It’s real, suddenly. All the panic I’ve been pushing away from me presses into my chest, so hard I can’t breathe.
“I’ll go and see my contact right away.” A sudden grin unfurls across Johnnie’s face. “You’re a bit of a dark horse, aren’t you, Auntie? I’d never have thought it of you. Well, good for you,” he says.
Walking home, I have a constant urge to look behind me. Like on those summer days before the Occupation, walking along the causeway from Lihou Island with the girls: always that fear at your back, that the water might overtake you.
Chapter 71
FROM THE WARDROBE in my bedroom, I sort out some clothes of Eugene’s—trousers, a couple of linen shirts, some strong leather shoes. With my arms full of the clothes, I go to the stairway by Blanche’s door that leads to the back attic.
I hear a door open behind me. Evelyn comes out of her room. Everything slumps inside me. I don’t want to have to explain to her.
She stares at the clothes in my arms, at the shoes.
“What are you doing, Vivienne?”
“It’s nothing—don’t worry,” I say.
“Vivienne, why do you have his clothes? Is he coming back?” she asks me.
“No, not today. I’m just doing a bit of sorting,” I say. “Tidying up the wardrobe. Making a bit more space.”
She doesn’t seem to hear me.
“He’s coming home, isn’t he, Vivienne?”
Her face is suddenly vivid with a desperate hopefulness. Sadness snares me, as so often, because of the way she constantly rediscovers the harshness of things, and the terrible fact of her son’s absence.
“No. Eugene’s not coming back yet. Eugene’s still away, Evelyn,” I say.
“Are you telling me the truth?” she says.
“Yes, of course.” Feeling guilty about so many things, as I say this. “I’m so sorry, Evelyn.”
I WAIT AT the barn, my pulse racing. He’s late, and I wonder if he has died already—and there’s a tiny, shameful part of me, hunched up like a mouse in a secret corner of my mind, that is almost relieved when I think this. Because if he didn’t come, I wouldn’t have to do this thing.
I hear a shuffle behind me. I turn; Kirill is there. He’s so weak he can scarcely walk, and I take his arm and help him. It’s a beautiful summer evening and there’s still some warmth in the sun, but he’s shivering. We walk through the fields and over the lane, moving from shadow to shadow. He moves so slowly, it seems to take forever. I only let myself breathe out once I have him through my back door.
I seat him at my kitchen table. There’s a dulled, remote look in his eyes. I wonder how real all this is to him—my room, the plans we have made. Whether it’s all receding from him, the world becoming insubstantial—a place of mist and memory, fading. Whether all this seems a dream to him.
“Kirill. Do you still feel the same—that you want to escape? That you’ll take that risk? I have to be certain,” I say.
He tries to speak, but coughing shakes him, racks him.
“Yes,” he mouths through the coughing, forcing out the words—as if he has to seize the moment, daren’t let it pass. “Yes.”
The coughing is over; he rests his head on his folded arms on the table, as though his head is too heavy for him and cannot be held up.
“Then here’s what we’ll do. You can stay here tonight. You can sleep in my attic,” I tell him.
“Thank you, Vivienne.”
“Someone will come in the morning and take you to a safe house. Until they get papers for you. After that you’ll live as an islander. We’ll find a place for you to live,” I say.
He reaches out, clings to my hand.
“Thank you,” he says. “Thank you.”
When he has washed and eaten, I take him up to the back attic. My heart beats in my throat, but the whole house is quiet, the girls both in their rooms, Evelyn safely sleeping.
The attic is ready for him. I have put up an old camp bed and piled it with warm blankets, and there are the clothes of Eugene’s, a candle, and water to drink in the night.
He sighs a little when he sees this, as though at last he can breathe freely.
“Thank you for all your kindness,” he says.
I close the attic door behind me. Triumph surges through me—that we have got this far. That I can look after him here tonight, that he doesn’t have to return to the hell of the camp. I feel all the glowing righteousness of having him here in my house: the feeling moves through me, warm as fever.
I go down to my bedroom to make myself ready for Gunther—to brush my hair, put on a little of the scent he gave me. Around me I hear the familiar rustles and creaks of my house, as it cools and settles for the night. Then all at once the tenuous sense of triumph leaves me. My palms are suddenly clammy with sweat, the hairbrush slides from my grasp. Down here in my bedroom, I can still hear Kirill’s coughing.
IT’S TEN O’CLOCK, and Gunther knocks at the door.
“Vivienne.” That way he has of saying my name, as though it is the answer to a question.
I take him up to my room.
He kisses me, then pulls back, frowns slightly, looking into my face.
“What is it?” he says.
“It’s nothing.”
He won’t accept this.
“You seem rather nervous, darling. Tell me what the matter is.”
“It’s nothing. Really,” I say. “Well, just the usual things.” I grab at the first explanation I can think of. “You know, feeding everyone. We’re very short at the moment. . . .”
“I’ll see what I can do.” He starts to kiss me again.
I try to lose myself in him, but it’s impossible. I feel as though I am balancing in a difficult, treacherous place—on a high narrow ledge, the wind whistling perilously about me.
“That was as good for you as usual?” he asks me afterward, concerned.
“Yes, it was lovely. It always is.”
As I lie with my head on his shoulder, I hear Kirill starting to cough. I will him to stop, but the coughing goes on and on endlessly. It’s hard not to flinch when I hear it: this takes all the strength that I have.
Gunther frowns, listening.
“Your mother-in-law has a terrible cough,” he says.
“Yes, it is quite bad.”
I hate lying to him.
“I can tell how it worries you,” he says. “You become very tense when she coughs.”
“Well, she’s quite frail now. . . .”
“Would you like Max to come and examine her?” he asks me.
“It’s better not,” I tell him.
The cold wind whistling around me: trying not to look down.
“Max really wouldn’t mind,” he says.
“No, I know he wouldn’t. He was so kind to Millie when she was hurt. . . . It’s just—I don’t think she’d accept his help. Evelyn is very correct. She’d see it as fraternizing, and she wouldn’t approve.”
“Well, if you’re sure. But the offer is there. I know he’d be happy to help her.”
We both listen to the coughing for a moment. Gunther makes a slight clicking noise in his throat, disapproving.
“It sounds very bad,” he says. “You shouldn’t let her continue like that. You need to get some help for her.”
“Yes, I will.”
For the first time since we’ve been lovers, I’m desperate for him to go.
It’s still dark when he stirs and wakes. I take him downstairs and stand on my doorstep, watching him as he leaves. There’s a silver spill of moonlight over the yard, but at the foot of the hedgebank the darkness is dense and complete. Gunther’s body is black against the gravel, so he and his shadow make one indivisible whole. I watch as he moves through the silver and black of my yard, moving through darkness and light, away from me. A story comes to my mind, a story I read to Millie from Angie’s folktale book, about the fairy invaders who came from far-off countries and married island women. How, in spite of their marrying, they were bound by
a contract written in blood, so the women never knew when the men they loved would leave them, and sail toward the thin blue line at the edge of the world, in their boats that could shrink as small as a pebble or the delicate bone of a bird.
WHEN GUNTHER IS gone, I go up to the attic.
Kirill is asleep now. White moonlight through the uncurtained windows falls across him, and his skin seems pellucid, translucent. His hands are clutching at the blanket even in sleep, as though it is a precious thing that might be torn away from him. I can hear a high-pitched, dangerous note in his breath. But there’s a stillness—a peacefulness, even—about his face as he sleeps. I wonder if he is dreaming of his homeland, of the place where his heart is—of the birch forest, the quiet rivers.
I stand there for a long time, watching him sleep. I feel a sudden, precarious happiness. I know I am doing the right thing, in keeping him here.
I sleep deeply, and my dreams are sweet and untroubled. I have a dream of flight—I am flying toward the morning over the sea, the dark sky above me, the dark sea below, and before me all the golden glory and flaming splendor of light.
Chapter 72
MUM, WHY ARE we having porridge?” says Blanche.
“I had a bit of oatmeal left. I thought we might as well eat it up,” I tell her, vaguely.
“Mmm. I like porridge. D’you remember before the Occupation, when we used to have porridge every day?” she asks me.
But it’s becoming harder to remember that time—before the Occupation.
When Blanche has gone to work, and Millie is playing in the garden, and Evelyn is knitting in the living room, I fetch a tray and put out food for Kirill. To pour on the porridge, there’s creamy milk in a jug, and I’m going to give him some Golden Syrup I’ve saved. I’d been keeping it for Millie, in case she ever had to take some bitter medicine; there’s just a scraping at the bottom of the tin. I spoon it out and watch as it falls in the bowl, gorgeously sticky and gilded. All the time I’m listening for the horse and cart, for Johnnie.
There’s a knock at my front door—then someone walks straight in, not waiting for me to answer. Relief floods me. It must be Johnnie. I’m surprised I didn’t hear the cart; he must have thought it safest to leave it farther down the lane.
I put the tray down on the kitchen table. I come out of my kitchen, step into my passageway.
Gunther is there. He has a loaf of bread in his hand. He looks immediately uncertain, reading something in me.
“I didn’t wait for you to come to the door,” he tells me, in a lowered voice. He’s studying my face, worrying that he’s done the wrong thing and upset me. “There was a woman walking her dog in the lane.”
Probably Clemmie Renouf, I think. Long, long ago, in another life, I might have been alarmed.
“I know you would prefer she didn’t see me at your door,” he says.
“Yes. Thank you.”
“Vivienne. I know you don’t like me coming here in the day. But I was worried about you. . . .”
I wish he wouldn’t keep apologizing like this.
“You don’t need to worry about us. But that’s very thoughtful,” I say.
My voice sounds unfamiliar to me, as though it is someone else’s voice.
He comes into the kitchen, puts the bread down on the table.
“You said you were short of food, and I thought this might help,” he tells me.
There’s a sliver of doubt in his voice. I see his gaze falling on all the food on the tray.
“That’s so kind of you,” I say again.
My tone is all wrong—formal, constrained. As though I scarcely know him. As though our loving was just a dream that I’d had.
“Are you sure you’re all right, Vivienne?” he asks me.
“Yes, I’m fine,” I tell him.
My hands are shaking; I push them into my apron pockets, hide them.
“How is your mother-in-law?” he says.
“She’s much the same. Thank you for asking.”
He’s still staring quizzically at the tray. I know I have to explain.
“I was just taking some breakfast up to her bedroom for her,” I say.
“I hope she feels better soon. I do think you should ask a doctor to examine her.”
“Yes. I will.”
“Darling.” Speaking very softly now. “There was something else. I’m afraid I can’t come around tonight—I have a late meeting,” he says.
I nod. I hope he can’t read my relief in my face.
“Well, thank you so much for the bread,” I say.
“My pleasure,” he says.
I follow him out to my door. He leaves quickly. I close the door behind him.
I turn, and feel the drumbeats of disaster through my body. I stand transfixed in the passageway. I try to recall just where he was standing, when first he stepped through my door—try so desperately to remember. Could he have seen straight past me? Did he see into the living room? Did he see Evelyn there, knitting briskly, looking perfectly well?
Chapter 73
KIRILL STIRS AS I go in. He stares around him. At first he has a look of utter confusion.
“Kirill. It’s Vivienne,” I say gently. “You’re staying with me now, remember? You’re not in the camp anymore.”
I sit on the blanket chest and wait for him to wake properly. In the brightness of the morning light, I can see a den that Millie and Simon have made, with a moth-eaten curtain I found for them, draped across a clotheshorse; and there’s a broken old doll that’s been put to bed in a box—this looks like Millie’s handiwork. I wonder whether Millie sometimes comes here to play on her own. I know I will have to speak to her.
Kirill sits up shakily. I prop up the pillows behind him.
“You are so kind, Vivienne.”
I see the lilac stains of illness around his mouth and his eyes.
“I’ve brought you some breakfast,” I tell him.
I spoon treacle onto his porridge, pour milk.
He watches the swirl of milk on the porridge, the opulence of the syrup.
“Is he here yet, Vivienne?”
“No. Not yet. But he’ll come,” I say. “I trust him. I’ve known him for years.”
“I thought someone came,” he says. “When I was still sleeping. I thought your friend had come then.”
“It was someone else,” I tell him. “But don’t worry. You’ll be safe here.”
“I don’t want to put you in danger,” he says. “When you have been so kind to me.”
“You just rest and get yourself well again. Don’t worry about us,” I say.
MILLIE IS IN the garden, skipping and chanting breathily.
Miss Lucy had a baby
She called him Tiny Tim
She put him in the bathtub
To see if he could swim . . .
The lawn needs cutting; the long grass is lustrous with dew, and so are all the flowering weeds that grow there—yarrow, dandelion, white clover. Everything is glittering.
“Millie.”
I startle her, break her concentration. She stumbles over the rope.
“Mummy. You made me trip.” Accusingly. Her face is flushed, her voice is full of breath. Her brown hair shines like a seal’s pelt in the brightness.
“Sorry, sweetheart. But I need to tell you something important.”
She waits, the skipping rope trailing from her hand, still resentful that I broke her rhythm. She’s wearing her summer sandals and the straps are dark with wet. Around her, I can see the cross-stitch patterning of her footprints, where with all her skipping and jumping she’s crushed the brilliant grass.
I bend to her, speaking very quietly.
“Millie. I don’t want you playing in the back attic today.”
She’s puzzled.
“I wasn’t going to anyway, Mummy,” she says.
“All right. But just promise me anyway.”
“I promise,” she says.
Behind her, climbing nasturtiums fla
re on the walls of my house, orange as tongues of flame, as though little fires have been set there.
“And it has to be a secret,” I tell her. “Just do as I say. Don’t tell Blanche or Evelyn or anyone.”
A small smile plays on her lips.
“One of those secrets, Mummy? Just you and me?” she says.
“Yes.”
But I wonder if I have misjudged this. I know that she suspects that this is something to do with Kirill. Perhaps I should have kept quiet and hoped for the best; or perhaps I should have been open and told her everything. I don’t know what the right path is. I don’t know how to keep her safe anymore.
Chapter 74
I LISTEN OUT FOR the horse and cart all morning, my hearing acute, missing nothing, but Johnnie doesn’t come. The morning stretches on forever. My heart is pounding, pounding. I can’t settle to anything. I busy myself preparing lunch, but the smell of boiling vegetables makes me feel sick.
Around noon, I hear footsteps coming rapidly up to my door, crunching in the gravel. Relief floods me. I’m sure, so sure, it’s Johnnie. I rush to open the door.
“Oh,” I say.
It’s Piers Falla. I stare at him—his twisted body, his eyes that see right into you. I can tell he’s been rushing—his black hair is glued to his forehead, his face is glossy with sweat.
“Piers. What are you doing here?”
But I know. I can tell from his face, which is at once hard, and stricken.
“It’s Johnnie. The bastards have got him. He’s been arrested,” he says.
My heart leaps into my throat.
“Oh God.”
My first thought is that this is my doing, because I asked Johnnie for help. That this disaster is all my fault.
“They came yesterday evening.” Piers’s voice is bitter. He turns a little away from me, wanting to hide what he feels. I see his face in profile, the fierce shape of his nose and his brow, which makes me think of a bird of prey. “They found that shotgun of Brian’s.”
I stare at him. It’s not as I thought. For a moment I don’t understand.
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