There were no lights on at Queen Street Station when we got off. The glass ceiling soared above us, and people with suitcases and gas masks slung over their shoulders moved around us without speaking. They seemed anxious. An ARP warden stood by a bucket of sand, as if he could extinguish the fire of an incendiary bomb on his own, while the crowds fled. We walked without speaking down Buchanan Street to Central Station, under the bridge they called the Hielanman’s Umbrella, and caught the train, which rolled out over the Clyde into the light. The sleepers on the bridge rattled. Some of the buildings I remembered had gone. Hannes was staring at the empty spaces. It was another hour to go.
I had forgotten how big the sky was over Ayr, how salty the breeze. The green fields rolled inland from the sea in soft peaks and troughs, crowned with our neighbours’ farms, each white house standing at right angles to its byres. The verges of the road were full of brambles and wild flowers, and small birds darted over the hedges between the fields. The black and white cows smelt sweet as we passed, blowing through their noses and watching us as they chewed, grinding the grass, moving their jaws from side to side. Their calves were big now, grazing near their mothers. The bull lay dozing in the last sunny corner of the field, a favourite cow at his side. I breathed in deeply and relaxed. I could see it was the same for Hannes. He walked more lightly here, held his head up higher. ‘Unsere Kühe sind braun,’ he said, pointing at them, and I understood. His language didn’t seem so foreign, seemed closer to the Scots. We turned onto the farm track at the burn to see my brother Duncan running down the hill towards us, his dogs at his heels. He was tall, deep-chested, with rosy cheeks, and shouting, ‘Aggie, Aggie’, making the dogs dance and bark with excitement. He birled me round when he reached me. As he put me back on my feet to shake what he thought was Jeff’s hand, he stopped smiling. ‘Who’s this?’ he asked.
‘A friend of Jeff’s,’ I said. ‘He wants to go back to his family in Ireland.’
It was the first lie I had ever told my brother. ‘He can’t speak. A bump on the head. He wants to go home to Cork.’ A second lie.
I thought Cork might be far enough from Auntie Ina’s to stop any questions about shared family and acquaintances. The dogs sniffed round Hannes’ feet. He reached down to pat them.
‘Well, it’s lucky you’re such a chatterbox,’ said Duncan. ‘You can speak for two and no mistake. Come up to the house…’ he paused, and looked at me for an introduction, tucking in his chin and raising his eyebrows.
‘Hamish,’ I said. ‘Hamish, this is my brother, Duncan.’
The two men shook hands. Hannes bowed from his shoulders, but Duncan had already turned away, calling the dogs, and didn’t notice.
Everyone at dinner was sorry to hear about Jeff, but didn’t ask for details, so I knew they thought he had what he deserved for being too feart to fight. Mother had decided puir Hamish should take his dinner in bed and set a fire in the back bedroom for him. ‘Well, it may be September,’ she said, ‘but it can be gey chilly if you are feeling poorly. Why is he wearing Jeff’s coat?’ she asked when she came back downstairs to hang it up.
‘Jeff said he could borrow it,’ I replied, as it hung with empty sleeves on the coat stand. It was the third lie I had told my family. Lies standing on end, one in front of the other, and I knew there would have to be more, a long line of dominoes, each ready to bring down its neighbour, and I worried that I might not be able to remember them all, and keep the story standing.
Even so, it was good to be home, but everything was not as it was before. Mother only had one bag of flour in the pantry, although there were still rows and rows of her homemade jam on the shelves, with the empty berry pan shining on the floor below. She had been saving her sugar ration. At tea, Duncan was worried about the price of beasts going South for slaughter. ‘They’re lighter by the time they arrive, and so is my wallet,’ he said, ‘At least I am doing better than the slaughtermen here. They have no work now. What was wrong with killing them locally?’ He looked round, but no one had an answer.
‘Let’s eat.’ Mother folded her hands and said grace, while Dad scratched and filled his pipe. He knew better than to light it. On the table, there was fresh fish from the boat and Mother had killed a chicken that had stopped laying. After dinner, we played cards and Duncan tickled me for refusing to call him the champ when he won. ‘That was the deal,’ he shouted, as I begged him to stop. ‘If I win, you call me the champ. It was not the best of three.’
As the light faded on the long, late summer evening, the men went out for a smoke and I helped Mother clear the dishes to the kitchen. I saw Hannes had fallen asleep when I collected his plates. He looked like a bairn, undefended, as he had when I first saw him in the flat. I wondered how his family were doing without him. They had waited a long time for news.
‘Have you been to see Jeff yet?’ Mother asked as we washed up.
‘No.’ The saucer I was drying clattered as I laid it in the pile.
She looked up as she put another plate in the wooden rack.
‘I need to apply for a pass each time I want to go,’ I said, ‘although they booked me in for next week on a first visit. I had a bad cold last time and couldn’t go.’
‘He’ll be missing you,’ said Mother.
I didn’t reply.
‘Are you all right?’ She dried her hands and put her arms round me. ‘You can’t help it that he’s a conchy,’ she said. ‘No one will think any the less of you.’
‘Mr Black hates me,’ I said. ‘So does his wife.’
‘Who’s Mr Black?’
‘The butcher.’
She laughed. ‘Well, tell him to go hang himself. You come from a good family and are not to blame for a daft husband with fancy ideas. Jeff will come to his senses soon enough, especially without your good cooking and his home comforts.’ She emptied the basin. ‘And when he is released, it won’t kill him to lift a pen and help out in some office or other.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Dad doesn’t want you to mention this business, if you can avoid it. You understand. We have to keep the neighbours’ goodwill.’ She held me at arm’s length.
I nodded. I wanted to tell her what had happened on the night before Jeff went to prison; that I never knew a husband could take what he wanted from a wife without asking, but I would have had to tell her about Hannes. I wanted to keep his secret, to repay him for saving me. My throat felt tight.
‘That’s my girl. You are growing up,’ she said, and she pulled me close. She smelt of rose water. ‘There’s a lot we women have to thole.’ She patted my back, and turned away to put the kettle on.
I told her I wanted an early night after the journey, and went upstairs. I was anxious to avoid the kind of fireside chat where they would ask for Hannes’ story. I didn’t feel like I could invent a whole life for the mythical Hamish, complete with military record. I couldn’t remember much from the newsreels, just the flattened city I couldn’t name, and the marching feet, moving closer; cobble by cobble, heel by heel, and toe by toe.
At the end of the landing, I pushed open my door. My room was exactly the same as before I was married. Time was frozen here. My teddy was still on the pillow and my annuals were in a row on the shelf above the bed. There were rosebuds on the wallpaper, with shiny lines running through the background, like marks on the sand after the tide. My brothers had shared the two rooms next door, but, apart from Duncan, they were married now and living out. They still took the boat out together when the farm could spare them.
I lay under my covers with a hot water pig at my feet as the bed was damp. I could hear Mother and Dad talking downstairs and laughing. Plates and cutlery clattered as she laid the table for breakfast so the men could get something to eat before starting work. I knew she would smoor the fire in the range to keep it going, and tell Dad not to be too long over his last pipe. Then her footsteps would creak on the stairs, she would put on her Pond’s face cream in the bathroom, and fall asleep over the first page of her book. Hidden upstairs
, I realised that Hannes must have learnt everything about me and Jeff in the silence of holding his breath.
I turned over twice but it was impossible to drop off, and I walked up and down by my bedroom window. The stars danced over the hill and I watched the waning half-moon float up from the ridge to join them. It was like an orange segment, undigested on the black belly of the sky. An owl called.
I picked out one of the annuals and reread my favourite stories, the heroine moving across the pages in black and white line drawings, each scene contained in neat frames, her fate in the hands of the master storyteller. And I remembered being sure, as a bairn, that all would turn out well for her. She would win through and be safe. I had slipped from the page of my own story and I didn’t know how it would end. Downstairs, I heard Dad cough and bolt the front door. Duncan’s light switch clicked off and within minutes he began to snore. I wrapped myself in my bedspread, and sat on by the window. My room grew chill round the edges and the rosebuds became small, reproachful faces in the gloomy moonlight. I crept out into the hall to get a glass of water from the kitchen. I could feel, rather than hear, the soft breath of my family, drawing in the night air, dropping mumbled words from their dreams into the silence. The crocheted sole of my slipper caught on a nail in a floorboard and, as I bent down to release it, I noticed that Hannes’ light was on; a bright line seeping under the door in the darkness. I stopped at the threshold, holding my breath to listen for movement. There was a sharp click of a handle turning and Mother appeared behind me at her door. ‘What are you doing up, Agnes?’ she asked.
‘I just wanted to check Hamish was okay before I turned in,’ I said, noticing the joint on her big toe looked swollen.
‘Go on, then,’ she said. ‘We all need to get our sleep.’
‘Maybe I shouldn’t disturb him,’ I said.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Agnes. Make your mind up.’
I knocked softly on the door and pushed it open an inch or two. A figure lay in the bed, its hips and shoulders muffled by the quilt. I heard Mother yawn behind me, and then saw in the mirror that Hannes was sitting behind the door, a blanket over his knees. His eyes were deep pools in the winter of his face, the shaved skin stretched tight over his skull. He didn’t move. My friend was afraid and now I could see only the fugitive. I pushed up the lightswitch and closed the door. ‘It looks like he is asleep,’ I said, my heart aching for him. I wanted to go to him, to tell him it would be alright and comfort him as he had comforted me.’
‘Well, off to bed and don’t let the bedbugs bite,’ said Mother.
‘I’ll just get a drink of water from the kitchen,’ I replied, but her door was already closed. I stood there alone, and then crept downstairs, still seeing his doppelgänger lying on the altar of his fear. The stone floor of the kitchen was cold under my feet and the water gushed out of the tap as I turned it on, splashing onto the floor. I watched my reflection in the window above the sink sip water from a glass, her face pale, and then I turned to go back upstairs, a sleep-walker in a world undreamt of. Hannes was standing two paces away. I hadn’t heard him come into the kitchen over the noise of the running water. He pressed his finger to his lips, and then sat down at the table. The bread lay on its board under a cloth.
‘Are you hungry?’ I asked, wondering why he had come downstairs in spite of his fear.
He shook his head, and standing up walked towards the back door. I ran across the room and put my hand over his as he reached for the key on its nail in the door frame. It was long and silver, the nail head piercing its eye above ragged teeth.
‘Bitte…Please, Agnes,’ he whispered.
I looked down to avoid his eyes. He was standing there in his bare feet. It didn’t look like he was running away. I pulled off my slippers and nodded, longing to escape my restlessness. He slid the key into the lock and turned it. The door opened on the night, his breath suddenly visible in a small cloud that heralded the colder days to come. He took my hand and we walked across the grass which was mossy under foot and onto the cinder path between the raised beds of the vegetable patch. The ash stopped at the end of the garden. I could feel the small ends of burnt coals between my toes. Hannes unlatched the gate and we stepped into the field.
I looked back at the house standing against the sea. The moonlight shone on its grey, slate roof and the closed kitchen door. The curtains were all shut except mine and I had a sudden picture of the bed I had left standing silent, its covers tossed back like a gaping mouth. Hannes slipped some black seeds from an escaped allium into his pocket and then took my hand, leading me along the side of the hedge with a smile. The sky was huge and salty, punctured with stars, light shining through the loose weave of old velvet. There was something brighter than us all up there. I sighed and he pulled me close, slipping an arm round my waist as we walked on the land he was about to leave. I could see Orion and the Three Sisters. I remembered Dad naming them for me, pointing up at the sky’s unguarded face, and crouching down to hold me in his arms as if I might float away in the vastness. Hannes stopped and looked at me, the names of the same stars on the edge of his lips.
It was still dark when Duncan woke me from my doze in my chair in the early morning. ‘Get ready,’ he said. ‘We’re leaving.’ He looked as if he hadn’t slept much, either.
‘I thought we were going on the evening tide,’ I said.
‘We were, but it appears your Irish friend speaks German in his sleep.’ He looked at me. ‘I’m not going to ask,’ he said. ‘You are my sister.’
‘He’s a farmer, Duncan.’
‘Well, he might have been, but he is something else now.’
‘He told me they were starving. No one could afford bread. The National Socialists gave them money to live on if they joined the Party.’
‘And that makes it all right? Well, he’s not staying here. I’ll put him ashore on neutral territory, but I’m doing it for you, not him.’
‘He is a good man, Duncan.’
‘He didn’t come here on holiday, Aggie. We are at war. Don’t think because I am not in uniform that I am not fighting.’
I nodded. I couldn’t tell him Hannes had helped me. Duncan wouldn’t have understood. There was still the sanity of the farm here, man and beast, wheat and barley. Old rhythms, no unpredictable harvests of words. He wouldn’t have understood what it was like to live on a dark, spiral stair with taped up windows; to find out that the people who should love you, could also hurt you.
‘What is his real name?’ he asked.
‘Hannes.’
‘Hannes. Hamish. Very good,’ he laughed, and I saw the man in him who was bigger than the war. I hoped I might find forgiveness. ‘Hannes what?’
‘I don’t know. He’s from outside Venice, no, Vienna.’
‘And you know that, do you?’
‘That’s what he said.’ I pulled the dictionary out of my bag.
‘And books never lie, either,’ said Duncan. ‘Well, we are not taking that. Tell your man to get his coat. I’ll meet you at the harbour.’
Hannes and I crept out of the front door. We could hear Duncan’s feet ahead of us on the track. Small stones rattled under his boots and there was the creak of the gate as he climbed over. Hannes now seemed reluctant to leave, and I pulled his arm to make him walk faster. He tried to speak to me, but his voice carried in the early morning air and some of the words were German. I put my finger to my lips. We were almost at the harbour when I thought I saw a man cross the road ahead of us. He had a gun over his forearm, but when we drew level with the trees he had passed, there was no sign of him. Perhaps he had moved further into the wood. Hannes’ eyes darted from side to side and he hunched down into his coat. The black handle of one of Professor Schramml’s knives stuck out of his pocket. I pulled it out and threw it into a ditch. ‘Schon wieder Waffenlos – defenceless,’ he said, and tucked my arm through his. I pulled myself free and walked faster.
Duncan was getting the Driftwood ready to cast off when we ar
rived. Her tyres bumped against the harbour wall as the first swell of the morning tide rushed in at the entrance. Her paint was still sharp in bold green and blue, and her name was freshly painted. I climbed down the ladder, which was slippery with bladderwrack, and Hannes followed. Duncan indicated that he should lie down on the nets at the back of the trawler, and threw folds of it on top of him.
‘I hope you’re happy with your catch?’ he said, taking my arm. ‘Don’t ever do anything like this again.’
‘I’m sorry. I want to come home to the farm.’
‘What about Jeff?’
‘It’s over.’
He nodded as if it wasn’t a surprise, but I had thought he liked Jeff. ‘Good luck explaining that to Mother. St Anthony’s ears will be burning tonight,’ he said.
‘Well, Dad will support my divorce. He’s a Protestant.’
‘Divorce? Don’t start a war here, Aggie. It’s hard enough already.’ He waved at the machine gun mounted on the wheelhouse. ‘I am supposed to shoot boggles in the night with that.’
He looked over to where Hannes lay in the net, and then turned away and cast off.
I pulled the rope in for him as it trailed in the dark water and he set the boat’s course out past Dunure and Ailsa Craig.
It was quiet at sea. The sun was just beginning to rise into a bank of cloud. The waves and sky were grey, and a lone seagull glided in our wake. Duncan smoked his pipe, leaning out of the wheelhouse window. An hour into the trip, I took Hannes a cup of tea from Duncan’s flask. It was laced with whisky.
‘Ich möchte aufstehen,’ he said, pointing at his legs.
‘Can he stretch his legs, Duncan?’ I called.
Duncan looked round the horizon. ‘If he keeps low.’
Hannes sat against the side of the boat and rubbed his calves, looking around him. The thin thread of the boat’s course was leading him back to his old life; a life larger than the flat where we had known each other. He smiled at me. The skin round his eyes crinkled, but I didn’t smile back. I could see the other man he was now. A small furrow appeared between his brows, and I turned away. He sat hugging his knees staring out at the horizon, and I stood in the wheelhouse with Duncan. The sea rolled beneath the boat in the long ridges of an onshore tide.
Capital Union, A Page 12
