The Anniversary

by Ann Swinfen

  Gregor feels some sympathy for Olga. She has lived most of her life in a camp for displaced persons in the British sector of Germany, and only recently, through some negotiations that he is not clear about, has her family been able to leave and come to settle in England. She has very poor English, but he suspects that even if she were fluent she would have little to say. The only thing she seems to have done since her family came to St Martins is to poke about in the garden with Birgit and Peter. No doubt they could do with some help.

  At least their positions in the car tonight are to his liking. Frances is driving the second-hand sports car Natasha gave her for winning a scholarship to Oxford, and Gregor is sitting in the front beside her. Occasionally her shoulder or her thigh brushes him, and he feels the blood come and go in his face. Hugh is trying to make conversation to Olga, squashed together with her in the back, but he is having a hard time of it, poor fellow. Very polite. Very Cambridge. At Gregor's art college they wouldn't bother. Take it or leave it, that was the philosophy. If someone didn't want to mix, you left them to get on with it.

  The night is soft and warm. Someone has strung fairy lights around the prefab hall – an army depot during the war, left behind when the military moved away. A semi-professional band has been hired from Hereford for the night, and the strains of the latest hits from My Fair Lady float out of the windows. The prefab looks incongruous by day, an eyesore amongst the ancient half-timbered houses of Clunwardine Priors, but tonight it is softened and transformed by the lights and the music.

  To his surprise, Frances seems to want to dance with him. He holds her uncertainly. Her waist is tiny, her skirts full. The bodice of her dress is so tight that it both excites and embarrasses him. But all the girls are dressed like this tonight. When they sit down on the hard wooden chairs around the edge of the dance floor, the hoops and the tiered petticoats of paper nylon that they are wearing tip up, showing layers of lace and glimpses of leg.

  It is late now. The hall is very hot, and couples have spilled out into the market square, dancing round the trees and on to the castle green. Gregor is still dancing with Frances, and they are waltzing under the beech trees, stumbling a little and laughing as they avoid the cow pats and thistles. They have both drunk a good deal of the fruit cup and Gregor has begun to realise that it is stronger than he suspected. Frances is not used to drinking, and clutches him a little to keep her balance. The music stops and they pause in the shadows.

  God, I love you, Frances.

  * * *

  That was a long time ago. We are middle-aged now, Frances and I, thought Gregor. And Frances is a grandmother. But there is still something about her. Like Natasha, you notice her. In a room filled with people there is a different quality about her. He turned away, so that she would not see the expression in his eyes.

  Chrissie was pulling packets of cereal out of a cupboard. 'Oh, Mabel,' she cried pathetically, 'aren't there any Coco Pops?'

  'A new box at the back of the cupboard. But you ought to finish the opened packets first.'

  'I hate all of those. Anyway, it's Natasha's party today,' Chrissie argued with cunning.

  'Oh well, go ahead then.'

  'Eggs and bacon, Frances?' asked Gregor quietly, teasing.

  She laughed at him and poured herself coffee. And helped herself from a packet of muesli spurned by Chrissie. The kitchen door crashed open and Katya burst in.

  'You haven't eaten all the bacon have you, Gregor, you pig?'

  'Darling!' protested Frances.

  'Hi, Mum. I didn't think you'd really make it by this time.'

  'What time did you leave, Frances?' asked Mabel, guiltily getting up from the table and putting her dishes in the sink. She became busy with her lists.

  'Five o'clock.'

  Katya groaned and clutched her head. 'I'm glad I came yesterday with Tony. Shove up, Gregor.'

  'It was a lovely drive. Dawn was just breaking as I left and there was hardly another car to be seen. I stopped just before Cirencester to look at the view and stretch my legs.'

  Gregor caught her eye and looked away.

  'Now, Mabel,' said Frances firmly, 'what's the timetable and what are my jobs?'

  * * *

  Lisa and Paul Fenway had been lying awake, each keeping still hoping not to disturb the other. They heard Frances's car arriving and Katya running downstairs, and the back door opening and closing. The thick walls and floors of the house usually insulated the different groups from each other's noise, but Lisa had been feeling the mild heat and left all the windows flung open last night after they arrived from Worcester.

  She sighed and turned over with difficulty.

  'Lisa?' Paul whispered, 'Are you awake?'

  'Mmm. Have been for hours.'

  'Are you all right?'

  'I'm fine,' she reassured him, a little testily. He asked her too often. 'I'll just be glad when it's all over.' She cradled her swollen stomach with a protective arm. 'If I ever go through this again, I'm going to make sure it's a winter baby. No one warned me what it would be like, lugging all this extra weight about in the summer.'

  'Less than a month to go,' he said comfortingly, running his hand down her bare arm. He was awkward with her in these late stages of pregnancy, averting his eyes from her shape. He wanted the baby, but he had not realised how much he would mind what it would do to Lisa. Already the unborn child seemed to come like a threat between them.

  Lisa stared out at the curtains stirring in the breeze. She felt strange. There was no pain, not exactly that. But some change had taken place in her body during the night. The position of the baby was different. Under her hand she felt the baby kick twice, hard.

  * * *

  By half-past eight most of members of the St Martins community were up. Tony was leaning against the dresser, drinking black coffee, and Olga and Eric Collier had joined the others at the breakfast table, both of them quiet amid the chatter. Eric – who did silk screen printing in one of the studios – said he needed about an hour to finish a piece of work that was promised for Monday morning, but then he would come and help.

  'Did you finish the drape for the mossy bank in the play?' said Chrissie.

  'Yes,' said Eric. 'It's in my studio.'

  'Me and Samira are going to fasten wild flowers to it, so it looks real. She's going to get here right after the service, so we can pick flowers from the meadow.'

  'You can come and get it now,' said Eric, pushing back his chair.

  'Not until she puts some clothes on.' Sally had come in the back door carrying Sarah. Bob followed her, glowering at Chrissie.

  'Why did Chrissie get to have breakfast in the big kitchen?' he complained.

  'Because I was already up, and I helped Granny with her boxes,' said Chrissie smugly.

  Sally set Sarah on her feet and straightened up, tossing back her single thick plait over her shoulder. 'There are lots of things you can help with, Bob. Outside.'

  Like a wheeled toy rolling down a slope, Sarah toddled precipitately across the floor until she collided with Tony's legs, and sat down abruptly on the flagstones.

  'Outside for you too, shrimp,' said Tony, picking her up and tossing her in the air. Sarah squealed with delight.

  'Not wise,' said Sally, tying on an apron. 'She's just had breakfast.'

  'Spoilsport.' Tony tucked Sarah under one arm, where she hung happily, with her arms and legs swimming like a fat starfish. 'Come on, Bob. You can help us with the tables and chairs. Your mum is going to be cooking us something super for later on. You coming, Gregor?'

  Sally and Olga chased everyone but Mabel out of the big kitchen and began to prepare the rest of the food for the party with the easy co-operation of long practice. Sally was the one with real flair, but Olga was a good sous-chef. The cooking she did for herself and Eric was dull but wholesome. Sally brought all her talents as a fabric designer to her cooking. Cakes became floral studies. Salads were transformed into tapestries of shape and texture. The older woman peeled a
nd chopped, separated eggs, weighed and measured. And washed up.

  From time to time Katya would pop in to give them a hand, or to carry trayfuls of food into the dining room, where everything was being stored behind closed doors, to keep it safe from cats, dogs and Sally's younger children. The kitchen was rich with the smells of chocolate and hot bread, chicken and onions. To her surprise, Katya found she enjoyed helping. In Reading she would only help Frances if asked repeatedly, and then banged about sulkily in the small kitchen where they had to sidle past each other sideways. The big old kitchen at St Martins, with its range always hot, its large table and collection of unmatched chairs, had always been the general gathering place. The drawing room had been intended as the community's common room, but gradually had come to be used only for the monthly committee meetings. It was Natasha's domain, though anyone who wanted a quiet corner to read or think would gravitate towards it. The kitchen was the social centre. It was here that things happened, day-to-day decisions were taken, quarrels flared and were made up.

  In setting up a community for musicians and artists and refugees Natasha and Edmund had been mindful of the fact that volatile tempers would lead to arguments. There was only one rule of behaviour at St Martins. You must make up any quarrel before bedtime. It was not always – or even often – done with a good grace, but over the fifty years the rule had proved its worth.

  'I wish I could live at St Martins,' Katya burst out.

  'Do you, Katya? Pass me that cup with the gelatine in it, will you?' said Sally.

  'I hate the house at Reading. I hate school too. I'd much rather go to school in Hereford.'

  'But your parents want you with them.'

  Katya kicked glumly at the table leg, then stopped as she saw that it was making Sally's garnishing difficult. 'I don't see why they should care. I hardly ever see Dad. And Mum . . .'

  'What?'

  'I don't know. She just seems – she's just so boring these days.'

  She seems unhappy, thought Katya. But that sounds so gross. It can't be Dad's girlfriends. Even I know he's always had those, though they think I'm blind. I hate it in Reading. I wish they'd let me come here.

  Mabel bustled in. 'How's it going then, girls? It all looks lovely. Katya, could you take these parking signs to Nicholas and tell him to get them put up? A few people are coming for coffee before the service at half-past eleven.'

  * * *

  Birgit and Peter Kaufmann, who had looked after the garden since joining the community just after the war, had grown too old for the heavy work, although Birgit still weeded and pruned with her special long-handled tools and Peter supervised from his wheelchair. Mr Dawlish now came up from Clunwardine Priors three times a week, in return for a nominal wage paid out of the trust's funds and a large patch of ground for an allotment. Mrs Dawlish, who preferred flowers in her small garden, approved of this arrangement and occasionally helped out herself at St Martins.

  Frances, Paul, Gregor and Tony were helping Mr Dawlish put up small tables around the lawn, while Nick's children wove in and out around them. Bob was struggling to keep up with Chrissie, carrying out chairs from the barn, but he tripped over the legs every few steps. Watching them, Peter recalled how, at one time, the members of the community all seemed to be growing old together, until Nick and Sally had moved in when he joined William's law firm in Hereford. Now Chrissie and Bob brought their friends up from the village to run free over the garden and woods, and Sarah's toddlers' group met once a week at St Martins.

  The sounds of children playing in the garden have brought back some life to the old place, thought Peter. He watched in frustration as the others carried out the tables and winced as the legs dug into his beloved turf. The smell of the sun on the newly cut grass was sweet, like a hayfield, and he wanted to be down on his knees, digging in the crumbling earth, making things grow. I'm nothing but a parasite now, he fretted, but I suppose I should be thankful I kept going as long as I did, after what they did to us in Auschwitz. And I can still play the piano a little, though not with the brio of the old days.

  Frances grinned at him as she came past with two chairs.

  'You'll just have to shut your eyes to the damage all this is going to do to the grass, Peter. At least it's only June. In a month you won't see a trace.'

  'Hmph,' said Peter, disbelieving. But he appreciated the way she behaved towards him. So many people had started to treat him gingerly, as if he were senile, now that he had to use a wheelchair. It made the hot rage of his youth rise up in his throat, to be swallowed down with difficulty.

  'Do you want to pick Anya up from the station, Mum, or shall I?' asked Tony. He was sporting a pair of French sunglasses and looked very like Giles at the same age.

  'I'll fetch her, darling. I promised I would. And you would just have to turn around almost immediately to go for Alice. Paul, can you and Peter keep an eye on the children?'

  'I'll go, if you like,' said Gregor. 'If you trust me with your car. I wouldn't ask Anya to sit in my filthy van amongst the stone chippings.'

  'No, I'd quite like to go, Gregor.' She shaded her eyes against the sun, looking up at him. Then she added impulsively, 'Why don't you come with me?'

  * * *

  Gregor has been sitting in the hollow under the rhododendrons for hours now. The cows in the field opposite have been taken in for milking, but he has not noticed them. They let him see Mama for one last time in the hospital, and then Mabel led him away. It was better for Mama now, she said. She was in such pain with the tuberculosis, coughing blood. She didn't even know him when he saw her two days ago.

  Ever since Papa was shot down in his aeroplane over France, flying with the Polish free air force, this is what he has been afraid of. He has nobody now. Will Natasha let him stay at St Martins? Perhaps they will send him away to an orphanage.

  There is a rustling of the leathery leaves behind him, and Frances crawls through. She doesn't say anything. She puts her arms around him, the way Natasha did the day he arrived at St Martins. Except that Frances's little arms don't reach very far around him, and she smells of Pears soap instead of scent. He does not cry, now. Boys of twelve do not cry. But he is glad to have her there, sitting beside him.

  * * *

  Gregor swung shut the heavy barn door. All of the chairs had been moved out to the garden. The guests had been warned that they might like to bring a rug with them, for there were not enough chairs go round and – with all the events Natasha had planned – the party would go on until ten in the evening.

  'What are you working on now, Gregor?' asked Frances, pushing the hair back from her face with the back of her arm. It was getting warmer all the time.

  'Still the Venus Rampant. Do you want to see it?'

  'Please.'

  'You won't like it.'

  'Why should you be so sure?'

  He smiled to himself, turning away. 'Oh, I'm sure, all right. Not your sort of thing at all.'

  Frances felt a little spurt of anger. How dare he! I suppose he thinks I am not artistically sophisticated enough.

  He led her into his studio, flinging back the door so that the sun flooded in. The Venus Rampant stood bathed in light, motes of fine dust dancing round her like insects. Frances swallowed. He was right. She did not like it.

  'It's a bit brutalist,' she said, walking slowly round it, to see if it improved. It did not. She looked across at him, where he was silhouetted in the doorway, a black figure against the sunlight. His face was unreadable.

  'Is that what you really think of women?' Her voice faltered.

  He turned away, fiddling with the tools meticulously hung up above his bench. 'Perhaps not all women. Venus is, after all, the goddess of love.'

  'So that is what you are trying to show? The voracity of sexual love?'

  He shot her a quick, startled glance, but did not answer.

  'Come on,' she said. She sounded tired. 'We'd better hurry if we're going to be in time for Anya's train.' She glanced at her watch. 'S
he's due in just before ten.'

  He followed her out of the studio. He did not show her – would not show her – the figure he was modelling, which stood at the far end of the studio, covered with damp sacking.

  * * *

  'I'll just go and take Natasha her breakfast, then we'll be off,' said Frances.

  Natasha was up, sitting beside the window in her dressing gown of scarlet silk. She had heard Frances arrive, and watched the tables being arranged round the lawn. Poor Peter! she thought. He is hating this, but once the party starts it will be better. He loves a party. It reminds him of those wonderful days in the thirties, when he was the darling of every society hostess, and all the girls were in love with this glamorous Hungarian-German Jew. Irina was in love with him too, though she never suspected I knew. The first love of her life. A rising star at twenty-one, he was – with the beautiful face and the music in him like an angel. I begged them not to go back to Berlin in 1937. Begged them. So did Edmund. But he would not listen. He was arrogant in those days. It was part of his charm – that and his wildness.

  She sighed. In a way, it was for the Peters of this world that St Martins had been intended, a place of sanctuary and healing. And he had been able to rebuild his career after the war. But his music was never the same again. Before, the rage and the joy had blended into a single, wonderful whole. Afterwards, there was only the rage, and bitterness. Then, eventually, contentment, peace. At least she had been able to give him that.

  There was a tap on the door, and Frances came in with her breakfast tray.

  'Good morning, darling,' said Frances, kissing her grandmother. Natasha's cheek was smooth and cool, like the silk of her dressing gown against Frances's arm.