ‘sir’ and now Heine knew what Helen’s mother had done. He knew that, for him, at this moment the war was over and he was filled with anguish because he could not bear to be parted from Helen, and fear because he knew that the bleakness of imprisonment was all that waited for him. There was no anger yet.

  They took him to the local police station, locking him in a bare, cold cell with no blackout blinds because there were no windows. They removed his shoe laces and his belt and he walked backwards and forwards in stockinged feet because he could not stand the slopping of his shoes. He wouldn’t kill himself, he wanted to shout. He had done nothing wrong. He had a wife and child. They brought him cocoa with grease floating in blobs and bread and margarine on a tin plate and then he tried to sleep but could not. He tried to think but could not. Nothing stayed still, there were just flashing images of party hats, rust-streaked wheelbarrows, toboggans which sped down slopes. He asked the policeman when he came to check that he was still alive if he would tell Helen, and he said that he would ring his local police station because they needed his passport anyway. So his wife would know when they arrived, wouldn’t they? His voice had been hard and his eyes too.

  In the morning they returned his registration book and took him by car back to London, the handcuffs uncomfortable on his wrists. They had not charged him at the police station and they did not charge him now.

  ‘No need,’ the policeman said. ‘There’s a war on, mate.’

  Heine knew they were right. He thought of the stream which he had not reached, he thought of the party he had missed. He looked out of the car window at the houses which crowded the roads more densely now; they were approaching London. He knew exactly where they were going but he would not think of anything except this moment; only the house they had just passed with the red roof, the sandbags at the windows of the Town Hall to the left. The churches into which people hurried and which were tolling their bells. For him? Yes, it should be for him.

  His mouth was dry. It was hours since he had eaten because he had been unable to face breakfast. It was hours since he had spoken to another person as a free man and that weighed like a stone around his neck. Now he was an enemy, a man to be grunted at, to be ignored, to be treated as though he was nothing. But he was someone. He was Helen’s husband, Christoph’s father, but he could do nothing for them now and so, therefore, they were right. He was nothing, just an enemy alien. He belonged nowhere.

  Heine clasped his hands together, feeling the cold of the handcuffs, wanting to stretch out his arms, roll his shoulders, but the policemen sat either side of him, and as they drove up to Olympia at last he wanted to break free of them, run through the streets, back to his home. Because what would they do without him? And what waited inside the sandbagged entrance for him? But he knew the answer to that question. There would be Nazis waiting for him at this huge building which was now the collecting centre for enemy aliens. He did not move from the car at the policeman’s command because fear had taken his strength from him and all he could see were the brown shirts of Munich and feel again the pain of his leg.

  ‘Get out of this bloody car before I make you,’ the policeman still sitting at his side shouted, pushing him.

  Heine moved then, side-stepping his way along the seat, stumbling from the car because his hands were latched together and he could not find any purchase. The soldiers with fixed bayonets standing in a line outside the building did not look as he passed through the entrance. They just stared ahead as if he did not exist. The hall was in semi-darkness, the light excluded by the blackout, and Heine remembered the decorations and the noise of curious crowds at the exhibitions before the war and it seemed as unreal as he now felt. There were people, but they were milling aimlessly beyond barriers which marked off the area nearest to the door. There was a low murmur, that was all.

  The policemen pushed him forward towards a dimly lit table behind which two British Intelligence Officers sat, heads down, pens writing on paper. In shadow at the edge of the desk was an inkstand and two mugs which were coffee-stained and half empty. The badges on the officers’ hats glinted on the chair at the left of the table.

  They did not look up as Heine stood there, his shoulders aching from his immobility. The police stood too, sighing, coughing, until one of the men looked up, but not yet at Heine, only at his companions.

  They nodded and the police left but the handcuffs were still on. Heine raised his arms and the Intelligence Officer nodded and called the men back, watching as the key was inserted and the metal fell from Heine’s wrists and the police left again. Heine did not look round but he could hear the fading click of their shoes.

  The Intelligence Officer did not ask him to sit and Heine rubbed his wrists where red marks hurt.

  ‘I’ll have your registration book, please.’ The Intelligence Officer was not rude, just cold. His eyes were pale, expressionless and his hair was thinning on the crown. Heine wanted someone to speak to him as though he was a person.

  He took the police registration book from his pocket and passed it across to the officer who didn’t smile or speak while he examined it and then he looked up.

  ‘Category B is a bit out of date, Mr Weber, isn’t it?’ he said, his lips barely moving as he spoke.

  ‘I was only in Hemsham to take a photograph of a stream behind my mother-in-law’s house. One that my wife is very fond of,’ Heine explained but it sounded foolish, absurd.

  The man just nodded. ‘We’ll discuss all that in a moment, shall we.’ It was not a question but a statement and Heine felt totally helpless.

  He was not carrying his passport and so the man nodded to his colleague who telephoned, speaking quietly into the mouthpiece before placing it carefully on the rest and returning to his work.

  ‘Can I tell my wife, please?’ Heine asked.

  ‘I dare say someone will be telling her soon. We have to have your passport, don’t we? Can’t just go in and take it, can we?’ His voice was crisp. ‘Any more than we can just have people taking photographs, especially Category B aliens.’

  Heine said nothing. He emptied his pockets when he was asked and watched as a list was made, but it was short because he only carried one handkerchief and some money. He was allowed to retain these and his watch. Then the questioning began and always the murmur of the other detainees ran like a river around him.

  It was not until midnight that Heine was allowed to sleep. He was marched up to the gallery where three-tiered bunks were set up, row upon row. The guard pointed to one. There were no blankets and he did not know where to wash and so he lay down amongst the snores and mutters of a night which was dark and lonely.

  In the morning the blond middle-aged man in the next bunk sat up, swung his naked legs
to the floor and looked across at Heine.

  ‘So, another joins us, eh?’ He laughed and stood up in his underpants, snapping his heels together, raising his arm. ‘Heil Hitler, my friend. I am Hauptmann Meiner.’

  He wore a vest, his lips were full and his belly sagged. Heine turned from him but felt a hand on his shoulder, pulling him back. It was not Meiner but another man, blond and young with anger in his face. He wore blue-striped pyjamas and his hair was cut so short that Heine could see the pink of his scalp.

  ‘You do not return our salute?’ he said, his face close to Heine’s. His night-time breath was stale.

  Heine stood up now, pushing the hand from him.

  ‘Surely, my dear Hauptmann Meiner, you are incorrectly dressed for saluting. You have no hat. You look ridiculous,’ he said, his voice heavy with contempt.

  He walked from them past bunks where men loitered, some half dressed, some fully dressed, some still asleep. It was as dark as it had been last night. No daylight came past the blackout. It was so large, so full of so many people. His head was aching and in the cloakroom a man was shaving, peering into a metal travelling mirror, pulling his face to one side as he ran his razor down his cheek. His voice was distorted as he said, ‘Good morning.’

  He was English surely, Heine thought, and replied, ‘Good morning,’ as he drenched his face and hair with water so cold it numbed his hands.

  ‘So, you are not newly arrived from Germany?’ the other man asked.

  Heine shook his head. ‘I’ve been here since 1930. Had a bit of trouble in Munich.’ He smiled slightly and dried his face on the corner of a sodden towel hanging from a hook. The other man had his own. It was blue and thick, not like the one Heine held which was threadbare with a red stripe running down the centre.