by Liz Byrski
‘Is he still coming at the weekend?’
‘Saturday afternoon,’ I nodded, ‘and he’s staying till Sunday evening.’
‘Crikey—he must be quite keen. Does he know about your Mum and Dad?’
‘Know what?’ I asked, puzzled.
‘Well they’re a bit toffy aren’t they—they might put him off.’
‘I don’t see why,’ I said, unsure of whether I was defending you or my parents. ‘They’re looking forward to meeting him.’
‘I bet they are,’ Jackie said with an edge to her voice. ‘But is he looking forward to meeting them? I mean, it’s a bit soon isn’t it?’
The question stopped me in my tracks but the flash of uncertainty it ignited vanished as fast as it had arrived.
I was consumed with romantic anticipation, but unknown to me, the events of the previous weekend had already had a discomforting impact on you. The first hint came on Thursday evening as Mum and I sat eating our supper at the kitchen table.
‘Olive tells me that Joan was a bit worried about you at the weekend,’ she said, not looking up from her plate.
I felt the heat of the blush on my cheeks and neck and I too kept my eyes fixed on the remains of my meal. Olive was Joan’s mother.
‘Joan says that you were kissing this young man rather a lot.’
‘Well I did kiss him,’ I said, wondering how many kisses would constitute a lot. Clearly there was no point in lying when the witness was so compelling. But I was anxious that the result of this admission might be that you would be forbidden entry to the house at the weekend. It’s strange to be able to relate this so clearly yet to have no memory of those kisses, how they felt, or where they were exchanged.
My mother continued eating.
‘Are you cross with me?’ I ventured tentatively.
She looked up. ‘No. I’m sure you know how to behave properly.’
‘I don’t think Joan and Jock think that,’ I said, emboldened by her attitude. ‘They hardly let us be alone together after that.’
Mum put down her knife and fork, and pressed the blue and white cotton napkin to her lips.
‘That sounds rather silly, she said, folding the napkin and rolling it into the silver ring. ‘What does he do—this Karl?’
‘He’s an architect.’ I knew I was safe with this, I could see your stocks rising.
‘Really? Well, a profession, that’s very nice … He sounds a bit old for you but anyway we’ll have a look at him at the weekend. Olive says he’s American.’
‘Not really,’ I said, starting to clear away our plates. ‘He lives in America but he’s German.’
The hot water ran into the sink and a crest of bubbles swelled above the dishes.
‘German is he? Oh well I’m sure there are some very nice Germans if one actually gets to meet them. They can’t all be—well you know—well tell me a bit more about him.’
I thought I might leave the matter of your divorce for the moment.
‘He’s strong,’ I said, delighted at the encouragement to talk more about you. ‘He’s very strong…’
‘Physically you mean?’
‘No, well yes he is, but that’s not what I meant . It’s his manner, he’s sort of in control. You can’t imagine him not being able to look after everything. He knows how things work, like the government and business and all that stuff—you know—like Dad does.’
Mum finished the washing up and dried her hands, she turned to me expecting more.
‘But he’s gentle too and … ‘I struggled for the word,’ protective, you know, he takes my hand to go down steps, and he walks on the outside of the pavement, that sort of thing.’
‘Well,’ she said. ‘It sounds as though he’s got nice manners.’
‘And there’s no side to him, he’s really honest, he talks about how he’s feeling.’ As the words left my lips I hoped she wouldn’t ask for proof of this. I didn’t want to have to reveal the details of our conversation in the park. ‘He’s funny too,’ I raced on to divert her. ‘I don’t mean telling jokes, but well—witty, I suppose, he can make ordinary things seem funny.’
‘That’s a relief,’ she said. ‘I never thought the Germans had much sense of humour. Well I expect we’ll all get on all right. What shall we have for dinner on Saturday night?’ Each evening that week I spent in my bedroom trying on every article of clothing I owned, studying my reflection to decide what I would wear on Saturday.
‘Jackie tells me your young man’s coming to stay this weekend,’ Sally Palmer said on Friday morning. ‘Have you got something nice to wear?’
Jackie’s bush telegraph had even penetrated the dignified atmosphere of the Secretaries’ Room.
‘There’s a blouse in Raymonde’s,’ I said. ‘I’m going up there to buy it in my lunch hour.’
And suddenly the five women were asking me about the blouse, the colour, the fabric, what I would wear with it. Was I sure about a blouse and skirt; would a dress be better? They were asking your name, what you looked like, how we had met and their interest took me by surprise. I had always been intimidated by The Secretaries. I put them in capital letters because they were spoken of in capital letters. The Secretaries were aloof, distinctly separate from the rest of the staff. Their special status was bestowed on them by their proximity to the directors. They were a law unto themselves. Usually stiflingly formal they now wove a web of romantic anticipation around me. In view of what happened later this flurry of girlish excitement seems ironic.
It was decided that Sally would go with me in the lunch hour to get the blouse. Mrs Wilmot said we could take an extra half hour to give us a little more time. There might be something else I needed for meeting ‘the young German architect’, as she insisted on calling you, as though unable to handle the intimacy of using your name.
The blouse which had been in the window earlier in the week had gone, and I was on the verge of tears as Sally and I stared at the space where it had lain, a space now occupied by a terrible powder blue suit in embossed crimplene.
‘Let’s go inside,’ Sally suggested, looking at my desolate face. ‘Are you sure it’s a blouse you want? What skirt are you going to wear?’
‘This one I thought,’ I said, indicating the Marks and Spencer navy blue pleated skirt that I was wearing with my lemon twinset.
Sally wrinkled her nose. ‘How much money have you got?’
‘Four pounds ten shillings,’ I said. ‘The blouse I saw was twenty-one and eleven.’
‘Right,’ said Sally. ‘I think we can fix you up nicely.’ She urged me inside the shop and within minutes I was bundled into a fitting room weighed down with the clothes Sally had whisked from the rails. She was a lunchbreak shopper of Olympian abilities.
I’ll always remember the blouse I bought that day. It was white glazed cotton with a design of long-stemmed red roses. To go with the blouse Sally picked a very dark bottle green pencil skirt in some soft fabric that had a slight sheen. It fitted like a glove. I thought I looked like Princess Margaret which, at that time, was the highest fashion and beauty accolade I could imagine.
Back in the Secretaries’ Room my purchases were admired and discussed at length. This was different from the whispered conversations with girls my own age in the typing pool. These were mature women and I had been admitted to their select club.
‘You’ll put your hair up when you go to meet him,’ said Sally. ‘You need to look cool and untouchable.’
‘Have you got some nice perfume?’ asked Sylvia and she pulled an atomiser of Ma Griffe from her bag. ‘Try this,’ and she sprayed a little on her wrist. They all nodded in approval and she slipped the flask into my hand. ‘Good luck love, bring it back on Monday.’
I was surprised and flattered by the attention of these older women who seemed ready to enter with me into the magic of romance. My mother had questioned me about the kissing because Olive’s phone call had made it impossible not to do so. But she was not one to enter into the thrill of it all
; our conversation never ventured into the territory of feelings. At home there was no flutter of interest in romance itself, no opportunity to share the thrill of anticipation, the excitement of preparation. There was thoughtful concern about whether you would be comfortable in the spare room and what you might like to eat, but feelings were never mentioned, love and romance were not part of the currency In contrast these women seemed to crave involvement in a love story in which I was the heroine.
I went home that night buzzing not only with the pleasure of my new clothes, but with the same new sense of myself that I had experienced as I studied my body in the mirror. I wasn’t sure what was happening to me but I knew it was important.
***
You reached through the train window, snapped open the door and swung down the steps to the platform with that rangy, graceful energy that characterised your every move. Even my excitement had not prepared me for the lurch in my stomach and my sudden breathlessness at the sight of you. I had to stop myself from running and just walk towards you. How many women have walked towards you Karl, drawn by those magnetic eyes, that wry smile, that unmistakable sense of promise? Perhaps you have found the woman with whom you could live out the great romantic love for which you yearned. Does your heart beat faster at the sight of her, at the sound of her voice? After all these years do you still touch her face tenderly when you wake? Do you still slip your hand protectively under her arm as you walk together, the same way you slipped it under my arm that day as we walked out of Three Bridges Station?
‘I had a very strange week,’ you said, leaning slightly towards me so that I could hear your quiet voice over the noise of the trains. ‘Joan threw me out.’
I stopped and faced you, speechless, as you told me of the four hour lecture that was delivered after I had left the previous weekend. Together we had broken the rules but according to Joan the blame was all yours. You were old enough to know better, I was just a teenager, the daughter of her friends. You were divorced with a child, I was an innocent who needed to discover life and love with another innocent of my own age. You had abused their hospitality and their trust. All this for some kisses? Well, not entirely. ‘You must know you’re good looking, Karl,’ she accused, ‘and you used that to take advantage of Liz.’ This was your most serious offence. In what must have seemed an appalling betrayal I had mentioned to Joan that, when we had walked in the park, there were tears in your eyes. I had never seen a man close to tears. It revealed your vulnerability and I had thought it beautiful. I am not sure why I told Joan, perhaps I felt a confidence might lighten her disapproval, perhaps that it might prove that for you, as well as for me, this was more than a mild flirtation. Maybe I simply needed to confide in someone. Joan for her part was critical of your lack of emotional control in the presence of an impressionable young girl.
‘How could she?’ I exclaimed, mortified to be the cause of your eviction and furious at Joan’s betrayal.
‘She meant well I suppose,’ you said, stopping and turning to look at me. ‘She’s concerned for you. Don’t be upset by it Liz, it’s not important.’
‘Of course it’s important,’ I said, angry and upset that Joan thought so poorly of you and offended that she thought me so childish that I could not look after myself.
‘Sweetheart, it’s okay, don’t worry about it. I found a lovely room. It’s in a big house in Islington, the owner is an African dancer. And I have the room to myself which is better really, I was sharing a room at Joan’s place.’
You thought it amusing and inconvenient. I thought it monstrous and I never went back to Northumberland Crescent. Over the years I have, in my heart, performed acts of forgiveness around the story of our love affair. Joan has not been included in any of them.
‘Well,’ I asked my mother in a whisper as we prepared the vegetables for dinner that night. ‘What do you think? Do you like him?’
‘Very much,’ she said. ‘He’s charming and his English is excellent.’
In the lounge my father was pouring his first gin and tonic, urging you to join him and I heard you decline and accept a soft drink.
‘Dad likes him too, doesn’t he?’ I whispered.
‘I’m sure he does dear. Is the cauliflower ready to go on?’
‘I suppose you would have been in the Hitler Youth, Karl?’ Dad asked and I froze at the audacity of the question.
Was this a trick question, designed to embarrass you? You were a teenager when the war ended—you couldn’t have had anything to do with Hitler.
‘Yes indeed,’ you said with a smile. ‘I can even remember feeling sorry for the English boys who didn’t have the advantage of being part of such a splendid movement!’
I was horrified. Did this mean you were a Nazi and that you would be ordered never to darken the doorstep of Smugglers Cottage again? But my father smiled as he handed you an orange juice.
‘It must have been pretty exciting in those early days.’
‘Not just in the early days,’ you said leaning back, your legs crossed casually, your glass in one hand, the other relaxed on the arm of the chair. I was so proud to be part of the movement, and at fourteen I volunteered for the German Army.’ You paused and setting your glass on the table leaned forward, hands outstretched, smiling at my father. ‘In January nineteen forty-five, just four months before the end of the war, the People’s Storm Brigade was calling for volunteers. It was nothing but a rag-tag army of men from the age of twelve to a hundred and twelve.
‘My dad had been wounded at the Western front, and at the end of March he was released from the hospital near Frankfurt, and made his way home on foot to Middle Germany ahead of the American spearheads. When he found out I had enlisted he raised the roof. “Are you crazy?” he said, “Why did you volunteer?” “To defend the fatherland,” I said. “What—the last forty square miles, and for that swine in Berlin?” He hated Hitler and he ordered me to desert. He took a big risk because if I had reported him he would have been hanged. But I was more afraid of my father than of the whole Nazi hierarchy—so I did as I was told. He sent me away to my grandparents in the mountains to keep me out of trouble. Two weeks later our town was in American hands.’
You smiled reminiscently, leaning back and reaching for your drink. 1 did as he told me but I remember thinking that my Dad was a very bad German.’
My father’s hearty laugh echoed through the house. ‘Well thank goodness your father had the wisdom to remove you,’ he said, and I saw that he had enjoyed the anecdote and your telling of it.
I had no interest in how my parents’ generation felt about a war that had ended, seventeen years earlier, and I was totally ignorant of what life was like in Germany in the thirties. I knew there was prejudice and mistrust and I was confused by my father’s amusement. The history and the politics were a mystery to me but it didn’t matter. Nor did it matter that your conversation over dinner also went straight over my head. National socialism, postwar reconstruction and membership of the Common Market were men’s things that I didn’t need to know about. All that mattered was that Dad found you interesting, and when you leaned forward to make a point, when you disagreed with him or challenged him to explain something he relished the exchange. My parents were treating you as I had often seen them treat overseas business guests. They were warm and courteous and they were doing their best to make you feel at home. It was years later that I learned something of the politics of the time and longer still before I discovered that my father had himself flirted briefly with the ideas of Oswald Mosley in the early thirties. When I reflect on my ignorance at that time I wonder that I didn’t bore you to death. But perhaps I did, perhaps that explains everything.
Your parents are so kind to me,’ you said much later as we sat together in the firelight while the Nutcracker Suite played softly in the background. You stroked my neck and slid your fingers through my hair making my skin tingle with excitement. ‘They made me feel so welcome.’
They made you welcome the following
weekend too, and the weekend after that. They accepted you and you seemed entirely at ease with them. When you caught the London train on Sunday evenings I wasn’t sure how I would live through the week without you but I was confident that you had passed the parental test and passed it with flying colours.
On my eighteenth birthday I came home from work to find your beautiful flowers—roses, tulips, irises and daffodils swathed in cellophane and your card in a thick white vellum envelope edged with silver. I had never had flowers sent to me before.
‘They’re so beautiful Karl,’ I told you the next weekend.
‘I have to own up,’ you said with an embarrassed grin. ‘I was going to send you a rubber plant but the man in the florist’s was horrified, he said it wasn’t suitable for a young lady on her eighteenth birthday. Even the guys in the office laughed at me for wanting to send a rubber plant!’
A rubber plant, roses—it wouldn’t have mattered what you sent. In my eyes you could do no wrong.
And so it had begun, just as any true romance begins; the look across a crowded room, the first kisses, the yearning for the other’s presence. I began nineteen sixty-two bursting with a sense of the boundless possibilities of love, thrilled by my own transformation, and filled with the certainty that I had found the love of my life.
2
It all seemed so right. I thought that love was enough. I thought we would simply move in harmony towards a new and shared life. I was too young to foresee the hazards, too inexperienced to have learned the dark pathways through the forests of the heart, too innocent to recognise that affectionate concern is often driven by fear or self interest.
I suppose my naivety is apparent. I make it all sound perfect but that was how it was for me and so the memories are perfect too, for we haven’t shared years of living through which we would have discovered each other’s shortcomings. We haven’t had to battle with domestic finances or argue over the way we might rear our children. I have not had to resent the hours you spend at the office, or flinch with jealousy at the way you talk to your secretary. I have never had to face you in the early hours of the morning or beg you to tell me you still love me. But why did it end?
