The Girl With No Name (65 page)
Read The Girl With No Name Online
Authors: Diney Costeloe
They had been speaking German and Billy had listened to the flow of conversation without understanding it, not the words, but he understood the import, from their voices and the way the colour drained from Charlotte’s face and her jaw set as she battled with unshed tears. He was holding her hand and her grip had tightened as she sat, ramrod-straight in the back of the car, and listened to what Nikolaus was telling her.
When at last he fell silent, the air in the car seemed stifling. Charlotte opened the door and got out. Billy followed her and waited as she leaned back into the car and said something else. Then she said, ‘Come on, Billy. She’s in here.’ And turning, she walked resolutely up to the front door and rang the bell.
A nurse led them along a corridor and stopped outside one of the doors. ‘She’s in here. She’s a little weak, today.’ She opened the door and said brightly, ‘Now then, Marta. Here’s your daughter come to see you.’
‘I’ll wait outside,’ Billy said, but Charlotte shook her head.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Come in with me. Please?’
Together they walked into the room. It was small, but it was filled with sunlight that streamed through a window overlooking the garden. The bed stood in the middle, a chair on either side, and on it lay an emaciated figure, scarcely bigger than a child. If Charlotte hadn’t known it was her mother, she wouldn’t have recognised her. Her limbs were skeletal, her face no more than a skin-covered skull. Wisps of thin grey hair clung to her head and her eyes, though open, were glazed and unseeing.
Charlotte stared at her for a long moment, stunned by what she saw, unable to take it in. Cousin Nikolaus had warned her that her mother was ill, but she wasn’t prepared for this. Tears sprang to her eyes, but she blinked them away. She had to be strong. She’d found her mother and she had to be strong for her.
She moved to the bedside and reached for the bony hand that lay above the covers.
‘Mutti?’ she whispered. ‘Mutti? It’s me, Lisa.’ Sitting down on the chair, she stroked her mother’s hand. There was no reaction from the tiny figure on the bed, but Lisa continued to speak to her, her voice soft and gentle. ‘Mutti, I’m here. It’s Lisa. I’ve come from London to find you and when you’re better, I’ll take you home.’
She continued to talk to her, just in case Mutti was somewhere inside this husk of a woman and could hear her. Softly, she told her about her life in England, about the Federmans, how they’d looked after her, how she’d been evacuated to Wynsdown, about Miss Edie’s kindness, how she was working in a children’s home. Once, just once, she felt a returning pressure from the hand she held. She looked into her mother’s face and saw a flicker behind the eyes.
‘Billy’s here with me,’ Charlotte told her. ‘He’s come all the way with me, to see you.’ She glanced across at Billy, who was standing by the window, the sun striking his fair hair, creating a halo round his head. ‘He’s been my good angel, Mutti.’
There was a movement from the bed and Charlotte looked back, just in time to see a moment of lucidity in her mother’s eyes and to hear the breathed word, ‘Lisa!’ And then the light went out. Marta Becker was gone.
Charlotte knew at once. Her mother had recognised her, and knowing she was alive, had simply let go, slipping away into merciful oblivion. Charlotte saw Marta’s face relax, the pain smoothed away in death, and caught a glimpse of the mother she’d last seen over six years ago. She sat dry-eyed, still holding Mutti’s hand for a long while before she gently released it and stood up. She held out her arms to Billy, standing so silently by the window, and he gathered her to him, his face resting against her hair.
The sun still streamed through the window, bathing the silent room in light and warmth, and for a long moment they stood together, before Charlotte looked up into Billy’s face and said, ‘Let’s go, Billy. It’s time to go home.’
The whole village had turned out to see them, to help celebrate the first Wynsdown wedding since the end of the war. The church, brilliant with dahlias and chrysanthemums, was full of excited, happy people. The autumn sun shone through the stained glass, casting patterns on the flagged floor, and there was an excited buzz of conversation in the congregation.
Billy stood nervously beside his best man, Malcolm, waiting for Charlotte to arrive. Behind him sat his parents and Jane. His mother beamed at everyone from under the brim of her new straw hat, his father, crammed rather uncomfortably into a suit, ran his finger round the collar of his new shirt and wished he didn’t have to wear a tie, but both were proud as Punch of their tall, handsome son, standing, waiting for his bride.
There was a stir at the back of the church as Naomi Federman came in, walking down the aisle to take her place in the front pew. Everyone wanted to see Charlotte’s foster mother, come all the way from Suffolk. As mother of the bride, she had been at Blackdown House, helping Charlotte into her wedding dress, the wedding dress Miss Edie had made so lovingly over twenty-five years earlier.
When she’d come down to Wynsdown on her return from Switzerland, Charlotte had unpacked it from the trunk and tried it on, and with a few alterations it fitted her perfectly.
‘Do you think she’d mind me wearing it?’ she’d asked Avril anxiously. ‘Miss Edie?’
‘No,’ Avril assured her with a smile. ‘I think she’d be delighted.’
‘You are lucky,’ Clare said enviously as she helped Naomi to arrange the veil over her dark hair. ‘No one has proper wedding dresses these days.’
‘You look beautiful, Lisa,’ Naomi said, tears in her eyes. ‘We’re all so proud of you. Your parents and Miss Edie would be, too. Your Billy’s a lucky man.’
Charlotte walked into the church on the arm of her foster father, Uncle Dan. As she paused at the door to greet the vicar, Clare straightened the skirt of her dress and, taking Nicky’s hand stood him in front of Charlotte.
‘Remember,’ she whispered, ‘just walk in front of Charlotte... Lisa, I mean... till she gets to the steps and then go and sit with your mum.’
Nicky nodded seriously, conscious of his special part in Lisa’s wedding. He was a page and that made him special. He’d even had new shoes for the occasion. He looked down at them, brown shining sandals on his feet, and beamed with delight.
The organ began to play and Billy turned to see his Charlotte walking slowly down the aisle on her uncle Dan’s arm, coming to be married, to him. Tears of joy filled his eyes and as Charlotte reached him and threw back her veil, he saw his own joy reflected in her face. Charlotte handed her bouquet to Clare, then turning back to Billy, she took his outstretched hand and they both stepped forward, ready to begin their life together.
~
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Diney Costeloe’s next book is coming in spring 2017
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The Throwaway Children,
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Gritty, heartrending and unputdownable – the story of two sisters sent first to an English, then an Australian orphanage in the aftermath of World War 2.
Rita and Rosie Stevens are only nine and five years old when their widowed mother marries a violent bully called Jimmy Randall and has a baby boy by him. Under pressure from her new husband, she is persuaded to send the girls to an orphanage – not knowing that the papers she has signed will entitle them to do what they like with the children.
And it is not long before the powers that be decide to send a consignment of orphans to their sister institution in Australia. Among them – without their family’s consent or knowledge – are Rita and Rosie, the throwaway children.
Belcaster 1948
Raised voices again. Rita could hear them through the floor; her mother’s, a querulous wail, the man’s an angry roar. For a moment she lay still in bed, listening. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it was clear that they were arguing.
Rosie, her sister, was peacefully asleep at the other end of their shared single bed, the stray cat, Felix, curled against her. She never seemed to wake up however loud the shouting downstairs. Rita slid out from under the bedclothes and tip-toeing across the room, crept out onto the landing. Limpid green light from a street lamp shone through the small landing window, lighting the narrow staircase. A shaft of dull yellow light, shining through the half-open kitchen door, lit the cracked brown lino and cast shadows in the hall. The voices came from the kitchen, still loud, still angry. Rita crouched against the banister, her face pressed to its bars. From here she could actually hear some of what was being said.
‘...my children from me.’ Her mother’s voice.
‘...another man’s brats!’ His voice.
Rita shivered at the sound of his voice. Uncle Jimmy, Mum’s new friend. Then Mum began to cry, a pitiful wailing that echoed into the hall.
‘For Christ’s sake!’ His voice again. ‘Cut the caterwauling, woman... or I’ll leave right now.’
A chair crashed over, and the shaft of light broadened as the kitchen door was pushed wider. Rita dived back into her bedroom, making the door creak loudly. She leaped into bed, kicking a protesting Felix off the covers and pulling the sheet up over her head. She tried to calm her breathing so that it matched Rosie’s, the peaceful breathing of undisturbed sleep, but her heart was pounding, the blood hammering in her ears as she heard the heavy tread of feet on the stairs.
He
was coming up.
‘Rita! Was you out of bed?’ His voice was harsh. He had not put on the landing light, and as he reached the top stair, Felix materialized at his feet, almost tripping him over.
‘Bloody cat!’ snarled the man, aiming a kick at him, but Felix had already streaked downstairs.
Jimmy Randall paused on the landing, listening. All was quiet in the girls’ room. Softly he crossed to the half-open door and peered in, but it was too dark to see anything, and all he could hear was the steady breathing of two little girls asleep.
Must have been the damned cat, he thought. Don’t know why Mavis gives it houseroom, dirty stray. If it was my house...
It wasn’t. Not yet. But it would be, Jimmy was determined about that. A neat little house in Ship Street, a terrace of other neat little houses; well, not so neat most of them, unrepaired from the bombing, cracked windows, scarred paintwork, rubble in the tiny gardens, but basically sound enough. Jimmy wouldn’t mind doing a bit of repair work himself, provided the house was his at the end of it. His and Mavis’s, but not full of squalling kids. All he had to do was get his name on the rent book, then he’d be laughing.
Rita heard him close the door but lay quite still in case it was a trick, in case he was standing silently inside the room waiting to catch her out. It was a full two minutes before she allowed herself to open her eyes into the darkness of her room. She could see nothing. Straining her ears she heard his voice again, not so loud this time, and definitely downstairs.
For a while she lay in the dark, thinking about Uncle Jimmy. He had come into their lives about two months ago, visiting occasionally at first, smiling a lot, once bringing chocolate. It was for Mum really, but she’d let Rita and Rosie have one piece every day until it had gone. But Rita was afraid of him all the same. He had a loud voice and got cross easily.
Rita wasn’t used to having a man in her life. She hardly remembered her daddy. Mum said he had gone to the war and hadn’t come home. He had gone before Rosie was even born, fighting the Germans. Rita knew he had been in the air force, flying in a plane high over Germany, and that one night his plane hadn’t come back. There was a picture of her daddy in a silver-coloured frame on the kitchen shelf. He was wearing his uniform and smiling. Wherever you moved in the kitchen, his eyes followed you, so that wherever she sat, Rita knew he was smiling at her. She loved his face, his smile making crinkles round his eyes and his curly fair hair half-covered with his air force cap. Rosie had the same sort of hair, thick and fair, curling round her face. Rita’s own hair was like Mum’s, dark, thin and straight, and she always wished she had hair like Rosie’s... and Daddy’s.
