He gazed at Connie for a while trying, in his turn, to imagine the terrible inaction and isolation of her life and the fear that she had lived with daily. He had been surrounded by people. She had had no one. He felt that, given a choice, he rather preferred his five years of danger and intense activity to hers: a seemingly endless period of loneliness and terror, of helplessness, fearing the knock on the door as she had today, of not knowing what was going to happen to her from one day to the next, and largely ignorant about the truth of what was happening in the outside world.
There was still much to tell, but when they went to bed the dawn was breaking ... a new dawn on a new, and surely less dangerous, but far from happy and settled world?
*****
It was a difficult, even formal reunion. Connie scarcely recognised her children, and at first they were stiff and awkward with her. Children? They were grown up. The last time she had seen them in 1939 Toby had been fourteen, Leonard thirteen and Netta twelve. Now Toby and Leonard were in service uniform. Netta had left school and had wanted to join the WAAF. She’d spent a lot of time talking to Carson about it and had considered it a glamorous career.
Toby and Leonard had met her at Dover and brought her to Pelham’s Oak where Carson, Sally and Netta awaited her. They scarcely recognised her as she got rather wearily out of the car and embraced first Netta, a long, long hug, then Carson and Sally. Tall, upright Connie seemed to have shrunk and become a gaunt rather elderly lady, shabbily dressed with greying, lacklustre hair.
Carson had to help her up the steps but her weakness was perhaps due as much to emotion and the strain of her journey as to her homecoming to a place that was no longer home.
“You’ll want to rest,” Carson said, concern showing on his face as they stood looking at each other in the hall.
“I want a bath,” Connie said with a weary smile, running her hands through her lank locks. “I seem to have been travelling for weeks. Alexander arranged transport for me in a succession of military vehicles from Milan to the French coast. I didn’t know he was so important, but it was rough going because there were no unoccupied hotels to stay in on the way. It was lovely to get to Dover and see the boys. Of course I hardly recognised them.”
“You heard about Agnes?” Carson followed her up the staircase with her small case.
Connie nodded. “And Jean. I heard about Jean. That was terrible. How is Dora?”
“She has coped very well. It’s over a year since she heard the news and time does heal. She also had to take care of Louise, and Eliza, although remarkably fit and just as you remember her, is over eighty. Now Dora’s anxious to get back to France.”
“Will she live in France?”
“I’ve no idea.” Carson threw open one of the bedroom doors.
Connie walked in and looked around.
“Didn’t we sleep here when we were first married?”
“You remembered!” Carson smiled.
“Of course I remembered.”
“I remember too. But honestly I didn’t choose the room, and I’d forgotten until now.”
“It is a lovely room.” Connie wandered over to the window and stood for a few moments looking out. Nothing had changed very much, if at all, since her wedding day twenty-one years before when she had become Lady Woodville but, more importantly, Carson’s wife. They had been so much in love. How sad it was that it all had to end.
She turned and saw Carson gazing at her.
“I was thinking about it too,” he said. “Our wedding. I’m sorry. They were very happy days. I’m sorry about Paolo.”
“Do you mind if we don’t talk about it now?” Connie passed a hand across her forehead.
“There’s plenty of time.” Carson went up to her and kissed her brow. “You rest and relax. You’ve plenty of time to recover.”
“Tell me,” Connie called out as he was about to leave the room, “how do you like Minnie?”
“Oh, I like Minnie very much. We all do. We love her. We wish they could get married but,” he grimaced, “we’ll have to see. We’ll know soon, or we should do, if Irene is alive or dead.”
Surrounded by the family, especially her children, getting to know them again, Connie gradually felt a sense of peace returning. She had been so isolated for so long, speaking Italian all the time that she almost thought in Italian. Her family teased her that she had a foreign accent. She thought she probably had.
She went up to London, stayed a few days, had her hair restyled and coloured and bought clothes. Lally had hoarded her coupons and gave her some. She felt like a new woman, walking on air.
She met Minnie, whom she took to at once. She saw Dora, Eliza, Sophie and Hubert and they shed lots of tears together. Gradually she was able to come to terms with the past, to feel her old self again. She lost that gaunt, haunted look – the result of years of fear – and recovered her old poise and élan.
Netta had never been to Agnes’s house. To her she had been a strange, remote old lady who she never thought of as ‘grandmama’.
“Of course she was not my real grandmother,” Netta said as she and her mother wandered from one room to the other.
“She was your grandfather’s second wife and was your step-grandmother.”
“Did you like her, Mum?”
“Not much, if I’m honest,” Connie said thoughtfully. “She could be poisonous, but she had led an interesting life and an unfortunate one. In many ways she was the victim of her own greed, but she was my half-sister and I felt an obligation to her, which was why when she fell on hard times I let her have this house. Now it has reverted to me and I can do what I like with it.”
“And you lived in this house when you were small?”
“Yes.” Feeling deeply nostalgic Connie looked around. It was very different from when, as a rather plain, lonely child with few friends of her own age, but a beautiful singing voice she had lived under the watchful, doting eye of Miss Fairchild. In those days she had always felt she would be a spinster like her guardian and never dreamt that, eventually, she would be married twice and have three beautiful children of her own, as well as a fortune.
Aware of Netta’s sympathetic, but watchful, eye on her Connie interrupted her reverie.
“The house originally belonged to my guardian, Miss Fairchild. She adopted me when my father died. She was a very sweet person, very good to me. Very kind. She died in Venice during the first war and is buried there.”
“Are we going to go back to Venice?”
Netta flopped on the sofa and Connie sat next to her, reached for her daughter’s hand.
“I notice you say ‘we’. Would you like to?”
“But you say the palazzo is no longer ours?”
“That will take some time to sort out. The Valentis weren’t sure that Giacomo had a right to it and if he is in any way tainted with Fascism it may be that it could be confiscated and we could get it from him.”
“Would you like to live there again?”
Connie stared up at the ceiling. “I’m not sure I would. My last years in Italy were not happy ones. If I did go back to Venice I think I might buy another place. But somehow I have gone off Venice, and the rest of Europe is in tatters. I think I might stay here, for a while at least.”
“In this house?” Netta looked surprised.
“Why not? It’s a nice house.”
“It’s very small.” Netta grimaced and Connie smiled at her fondly. Netta was a beauty. Very like her father, she was tall with thick ash-blonde hair scraped back into a pony tail. She had blue eyes which could twinkle with merriment, though in repose her expression was grave. She had missed her mother and had worried about her. Since Connie’s return she hardly ever left her side. Now her mother realised how little she knew about her beloved child.
“What do you want to do, Netta?” Connie still had hold of her hand. “I mean do you want to get a job or what?”
“I wanted to go into the WAAF, but it’s too late now. I feel I’d like to d
o something useful, help people recovering from the war. Do you know what I mean? There must be lots of damaged people and I’d like to help them. Did you see those awful pictures of the concentration camps? I couldn’t get them out of my mind.”
“You are very young, darling, for that sort of thing. It will be very harrowing. Tell me,” she gave a tactful cough, “how have you got on with Sally?”
“Sally is very sweet. Very nice. She went out of her way to be good to us all piling into the house like that.” Netta nodded approvingly. “I like her. Only ...” she paused.
“Yes?”
“Well I don’t know that I should tell you this; but I don’t think she and Dad get on too well. I don’t think they’re very happy.”
“I’m sorry.” Connie looked thoughtful. “I’m genuinely sorry about that.”
“Of course they led very busy, different lives during the war. Dad was commander of the local Home Guard and then he did an awful lot to develop the farming side of Pelham’s Oak and support the war effort. Sally was into the WVS, Mrs Churchill’s aid to Russia, that sort of thing.”
“You would have thought that would have given them something in common.”
“I’ve never heard them row. There’s just a lack of togetherness. Besides, they sleep in different rooms.”
“How long has this being going on?”
“I noticed it last summer when I got back from school. There is a distance between them, a sort of formality that you never had with Paolo. Mum ...” Netta looked keenly at her mother, “why did you and Dad split up? I think you’re much more his type than Sally. Was it Paolo?”
“Oh no! That’s not why we split up.” Connie hesitated for a moment and then continued. “Your father had an old girlfriend whom he brought here when she was ill. He expected me to look after her. I thought that was a bit much. I suppose I was jealous. I felt he thought more of her than me and I think he did, as a matter of fact.” She pursed her mouth stubbornly.
“That was Alexander’s mother?”
“Oh, well then, if you know that, you know it all.”
“I thought it was something to do with her, but Dad would never talk about it. No one would.”
“I went back to Venice and Paolo was there. He had always wanted to marry me, so we got married. Your father had met Sally and I thought it would all work out very well.”
“I think Dad would much prefer you. He was very excited about the thought of you coming back.”
“Oh dear!” Connie leaned back against the sofa and smiled. “It’s a bit like history repeating itself. In that case I had better not stay too long at Pelham’s Oak. I would hate to do to Sally what Nelly did to me. Do you know,” she rose and began to pace around the room, “I do like this house; I will have it done up, refurnish it, but I’ll move in soon. I don’t want to outstay my welcome at Pelham’s Oak. I want to give Dad and Sally time to sort themselves out. The war has changed us all you know.”
“Mum!” Netta burst out, her eyes suddenly filling with tears. “It is good to have you back. You don’t know how much I’ve missed you.”
“Me too, darling. But I’m so glad you weren’t trapped in Italy as I was. I can’t think what might have happened to us all then.”
Connie flung her arms round her daughter’s neck and pressed her close, very close – that vibrant, pulsating young body that at times she thought she might never see or touch again. It had been terrible having the children grow up so far away from her, but at least they’d been safe. They were alive, and how many parents in many parts of war-torn Europe – in the debris of Berlin, the gutters of Warsaw or the dreadful desolation of the concentration camps – could say that?
Chapter Twelve
October 1945
The Second World War had ended in August after two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan signalling the end of one era and the beginning of another: the Atomic age. In this most brutal and widespread of wars it was later to be estimated that fifty million people had died, though the true total damage was probably incalculable if one included shattered minds and bodies and broken lives.
Alexander was still a serving member of the Royal Air Force but he was anxious to obtain his demobilisation papers and return to civilian life. Accordingly he had permission to spend days in his office which, happily, had survived the blitz, and try and restore the remnants of his business.
In 1939, Alexander had been about to take over from Pieter Heering as chairman, and since then Pieter, though in his seventies, had managed to keep the company going but only just. It was not the mighty business empire it had been, because to expand or diversify in the war – other than by providing ships requisitioned by the Merchant Navy – had been impossible, and all trade with the Far East had come to a virtual standstill. Their ships had formed a valuable part of the Merchant Navy during the war, carrying food from America to England or Russia in convoy, and several had been sunk with great loss of life.
The warehouses in Thames Street, where all the imports from the East had been stored were now empty, cavernous places, except for rats, but still with the lingering smells of spice and essential oils which perfumed the narrow streets around.
Minnie had given birth to their second son just as peace had been declared. In honour of the peace he was called Christian. Their first son had been named Francis after Minnie’s father, who was always known as Frank. She was still living with Lally in the country and Alexander’s dearest wish was to set up home with her and their children and, if possible, marry her.
He had made many enquiries, and caused them to be made, in the ruins of Berlin and beyond about Irene, but no news had been forthcoming. As the true horrors of the concentration camps emerged, and were still emerging, his conviction grew that she had perished in the gas chambers. If only one could know for sure one could then make respectful arrangements for honouring her memory, as well as going through the legal loopholes in order for him to plan for his marriage to Minnie.
During the war Alexander had kept in touch with Irene’s parents Reuben and Alma Schwartz, who had remained at their home in Golder’s Green hoping for news of their daughter. To them it was a terrible irony that Irene had so foolishly returned to Berlin in an attempt to rescue a friend.
Reuben had died the previous year, probably of grief brought on by the strain of war, and Alexander had kept an eye on Alma who scarcely ever left her flat, the victim of nervous prostration.
It might well be years before anyone knew what had happened to Irene, if ever, and one day he would apply to the authorities to assume her death; but that day, inevitably, was far off.
Alexander, in his shirt sleeves, had just finished dictating letters to his secretary. He glanced at his watch and reached for his jacket. There was a dinner of old comrades at the RAF Club and he wanted to go home, have a bath and change. He then had a free weekend which he would spend in the country with Minnie and the children before returning on Monday to his base, hopefully to begin the final formalities for his demobilisation. He had enjoyed service life, his adventurous war, but he knew he would not miss it.
The telephone on his desk rang and he answered it.
“There’s someone on the line for you, Mr Alexander,” his secretary said. “The sound is very faint. I think it’s from abroad.”
Alexander’s heart somersaulted. He recalled the exact circumstances when he had last heard from Irene in 1939. But this time it was a man’s voice, speaking not too indistinctly after all, with an American accent.
“Mr Martyn?”
“Yes, Alexander Martyn speaking.”
“Mr Martyn, you don’t know me but I’m a doctor at an American hospital outside Berlin.”
“Yes?” Alexander’s heart began to beat faster.
“I have a lady here who says she is your wife. Irene? Is that right?”
“That is correct. You mean my wife ... Irene is alive and well? I haven’t heard from her since 1939.”
“She has a remarkable story,
Mr Martyn, and she is alive but she is not at all well. She hovered near death for several weeks, and for months after that she was unable to recall who she was, but she is recovering and her memory has begun to return in the last few days, which is why we have only just been able to find out anything about her. I know she would like to see you. I’m sure you would like to see her.”
“Could you give me the details?” Alexander said picking up a pen and beginning to write on a piece of paper. As he did so his hand was shaking.
The American hospital was in a convent still run by an order of enclosed German nuns. By some miracle it had escaped the bombing. It was a large Gothic building, with its own chapel, set in woodland.
Inside, the nuns, who had made all the facilities of the convent available to the authorities, had managed to maintain a calm atmosphere of tranquillity and efficiency. Where they could they abandoned their vow of silence and assisted with the nursing.
“Mrs Martyn was found in a distressed state in a cellar in one of the bombed-out buildings right in the centre of Berlin Templehof shortly after the liberation. Apparently she and a handful of Jews had spent most of the war living like this, moving from place to place ... like rats, to use her own words, in a cellar.”
“And were the others with her?”
“Only one.” The medical superintendent lowered his eyes. “She was dead. I’m afraid you will be distressed by your wife’s condition, but she is much better than when she came in.”
“Much better.” The sister who had accompanied Alexander nodded encouragingly. “I didn’t think she would last the night. She had no identification you see so we could not contact you.”
“May I see her?” Alexander, having recovered from his shock, stood up. “Will she recognise me?”
“Oh, I think she will.” The nursing sister smiled. “It is whether or not you will recognise her.”
In Time of War (Part Six of The People of this Parish Saga) Page 16
