Magnolia Square (19 page)

The urge to tug on Jack’s mate’s arm and give him a piece of her mind, died. It would only result in an ugly scene and she didn’t want to spoil Jack’s party. Nor did she
want to remain at the party any longer. She wanted to be at home with Leon. She looked down the crowded bar to where he was deep in conversation with Charlie and Harriet, his dear, dark face
looking tired and strained. She knew the reason why. It was because of their long discussion about how best to handle Joss Harvey’s reemergence in their lives.

‘He’s a mate,’ Kate heard Jack say to his friend as she turned away from them, ‘so give it a rest.’

As she squeezed past Malcolm Lewis, Kate felt a spasm of gratitude. Jack’s statement was a lie, for he barely knew Leon, but he was obviously taking the line that any husband of hers was a
friend of his. Word would now spread among his cronies that derogatory remarks about Leon were off-limits, and there wouldn’t be any – at least not in his hearing.

As she reached his side he slid an arm lovingly around her waist. ‘Hello, sweetheart. I thought you’d deserted me.’ Despite his inner dejection at the problems now facing them,
he smiled down at her, his eyes crinkling at the corners. ‘Harriet and Charlie have set the date for their wedding. They’re planning to have it on a weekday so that Billy won’t be
able to present Harriet with half a hundred weight of nutty slack for good luck!’

‘It’s going to be a quiet wedding,’ Harriet Godfrey said, striving to make herself heard over Mavis and Jack’s spirited rendering of ‘There’ll Always be an
England’.

Charlie shook his head in disbelief. For an intelligent woman, his Harriet could be incredibly naïve at times. ‘Don’t be daft, pet,’ he said reasonably, ‘this is
Magnolia Square. ’Ow the ’eck could anythin’ possibly take place quietly?’

It was a question even Harriet couldn’t answer.

‘Winkles!’
Albert shouted over the now communal singing. ‘If you want ’em, come and get ’em!’

‘I think I want to go home,’ Kate said to Leon as everyone began to make a bee-line towards Albert and his precious cargo. ‘Do you mind, darling?’

He shook his head, his arm tightening around her. ‘No,’ he said tenderly, ‘let’s slip away now. I don’t think we’ll be missed.’

‘If you ain’t got yer own winkle-pin, I’m not lendin’ yer mine,’ Miriam was saying crossly to her son-in-law. ‘Lor’ ’elp me, Danny, don’t
you ever get yourself organized?’

‘I ain’t ’ad a winkle since I can’t remember when,’ Mavis was saying with saucy sexual innuendo to Jack as he swung her down from the bar. ‘But if you think
it’s time I ’ad one . . .’

‘Never mind ’is winkle, I’ve got a winkle goin’ spare!’ Archie Cummings shouted.

There was a roar of bawdy laughter and then, as Kate and Leon stepped out of the pub and on to the street they heard Mavis saying tartly, ‘An’ you can keep it, Archie Cummings,
’cos from what I’ve ’eard, you’d need a pin to bloomin’ find it!’

The laughter reached gale-force proportions and then the pub door swung shut behind them and Leon said, amusement thick in his voice, ‘And Harriet’s hoping for a quiet wedding! She
doesn’t stand a cat in hell’s chance!’

Despite her inner weariness, Kate gave a throaty chuckle. ‘I think Charlie’s made her realize that.’

His arm went around her shoulders, and she slid an arm around his waist. ‘They’re an odd couple, aren’t they?’ she said, her weariness easing in the comfort of his
nearness. ‘Harriet was always such a prim spinster. Hair in a bun, no lipstick, always very authoritarian and proper. No-one
ever
called her by her Christian name. It would have been
unthinkable. And then, after she retired as a headmistress, she took it upon herself to teach Charlie to read, and suddenly the entire Square was on Christian-name terms with her and now
she’s not only drinking in The Swan, she’s joining in the singing too!’

‘Lots of happy, perfectly suited couples seem, on the surface, to be oddities,’ Leon said as, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, they turned the corner into the Square. ‘Take
you and me, for instance. I’m sure most people must shake their heads when they see us together, and wonder what a half-German south-east London girl and a half-Bajan sailor could possibly
have in common. And then there’s Christina and Jack. Christina’s German and Jewish and, though she never talks about it, she obviously comes from an extremely refined, middle-class
background. Jack is a south-east London tearaway. Lord only knows how he’s going to settle down to Civvie Street when he’s demobbed from the Commandos.’

Kate didn’t answer him. She was wondering a lot of other things about Jack. She was wondering how long it would be before Christina began confiding in him as a wife should confide in her
husband. And she was wondering what Jack’s reaction would be when she finally did so.

With an unsteady hand, Christina knocked on number four’s front door. The primrose paintwork gleamed palely in the moonlight, and as she waited for Carl Voigt to answer
her knock, Christina was aware of the heavy, pungent perfume of roses and night-scented stocks.

He opened the door to her, blinking slightly. As usual when left to baby-sit, he had taken advantage of the relative privacy to sit and enjoy one of his classical music records and had fallen
asleep whilst doing so. ‘Come in, my dear,’ he said, gathering his wits, ushering her through into the sitting-room as the sound of Bach’s
Brandenburg Concerto Number One
played melodically to a close. ‘Kate’s told you about the letter, has she? I was going to leave it to the morning to tell you about it.’ He smiled his reticent, oddly charming,
smile. ‘I knew it was Jack’s party tonight and I thought perhaps you wouldn’t want to be troubled.’

‘It’s no trouble.’ Her voice was nearly as unsteady as her hands had been. ‘What did the letter say? Are the Red Cross going to be able to help us? Do they have lists of
names of Displaced Persons? Lists of names of people who were released from, or who survived, the concentration camps?’

‘It’s not quite so simple and straightforward,’ Carl said, wanting to put her out of her suspense, yet wanting to let her down gently. ‘Here.’ He patted an
armchair. ‘Sit down and let me get my glasses and I’ll show the letter to you.’

In a fever of impatience, she sat down whilst he lifted the arm of the record-player from the record and set it back on its rest, and then fumbled for his glasses and the letter on a nearby
cluttered table. When at last he put the letter, with its distinctive letter-heading, into her hand, she was so nervous that her eyes would barely focus properly.

Dear Mr Voigt
, she read with a beating heart,
Thank you for your communication regarding your efforts to trace Jacoba Berger née Levy born London, 7.10.1870, and Eva Frank
,
née Berger, born 1.5.1901, Heidelberg. At the moment of writing, these names do not show up on any of the Displaced Persons files presently held in Great Britain. These files are,
however, constantly being updated and it does not mean to say that the names you enquired after will not appear eventually. Our advice would be to write again with your query in three months’
time.

As to your query regarding the availability of concentration camp records; some camp records are in our possession, but not for the years 1936/7.

It is known, however, that a significant number of people imprisoned during this period of time were later released.

If there is any chance at all that Jacoba Berger and Eva Frank were among them, and that they subsequently became refugees, the newly established Headquarters of the United
Nations High Commission for Refugees in Geneva may be able to help you.

In a rush of conflicting emotions, Christina put the letter down and looked across to where Carl Voigt was sitting. ‘Is it hopeful news?’ Somehow, even though there
was no real information about her mother or grandmother in the letter, just seeing their names typed on Red Cross headed notepaper seemed to make the hope that they were still alive more
feasible.

‘I think it is, yes,’ Carl said cautiously. ‘It’s certainly hopeful to have corroboration from such a source that German Jews imprisoned in 1936 stood a slight chance of
subsequent release. That certainly wouldn’t be the case if we were talking about a later date.’

‘And the United Nations Commission for Refugees? You will write to them for me?’

At the fraught urgency in her voice, Carl felt a wave of compassion for her, wishing he had warned Kate not to tell her about the letter so soon. Tomorrow would have been early enough. As it
was, her husband’s welcome home party had been spoiled for her, and all to no real avail. There was still nothing she could do but wait and hope, certainly for weeks, possibly for months.

‘I’ve already done so,’ he said gently. ‘Would you like a cup of cocoa, or are you impatient to get back to The Swan?’

‘I’d like a cup of cocoa, please,’ Christina said, in no hurry at all to return to the noisy, raucous pub.

As she watched Danny struggling, tipsily, to undress, Carrie lay back against the pillows on their big, brass-headed bed, her thoughts on Jack and Christina. Compared to her
and Danny, they were lucky. Very lucky. When Jack was demobbed and home for good, they would have number twelve all to themselves.

Danny, his right leg safely extricated from his trousers, tried to extricate his left leg and, in doing so, stood on his right trouser leg, half-falling against the bed. ‘Oops,’ he
said, grinning blearily at her from beneath his thatch of spiky, mahogany-red hair. ‘Someone’s moved the bloomin’ bed again.’

Despite her exasperation with him, Carrie grinned. He was an absolute idiot at times, trying to keep up with Jack’s hard-drinking mates when he knew very well that more than five pints
would see him half-seas over, but he was
her
idiot and she loved him dearly.

He sat down on the edge of the bed, embarking on the difficult task of pulling his pyjama bottoms on without putting both legs down the same pyjama leg. Carrie moved over slightly, making more
room for him, her thoughts once again on Jack and Christina. Number twelve was a large, roomy house. One day it would, presumably, be full of children, but for the moment Jack and Christina would
be able to enjoy it in absolute privacy. At the thought of such privacy Carrie felt weak with envy. She and Danny had never spent as much as one night together without being aware of the close
proximity, through the paper-thin walls, of her mum and dad and gran.

As if on cue, Miriam banged on the bedroom wall. ‘Yer dad’s flaked out without bringin’ any water up for durin’ the night, Carrie! Can yer bring ’im a pint mug in?
I’d do it, but me legs ain’t ’alf givin’ me gyp!’

Carrie rolled her eyes to heaven and heaved herself from the bed. After a few jars at The Swan, her dad always woke in the middle of the night with a thirst, and usually had the foresight to arm
himself accordingly. And she doubted very much that her mum’s legs were paining her. She was tight, that was all, and it was no wonder, considering the number of port and lemons she’d
downed!

‘Blimey, it ain’t mornin’ already, is it?’ Danny asked as, giving up the battle with his pyjama-cord, he sank back heavily against the pillows.

As she walked towards their bedroom door, her high-necked, white cotton nightdress brushing her ankles, she resisted the temptation to fib and cause even more confusion to his addled brain.
‘No,’ she said, opening the door. ‘I’m just going to get some water for Dad. Do you want me to get some for you as well?’

He didn’t answer and she paused in the doorway, looking towards him. He was dead to the world, his arms and legs spread-eagled, his eyes closed, his mouth sagging open. With rising
exasperation, she went downstairs to the kitchen. Men! If they knew how
unappetizing
they looked when drunk, they surely wouldn’t
get
drunk. As she slammed a cupboard door open,
taking her father’s pint mug down from a shelf, she wondered if Jack Robson and Leon Emmerson were equally comatose, and doubted it. Jack had an awesome reputation for being able to hold his
drink, and Leon had taken Kate home while the evening was still young.

She took the mug over to the sink and turned on the tap. When it came to housing, Kate and Leon were nearly as lucky as Christina and Jack. Apart from the children, who didn’t count, they
only had to share number four with Kate’s father, and in the near future he would be marrying Ellen Pierce. She brushed her unruly, near-black hair away from her face with her free hand. And
when Carl Voigt and Ellen Pierce married, Carl would most likely move into Ellen’s home in Greenwich, and Kate and Leon and their children would have number four to themselves.

There came the sound of heavy knocking again, this time from the direction of the kitchen ceiling.

‘Where the ’ell ’ave yer got to, Carrie!’
Miriam’s market-trading voice carried downstairs magnificently. She thumped the bedroom floor again with her shoe.
‘Yer dad’ll be wanting that pint of water tonight, not next Christmas!’