by Janet Tanner
‘But the baby wasn’t crying,’ he said, trying to make head or tail of it. ‘You could have been in bed.’
‘I think I woke up and was expecting her to wake,’ Lola said in an exasperated tone. ‘I thought if I made her bottle it would be ready for her and she wouldn’t keep crying while I was doing it.’
‘But how did you get on the floor?’ he asked and she flared up again, close to tears.
‘I don’t know – I don’t know! I suppose I just felt sleepy and lay down.’
‘On the kitchen floor? Lola, something has to be done. You are a danger to yourself and the baby if you don’t know what you are doing.’
‘How danger?’ she asked scornfully and he did not even bother to reply. Arguing with her was useless – at least until he had found a solution.
Two days later he presented Lola with a fait accompli. His mother had promised to help with the cooking and he had engaged a girl to come in the mornings to help make the beds and clean up and another to wash up in the evenings.
‘We can’t afford to pay help,’ Lola objected.
‘If I go back to work in the docks we can.’
‘But you hate the docks.’
‘I would hate it more if anything happened to you.’
‘Very well then. But I don’t want your mother in my kitchen. She does things a different way to me.’
‘That’s just too bad,’ Charles said flatly. ‘If I can put up with going back to the docks, you can put up with having my mother in the kitchen. It’s only for a little while, anyway, until you are strong again.’
‘I suppose I haven’t any choice,’ Lola complained.
‘No, you don’t,’ he said, kissing her.
Looking back over the years Charles supposed that had been the turning point, though there were to be many more ups and downs before they had finally got the guest house running on an even keel. They had gained another daughter, Catherine, who had been born in 1930 when Sophia was five years old, and lost his mother, who had died after a long and painful illness that the doctor had termed ‘a growth’ the very same year. There had been a couple of very lean years followed by a mini-boom and as the bookings flooded in they had bought the cottage next door to provide an annexe now that their growing family were taking up so much room. They had arranged entertainment for the guests – coach trips every day to places of interest around the island and whist, bridge and chess games after dinner and at least one musical evening each week. Gradually they had increased the staff so that nowadays they employed two waiters, a chambermaid, a maid-of-all-work to prepare vegetables and do the washing up and a gardener. The guest house coach trips had proved so popular that Charles had had the bright idea of setting up an agency to cater for all the visitors to Jersey not just their own guests. He had taken an office in town and the tourists had come flocking to him to arrange their yachting and sea fishing trips, their rounds of golf and theatre tickets as well as their sightseeing tours.
Now, in the summer of 1938, things were going very well, but although the day when Lola had collapsed from exhaustion seemed a very long time ago, when she spoke of getting rid of one of the waiters in mid-season the memories came rushing back to Charles as clearly as if it had been only yesterday.
‘I don’t understand,’ he said, hoisting himself up on his pillow. ‘Why do you want to send Dieter home?’
Lola sat down on the edge of the bed, reaching for a jar of cream and smoothing it liberally on to her face and neck.
‘For one thing he is German.’
‘But you knew that when we took him on,’ Charles objected.
‘Just so. As I said, I wish I had listened to my own better judgement. I don’t like Germans. I never have. I am Russian, remember. In the war …’
‘That’s a long time ago, sweetheart.’
‘Perhaps. But my memory is long also. And besides, I’m not so wrong, am I? The things they are doing now are just as bad … worse. It’s terrible what they are doing to the Jews. And they will try to be masters of Europe, see if I’m not right. Already they have annexed Austria.’
‘The Austrians don’t seem to mind …’
‘They didn’t have much choice, did they? They are like you, Charles, they like the quiet life. If Hitler came here and tried tor take over Jersey, what would you do? Would you fight? No – not you. You would roll over like a little puppy dog and let him tickle your tummy.’
‘I most certainly would not!’
‘That is what Austria did,’ she went on, ignoring him. ‘Now Hitler thinks he can do the same with Czechoslovakia. And after that what will he want? He’ll never be satisfied, that man. Bullies never are. That is what my father always said and he was a soldier, remember.’ Her voice rose proudly.
Yes, and see what happened to him, Charles wanted to say, but he did not.
‘I just don’t think Dieter should be here at this time,’ she went on, smoothing in the last of the cream and turning to face him. ‘For his sake, too. You know if there is big trouble people could turn on him. I wouldn’t want that – he’s only a boy. And he could be trapped here. Suppose communication was cut? Oh, I know you think I’m being alarmist, but it could happen.’
‘Another month or six weeks isn’t going to make much difference, surely?’ Charles protested mildly. ‘This thing has been rumbling on for so long now I can’t see anything blowing up right now. He’ll be going home anyway at the end of the season. I don’t see the point of kicking him out because of something: that might never happen just when you have got him trained up in your ways.’
‘Oh Charles, sometimes you can be so blind, can’t you?’ Lola ran a hand through her thick dark hair, tossing it back over her shoulder. ‘There is another reason I want him away from here. He is much too friendly with Sophia.’
‘Sophia?’ Charles eased himself up on one elbow, looking at her in blank amazement. ‘But Sophia is just a child!’
‘Exactly. She is much too young to be involved with a boy. I wouldn’t like to see that happen for several years yet. But she has been spending all her free time with him, Charles. They ride off on their bicycles and they are gone for hours. I don‘ t like it.’
‘But surely it’s harmless. She’s just showing him the island: She wouldn’t think of anything else at her age.’
‘Oh Charles, Charles, as I say you are blind. Haven’t you seen the way she looks at him? The way her eyes light up like a roman candle on firework night when he comes into the room? Oh, she may be a child to us but she has a body which will soon be a woman’s. And she has feelings, too, that she does not understand. I know when I look at her. I feel it here,’ Lola pressed her hand dramatically to her voluptuous bosom, ‘here, Charles, as I felt it when I was a young girl. I know what is happening to her, all right, though she may not. And I am afraid.’
‘Hmm,’ Charles murmured thoughtfully. Lola was exaggerating, he thought. He hadn’t noticed anything different about Sophia, not even her developing body. To him she was still his little girl. But perhaps it was a little unwise to let her spend so much time with a boy several years older than she was – and a foreigner at that.
‘Suppose I have a word with her?’ he suggested. ‘Tell her we don’t want her going off with him alone?’
Lola reached for her tortoiseshell brush, vigorously sweeping at her hair.
‘It won’t do any good – just make her rebellious. If she is feeling as I think she feels she will manage to see him whatever we say – and perhaps deceive us to do it. No, he has got to go. It’s the only way. Taking everything into consideration I’m sure there can be nothing but trouble and heartbreak ahead if we don’t nip this thing in the bud. I feel it in my bones, Charles.’
He sighed resignedly. Useless to argue with Lola when her mind was made up – and he was very tired.
‘I suppose you want me to tell him to go,’ he said wearily.
‘I think it might be better, coming from you …’
‘All right,’ he said, �
��I’ll do it tomorrow. I’ll tell him it’s for his own good, in case Hitler decides to fight.’
‘That’s right, you tell him.’ Lola smiled. She put down the tortoiseshell brush and slid the silk wrap off her smooth creamy shoulders.
‘And now, Charles, I think I shall come to bed. I hope you are feeling very sexy!’
‘Oh Lola!’ he groaned, but already he could feel a stirring of desire. How could she do this to him after almost twenty years of marriage? But she did – and he hoped she always would.
Briefly he thought again of Sophia, still a child yet so very much like her mother. Lucky the man who would eventually win all that fire and passion. But one thing was for sure. It would not be Dieter.
Lola slipped between the sheets beside him and Charles forgot everything else as she snapped off the light and in one smooth movement was in his arms.
Sophia was sitting in the yard at the back of the guest house shelling peas when Dieter found her. She looked up as he came around the corner, reaching for a full pod from the basket at her feet and smiling a greeting.
‘Hello! Have you managed to kick that terrible Mrs Mounter out of the dining-room then? Mama says she will stay there all morning if she’s allowed to …’ She broke off. There was no answering smile on Dieter’s face. His jaw was set and his blue eyes looked like chips of glass.
‘Your father has just dismissed me.’
‘What?’ The overfull pod popped between her fingers and peas cannoned out into her lap. ‘Papa? If this is some sort of joke, Dieter, I don’t think it’s very funny.’
‘I am not joking. I am to go back to Germany now – this week.’
‘But that’s ridiculous! Why?’ Sophia had begun to tremble and she felt sick inside.
‘Because there might be a war, he says. He thinks I should go for my own sake.’
‘But … you don’t want to go, do you?’
‘Of course not. I told him – my father will be very angry. He will not believe this is the reason I have been sent home – what sensible person would? He will think I have not done my work properly or that I have disgraced myself and that is why I have been dismissed.’
‘Oh surely not …’
‘Yes, and I think it may be the truth. Perhaps they know that you and I …’
‘But we haven’t done anything!’
‘We know that, but do they? Anyway, I am a German. Nobody here likes Germans very much just now. I have seen the newspapers. They tell lies about us and stoke up hate. Your father does not want a German here waiting at table in his guest house, I think, and especially he does not want him to be friends with his daughter.’
‘But that’s ridiculous! I’ll see about this!’
Sophia leapt up. Peas spilled from the colander on her lap and ran away on the sun-warmed concrete yard. She flounced into the house where Lola was in the kitchen chopping vegetables for soup.
‘Where is Papa?’ Sophia demanded.
‘He has gone to town. Why do you want him?’
‘Dieter says Papa has told him he’s being sent home to Germany.’
‘That’s right,’ Lola said calmly.
‘But Mama – you can’t send him away now! Not in the middle of the season.’
‘I am afraid the decision has been made, Sophia.’
‘But you can’t – you can’t! Dieter’s father will be very angry with him.’
‘Nonsense. The way things are he will quite understand.’
‘And you will never be able to manage without him.’
‘Then you will have to help wait at table, won’t you?’
‘No! I won’t! I won’t!’
‘Sophia, please keep your voice down,’ Lola ordered, recognising, as she so often did, her own wilfulness and hot temper reflected in her daughter. ‘ You will disturb the guests and I won’t have that. I’m sorry if you are upset. You are fond of Dieter, I know. But you must understand you cannot always have things the way you want them.’
‘I never do. Never, never, never!’ Sophia yelled.
‘Please stop behaving like a child, Sophia,’ Lola said in her haughtiest tone. ‘Otherwise I shall have to treat you like one and send you to your room. I am sorry but as from the end of this week Dieter will no longer be employed here and that is all there is to be said.’
For a moment two pairs of startling violet eyes glowered at one another then the one pair began to fill with tears. Her fierce pride threatened, Sophia turned and ran from the room. She might be only thirteen years old but it was a very long time since she had allowed anyone – even her mother – to see her cry. And however hurt she was this occasion was going to be no exception.
She could not stop the tears, however, when she watched Dieter walk up the gangway of the ship that was to take him away from Jersey no matter how she tried.
‘You will write, won’t you?’ she had begged, standing on the quay and wondering if she dared to take his hand, here, where everyone could see.
‘Of course I will.’
‘And you’ll come back next summer when all this is over?’
‘I will try. I don’t know what I will be doing then, of course.’
‘Oh Dieter, please …’
‘I have to go.’ He bent and kissed her quickly and she longed to cling to him as she had done in the long dry grass but did not dare. He ruffled her hair, picked up his bag and made for the gangway. She watched him striding away from her and felt as if her world were ending.
Dieter found a place at the rail from where he could wave to her and she felt the pain mounting as she stood there on the quayside with nothing to do but watch and wait. The minutes seemed endless as the crew prepared to sail – she almost wished they would hurry so that it would all be over and she could find a quiet spot to cry and relieve the unbearable ache in her throat. But when that happened Dieter would be gone and she did not think she could bear that either …
At last the gangway was hauled up, the sirens sounded and the ship began to move slowly away from the quay. She waved, the tears streaming down her face, and stood watching until the ship was no more than a dot on the horizon. Then she went home.
Chapter nine
Jersey, 1938–1939
All through that winter and the following spring as the world held its breath and prayed for a solution to the mounting crisis, Sophia thought of nothing but Dieter. She missed him dreadfully but even worse than this was the gnawing fear that he had forgotten her. Each day she ran to collect the post, eagerly at first, then with the inescapable dread of being disappointed yet again weighing her down. Oh, why didn’t he write? She couldn’t believe that something which had been so important to her had meant nothing at all to him. In morbid moments she wondered if something terrible had happened to him, but in her heart she knew it was highly unlikely. Perhaps the political situation in Germany was responsible, then. This was an explanation she could almost believe. Although Neville Chamberlain had come back from Munich waving his umbrella and promising ‘ Peace in our time’ the situation was still tense. But even so she could not help feeling that if Dieter loved her as she loved him somehow he would find a way. Gradually her most precious memories with their wonderful aura of romance, flower-scented grass and sun-warmed skin, became tainted with sadness and Sophia sank into the depths of depression.
Because she had a very secretive streak Sophia kept her feelings to herself and buried herself in her music – the one thing that could make her feel marginally better. Night after night she shut herself in the front room where Lola’s baby grand occupied pride of place and poured all her passion and pain into thundering out the great compositions.
‘Is very good!’ Lola said approvingly to Charles as they listened outside the door. ‘I think her music teacher is right. If she continues like this she should try to get into one of the London colleges of music, the Guildhall or the Royal. She could be a great performer, Charles.’
Charles looked doubtful. Where did Lola get these grand ideas? Sophia
was very good, it was true, and he supposed concert pianists had to begin somewhere, but all the same … ‘She doesn’t sound very happy to me,’ he said. ‘I think she is still upset about that boy.’
But Lola, though she thought Charles might well be right, merely shrugged and hardened her heart.
‘She will get over it,’ was all she said.
That summer the guest house was busier than ever. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to make the most of what might be the last summer of peace. Lola had employed two French boys as waiters but there was so much to do that Sophia had to take her turn waiting at table and even Nicky and Paul were roped in to help when they were not busy with their school work.
Charles’s agency, too, was booming, and as it became increasingly difficult to cope single-handed he decided the time had come to take on an assistant.
‘I thought you were hoping Nicholas would join you,’ Lola said when he told her of his decision. ‘He is leaving school in the summer, after all.’
‘Yes, but I don’t think he cares for the idea too much,’ Charles replied. He did not add that Nicky had told him he had other plans for he was fairly sure there would be fireworks when Lola got to hear what they were and he could not stand the thought of a row just now. ‘I have already interviewed two or three young men for the post,’ he hurried on, ‘and I think I have made up my mind which one to take on. He is the same age as Nicky, but he left school two years ago, not staying on as Nicky did. There are some problems with finances in the family, I believe, and they needed his wages. But he seems very suitable to me – honest, hardworking and very keen to make something of himself.’
