1941–1942
The North Devon seaside town was embraced by high cliffs, and the window of Paul’s hotel room looked out onto the small harbour so that the bright clinks of wind in the rigging attended his falling asleep and his awakening. If he woke in the night he liked to lie and listen, for he found it soothing. When winter storms raged, spray spattered the windows. Paul had never lived by the sea before. He was exhilarated by it, by the waves pounding the hard sand as he ran assault courses on the beach, by swimming in the freezing tidal pools. All this was part of the training. At other times he loved to watch grimy boats unload coal or the morning’s catch to the sad cries of the gulls which glided overhead or swooped to squabble over shiny corpses of discarded fish.
The work they were given was gruelling, even by the standards of heavy gardening. Worse, it was boring and frustrating, more so than he’d predicted. It took a while to learn the knack of using the pick and shovel efficiently to dig trenches. Then there was mixing and laying concrete before erecting Nissan huts on the cliffs. The boots they issued him were too big – the joke circulating that they were left over from the Great War turned out to be true – but Paul learned to stuff the toes with newsprint and his callouses eventually hardened over.
His roommate, Wolfgang Horst, quickly became a friend. Horst was Jewish, a fellow countryman four years younger than him who’d been dispatched to a British foster home by his far-sighted parents five years before. He’d attended a Midlands university and spoke fluent English. Horst had often visited Hamburg as a boy, for his grandmother had lived there, and he and Paul sometimes reminisced in a mixture of English and German, though they found it unbearably sad to talk of home. Horst had no idea where his parents were now, or his grandmother. He wrote regularly to his little sister, who was at boarding school in Shrewsbury, and if he was granted leave he went to visit her either there or at the home of the teacher and his wife with whom she stayed during school holidays.
Paul wrote to Sarah every week. He sent her a postcard of the lighthouse, which was an unusual building because it was set into a disused church on the clifftop above the town. There was so much to tell her about daily life and he found the writing came easily to him. Horst is trying to teach me the violin, but I’m afraid he is wasting his time. The seagulls think I am one of them because of the noise I make.
He thought of her in quiet moments, trying to keep her face in his mind. He had never been in love before like this. He hadn’t met many girls in Hamburg, but at the university there had been a self-possessed young woman named Gisela, with thick fair hair cut into a bob and dancing dark blue eyes. She had let him take her out a few times and for a whole term they sat together in lectures, but then the trouble happened with his father and she started to avoid him. Sometimes Paul had used to wonder whether otherwise it might have gone further. He’d been fascinated by Gisela’s determination to succeed, her eager way of turning questions inside out to make one see a problem differently, not to mention her handsome, sturdy figure. She was a talented artist, could draw neat, detailed pictures of flowers and trees. He, on the other hand, knew best how to grow them.
It was Horst who awoke in Paul a love of music, for he’d brought with him his treasured violin, and many evenings he’d rehearse with the camp orchestra. Paul often attended the concerts in the village hall or, on one occasion, in the foyer of a grand hotel out in the countryside.
There were lectures, too, because many in the camp were older men, distinguished professionals in their pre-war lives: lawyers, doctors, university professors, writers. Once, he found himself volunteering to give a talk about growing flowers for cutting, and as he explained how spikes of gladioli, though unfashionable, were invaluable as they remained fresh in a vase for several days, he felt his love of growing things flood back. If he’d had with him some of the botanical slides he’d collected in Hamburg then he’d have delivered a more academic lecture about the wonder of plants, but he had neither the resources nor the time to research or to produce his own drawings.
Six weeks passed, two months. Christmas had not been a religious festival for the large Jewish element of the camp, but was nevertheless celebrated by a performance of Cinderella. Come January, work was hampered by the freezing winter weather, but eventually, in early February, Paul and Horst’s company was told they were sufficiently prepared to be sent on their first mission.
‘Clearing rubble, so the corporal says. I want to go and fight,’ Horst said fiercely as he wrapped his precious photograph of his parents in newspaper and fitted it into his haversack.
‘I do, too,’ Paul said from the window. He’d miss this view. ‘Maybe one day they will trust us enough. At least in the meantime we’ll be doing something to help, and London will feel more like the centre of things.’ And, he hoped, he’d be able to see more of Sarah. That would a great advantage.
Three weeks later, Paul felt less optimistic as he wheeled his heavy barrow along the plank towards the truck and began to shovel its contents into the dumper. The dust this raised set him off on another coughing fit, but he carried on, trying to ignore the cough, just as he tried to ignore the boneshaking pounding of Horst’s pneumatic drill. Thankfully, after he threw in the last shovelful, the corporal shouted for a break and he hurried to join the queue for hot drinks at the nearby van.
It felt as though they’d been here for ever. The work involved clearing rubble from the bombed areas around the docks; grim work, ‘stone-breaking’ as Horst called it, ‘old-fashioned hard labour for convicts’, but he spoke with a flash of humour. After all, as Paul remembered Sarah saying, most people in this war were having to do what they didn’t want. Their lives had been interrupted. Nobody dared speak about the future. Getting through the present was all they could do. He thought about this as he drank the thin hot soup a woman had served him and cupped his palm protectively round his cigarette. In order to fight for freedom, everyone was having temporarily to give it up, that’s how he should see it. There was no choice. It was so frustrating, though, to be stuck here shovelling concrete when the fighting was elsewhere.
The corporal shouted for them to return to work. Paul seized a sledgehammer and clambered back over the hills of shattered concrete, plasterboard, twisted girders and brick that he’d been mining, sinking some of his frustrations into the blow he delivered to a ruined flight of steps.
Paul had been astonished when they’d first arrived in what Corporal Brady told them had once been a street of houses. Most of them had been obliterated and the road was cracked and cratered. Only a few jagged elevations remained, reaching up defiantly, the shapes of windows and electric wires hanging like torn tendons, indicating their identities. God knows what it had been like for the rescue teams in the immediate aftermath of the bombs. He didn’t like to think about that. It was bad enough now, turning over a girder to find the pieces of a little girl’s doll, an engagement diary or a photograph in a smashed frame, precious belongings of the people who’d once lived there. Anything deemed valuable in any way was handed in, though whether its owner would be found alive to reclaim it was a different matter.
He’d heard that another team had uncovered something more gruesome the week before when they’d lifted up a broken dining table, but his lot had found nothing like that, though they knew to be prepared.
As Paul worked, a sharp wind blew up, stirring the dust and muffling the others’ voices. What with the mist, the sullen sky overhead and the deadened sound, he was disoriented and reminded for a strange moment of that fierce winter in Norfolk, the Christmas when the Baileys had arrived in Westbury. How the snow had changed everything, making the world alien and forbidding. The moment passed, but as he filled a basket with the crumbling lumps he’d split he was left with the lingering memory of Sarah.
He had a day’s leave starting this evening and he’d be meeting her at Liverpool Street train station. Usually if she came to the city she’d stay with her aunt, but tonight would be different. The thought of seeing her gave him renewed energy and he began to dig again almost cheerfully, suddenly not minding the cutting wind or the dust or the pain in his left forefinger where he’d wrenched it on a loop of wire the day before.
Paul’s heart filled with love and desire as he saw Sarah in the dim, evening glow of the station, alighting from the train, smart in a soft felt hat and belted coat, purposeful in her movements as she turned to help down an elegant old lady with her suitcase and summoned a porter to her. Then she spotted Paul and hurried towards him, her face open and alive. They clung together briefly and the warm, solid reality of her, her flowery scent, the sparkle of her kind eyes, made everything feel all right. They looked one another up and down and laughed.
‘Still the same Sarah?’ he teased. It was what he always asked.
‘Same as ever.’ Her habitual answer.
‘And I too.’ His anxiety was quelled, but not the thrill of nervous excitement.
He took her small case from her and waited while she located her ticket. ‘The journey was fine,’ she said in answer to his question as they walked together to the barrier. ‘That lady you saw me helping got on at Ipswich. She’s off to meet the man her parents wouldn’t let her marry forty years ago! She hasn’t seen him all that time, just think of that! It’s the war, you see. It brings people together as well as driving them apart.’
Paul smiled at her cheerfulness, but saw she was on edge, too. He steered her to the station café where, they agreed, they would sit in the warm fug to drink tea and discuss their plans for the evening. Inside it was so full, the windows had misted up. It smelled of frying and wet wool. Someone was leaving and they pounced on the table. Paul watched her bright face as she enquired of the waitress about cake, and with his eyes he traced the strong lines of her features, the pale shine of her wavy, shoulder-length hair, her wide-spaced gaze. It was impossible to see her without being assured of her honesty and reliability. She was his lodestone in a world in which he had lost his bearings. When she removed her gloves he captured her hands, touched to see that they were as calloused as his. He stroked her fingers tenderly.
‘You work too hard.’
‘So do you,’ she laughed. ‘You look so strong now. Stronger than ever, I mean.’
‘The work is not so bad.’ He’d decided not to complain. Their short time together mustn’t be wasted. ‘You look so well, a healthy colour. Tell me, how are your mother and sister?’
‘Oh, they send their regards.’
‘Even Diane?’
‘Of course.’
He laughed. It was a joke between them that Diane didn’t approve of him. Sarah insisted that this was nonsense. Paul suspected that she was wrong and she knew it.
‘How is she, Diane?’ he asked in a low voice, but at that moment the waitress arrived with a tray and began to lay out a piping hot teapot, cups and saucers and a plate of rather small and unappealing rock buns.
When she’d gone, Sarah said, ‘Let’s not talk about her now. Where are we going this evening?’
‘There’s a good little Italian place I know near Soho Square. I thought we could dine there. Then, well, I hope it’ll be all right, a friend gave me the name of a hotel in Kensington. The proprietress is a good sort, he says, very discreet.’
‘Oh, Paul.’ Sarah’s face was ashen. ‘You didn’t say anything to your pal about me?’
‘No, of course not! I said it wasn’t for me, that another friend wanted to know. Did you bring . . . ?’
She nodded, then dipped her left hand into her handbag. When she brought it out a plain gold band gleamed on her fourth finger. Seeing it there, he felt emotion rise in him, pride, yes, and a deep joy. Their eyes met, complicit.
‘Does your mother think you’re staying with your Aunt Susan?’
‘She didn’t ask. I don’t think she’d care at the moment, Paul.’
‘Every mother cares about her daughter.’
‘I think mine has given up on me. Last time we spoke about you she told me I was old enough to make my own mistakes.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘What did she mean by that?’
‘I think she understands that I won’t love anybody else. Ivor Richards was her last hope for me to do the conventional thing. The war has changed everything, she knows that. She’s more concerned about . . . well, Diane goes about in her own little world at the moment. She’s recovered from . . . you know, but she is so thin and so dull and quiet.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, peering up at her over his cup as he sipped his tea.
Sarah stirred hers thoughtfully.
‘I know I said we shouldn’t talk about my family, but everything seems to come back to them. I don’t seem to be able not to, Paul.’
‘Never mind.’ His cup clinked as he set it in the saucer, a lump of sadness swelling in his throat. ‘I wish I could forget mine, too.’
‘I’m sorry, that was insensitive of me. But you wouldn’t want to forget your parents, would you, not really.’
‘No, of course not. Sarah, do you believe you will see your father again? And your little brother? I can’t bear the thought that I won’t . . . see my parents, I mean. One of the men in my unit says that while you can remember them they’re still with you, but it’s that that brings the pain, isn’t it? Remembering.’
‘Yes, but it’s that which makes us higher than the animals, Paul. We can remember those we’ve lost and anticipate seeing them again. It’s like the seasons. After winter comes spring. It’s what gives our lives meaning.’
‘But what if there is no point to any of it and this world is all there is?’
‘Then we only have death and despair and I will not accept that. Paul, look at me.’ He raised his eyes to her face, saw the gravity in her eyes and it held him steady. ‘You must feel very alone, but you have me and you have a task to do. We can’t know what will happen, but we must trust that . . . we will endure.’
He reached and gripped her hand, feeling the ring on her finger, hard and warm. And once again he felt the strength in her pass into him and it calmed him.
‘You are so wunderbar, meine Liebchen,’ he whispered, leaning in towards her. And in the same hushed tones, ‘Are you finishing your rock cake or may I have it?’
‘I’m eating it myself, thank you,’ she said, with a toss of her head, and he laughed and reached and dabbed up a crumb before she could stop him.
‘Signore, signora, please, this way.’
The restaurant in Old Compton Street was charmingly eccentric, with a Union Jack hanging prominently above the bar and cheap prints of famous Italian landmarks on the walls. The very delightful moustachioed proprietor admitted them with a flourish and waved them into a cosy room full of tables laid with gingham cloths and candles stuck in Chianti bottles. It was early yet and there were only a few other diners. Paul and Sarah were briskly relieved of their coats and their luggage and ushered to a tiny table in the window. Candles were lit, menus thrust into their hands, aperitifs brought and orders for food taken.
‘For the wine, I have something verrry special. Verrry romantic. No, no, the price is reasonable.’ The man waved the matter of money away as though it were nothing.
When he’d left them, Sarah leaned forward to whisper, ‘This is lovely. How clever of you.’
‘It’s very bohemian, I hope that is all right.’
‘Very much all right. Listen!’ Strange accents floated out from the kitchen, laughter, and above it all a snatch of opera in a hearty tenor voice. The smell of smoky hot oil mixed with herbs wafted through the air. ‘Do you think they’re doing it on purpose?’ Sarah’s eyes were full of fun.
‘I expect so. We could be in Italy!’ Paul said, smiling.
‘It’s probably nicer to be here than Italy at present, don’t you think? With that nasty little Mussolini man in charge.’
A waiter arrived bearing plates, and the food was good, too, vegetable soup served with the freshest bread Paul had tasted for ages. The plat du jour was a rich stew described as alla romana, then for dessert there was some sort of creamy ‘shape’ that was several miles away from the insipid powdered egg version served up in the mess.
Paul laughed as Sarah’s eyes narrowed with pleasure at the taste. The dusty bottle of red wine the proprietor had decanted proved to be extremely decent, too, sweet and heady. He hoped he had enough money to pay for it.
They talked about Westbury. ‘There’s another land girl now,’ Sarah told him. ‘Rita. She’s only nineteen, very sweet, but she’s from the East End and doesn’t know one end of a cow from the other. I had to explain to her which was the bull.’
‘That could be dangerous for her. But I didn’t know there were cows now as well as the pigs.’
‘Yes, didn’t I write? Only a dozen. They’re dairy cattle. It was Major Richards’ idea. Harry Andrews’ father is helping us with them.’
‘Is there any news of Harry?’ Paul had liked what he’d seen of Harry. A good sort with none of what the English called ‘side’.
‘He’s with the regiment roaming the Scottish Highlands, I believe. Training new bugs. I don’t think he’s seen action since Dunkirk. Not from what his father says. I say, Ivor is in the same company; yes, I’m sure of it.’
‘I wish that I was with them,’ Paul growled, spooning up the last sweet scrapes of dessert before pouring more wine. ‘This really is very good.’
Sarah nodded, taking a sip from her glass. ‘And I’m glad you’re not with them, Paul. I couldn’t bear it if you were sent into danger.’
‘I know, my love, but I cannot help what I feel. Useless, a lesser man. I have written to the adjutant, you know, but all I received was an acknowledgement of my letter. It wasn’t even signed by him.’
‘Write again if you must, Paul. Though I wish you wouldn’t.’
‘I will. Do you think it would help if I wrote to Sir Henry too, asking him to provide a reference?’
‘I’m sure it couldn’t do any harm. Though if there are rules in place that debar you from fighting I don’t see how they would be able to accept you even with his support.’ Sarah spoke bitterly, as though such a rule was her last hope.
‘I am half-English, remember. It might make the difference.’
‘After all that you’ve gone through you say that?’
‘Yes, I know it hasn’t so far, but I am sure it was Sir Henry who put in a word for my release from internment and his word may carry weight in this, too. And if my letter to the regiment is eloquent enough.’
‘Let’s not talk about it any more,’ she cried, with distress. ‘I know it’s important to you, but I can’t bear it tonight.’
He reached for her hands and held them in both of his, kissed her fingers. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered. ‘I’m being selfish, I know, but I’m so tired of being second class. And I want to be a man worthy of you, Sarah.’
‘Fiddlesticks,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t care about all that.’
‘Well, I do.’ Paul signalled for the bill and was relieved to see how reasonable it was, even the wine. In gratitude he left a large tip.
Outside, as they picked their way through the jostling crowds in the moonless darkness, Sarah walked ahead, Paul stumbling clumsily behind. She was angry with him, he knew, but he also knew that there was nothing he could do about it. He was who he was and was determined on his course. He sensed, too, that she understood and she was principally angry with the situation, with the whole war, if you like.
After a few minutes they arrived at the Underground and Sarah fell back and took his arm. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. He hugged her and she buried her face in his neck and for a moment there was only the two of them, swaying gently in their own private dance. For a sweet moment, the bustling world around them fell away.
The hotel was in a shabby white stucco terrace behind South Kensington station. The street was dark and silent and only the shaded beam from Paul’s torch prevented them tumbling into a large hole in the pavement outside. Still, when they entered, the hallway was bathed in a cheerful glow and a vase of artificial flowers on the desk represented an attempt at a welcome. A bell summoned an ageing, vampishly dressed woman from a door at the back. As she presented the register for Paul to sign, she studied them with a benevolent expression. Then she reached for one of the keys hanging on a varnished rack behind her that had Welcome in several languages painted across the top. Next to it was a framed list of house rules, which he saw included the scrawled addition: If there’s no hot water, there is no hot water. This failed to dent Paul’s feeling of happiness. His nerves vibrated with energy like the strings of Horst’s violin.
‘Third floor, dearies,’ the woman said, fondling her carmine bead necklace. ‘Breakfast is at seven, but,’ her smile was kind, ‘tell you what, if you’re a little late down I’ll save you some.’
‘Thank you, ma’am,’ Paul mumbled in embarrassment. Up several flights of stairs they went, then he wrested open a door at the top, and they found themselves in a small chilly room with a sturdy-looking double bed, a chest of drawers with a jug and bowl on it, painted with flowers, and a matching chamber pot under the bed. The ceiling light didn’t work, but the bedside light did and cast a cosy yellow glow.
‘I’m sorry it’s so ordinary,’ Paul said, taking her in his arms. ‘I wish we had something more glamorous than this.’
‘It’s lovely, really.’ Sarah kissed him and smoothed the worried lines from his brow. He helped her off with her coat and it joined his on a hanger that clattered on the back of the door, then they sat together on the edge of the bed, knees touching, and he took her hand. After a moment he leaned over and found her lips with his and she stroked the soft skin of his cheek. He kissed her again, more deeply this time, and she kissed him back and he wrapped her tightly in her arms and drew her down onto the pillows. In the glow of the lamp her eyes gleamed hungrily for him and he felt for the buttons of her cardigan.
‘How does this work?’ he murmured, struggling with the belt of her skirt and she showed him, then helped him with the top button of her blouse.
She shivered in her underwear and he tucked her tenderly between the sheets before undressing himself. She watched, her eyes on the strength and sheen of the muscles of his chest and arms.
‘How did you do that?’ she whispered, nodding at the angry bruise running down his thigh.
‘It’s nothing.’ It was from a piece of falling masonry; he hardly felt it now. He went and lay beside her in his drawers under the bedclothes, one arm cradling her head. For a time, neither of them moved. They felt the beats of one another’s hearts, the warm smoothness of skin against skin, then gently he began to stroke her breast through her petticoat, eased the straps from her shoulders. Sarah sat up and lifted the shift over her head, making her hair crackle with static, but then she hesitated, crumpling the garment protectively across her caged breasts, and from the way she looked at him he knew she had something important to say, something she’d been dreading, but which she would not shirk from, not if there was to be complete honesty and openness between them. He waited, heart thudding.
‘Paul, I’ve been thinking how to say this.’ She paused. ‘It’s not my first time.’
He tensed, the hurt rising in his throat. Gently he disengaged himself and lay apart from her, the back of his arm resting on his forehead. He didn’t know what he’d expected, but not this. He sensed her rolling over, then she lifted his arm to see the expression in his eyes, must have read his pain and uncertainty. She snuggled down again next to him and lay staring at the ceiling as he was. There was a large patch of discolouration there, suggesting there had been a leak in the roof. He wondered if the water had dripped down through the mattress and to the floor beneath and tried to think what to say. He struggled to understand why what she’d said mattered, but eventually he did. He must make his own confession.
He turned his head to look at her and whispered, ‘I’m sorry, I should have imagined. We’re not so very young, there’s so much about you I don’t know. Please, don’t think I’m judging you, I only need to accommodate myself. It is mine, you see. My first time.’
She was silent and when he turned to her he saw her eyes were shining with unshed tears and his heart melted. What did it matter, after all? What she had done was long before he’d met her and now, seeing her sad, he felt confident again that he could make her happy. He smiled, and bent to kiss the tears away, then her arms were round his neck and they both laughed with the joy of each other. Gently he kissed her neck and his hand explored the soft fullness of her breasts. After that her body guided him in what to do.
Bright spring sunshine glowed through a gap in the blackout curtains by the time the lovers awoke. After they had visited the freezing bathroom down the landing and dressed, they went downstairs to find that their vampish landlady was as good as her word and brought them a rasher of bacon each and a mound of hot toast, which they devoured hungrily, trying not to giggle about her sentimental glances. She must really have taken a shine to them, for she agreed to look after their luggage while they spent much of the day visiting the Kensington museums and walking in the park, exhilarated by the blustery wind.
The time was all the more precious because it was about to come to an end.
‘This has been the most wonderful twenty-four hours of my life,’ Paul told Sarah as they strolled back to the hotel, her arm tucked in his.
She smiled up at him. ‘And mine,’ she said simply. It had taken time for him to realize that she did not express her feelings as easily as he, but he loved her for it. He loved everything about her: her neat, lithe figure, the way she wore her hat tipped back, ready to face the world, the generosity in her smile. He felt so proud to be walking with her on his arm and was dreading the moment of parting.
‘Goodbye,’ she said simply when she saw him onto his bus. His last view of her was as a brave, upright figure, her gloved hand raised in a wave, becoming smaller and smaller until a bend in the road hid her from sight.