The Londoners (6 page)

It was so unexpected a speech that Kate felt momentarily robbed of breath. She looked across at him, her eyes wide, realizing in stunned surprise that there was a great deal more to Jerry Robson
than met the eye. Regret shot through her. It was a realization that had come too late. If he was going to Spain there was no telling how long he might be away for. Hoping with passionate intensity
that he would return home safe and uninjured and wanting to prolong the conversation, she said, ‘Do you know that the Jennings family have taken in a German-Jewish refugee?’

He nodded. ‘Jack was walking past the Jennings’ house the evening she arrived.’ His face split into a sudden grin. ‘He’s been pretty smitten ever since and
he’s hoping she’ll be here this afternoon.’

‘She is,’ Kate said, intrigued at the thought of Jack Robson falling for the Jennings’s guest even before he had spoken to her. ‘And I think his luck is in. I can see
Carrie’s mum and dad and a dark-haired girl over at the archery ground.’

Ahead of them, across a scenic stretch of green turf, the archery target had been set up well away from the stalls and donkey circuit. Albert Jennings, his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows,
his beer-belly protruding over the top of his trousers, was perspiringly pulling back the string of a large bow.

‘Come on Albert, it’s only a bow and arrow when all’s said and done,’ Carrie’s mother was saying exasperatedly. ‘I could do better with two broken
arms.’

Beside her a dark-haired girl watched, a bemused expression on her face. She was ethereally slender, verging almost on the malnourished, and there was a disturbing air of frailty and
vulnerability about her. Kate’s first reaction was surprise that Jack should have been so drawn towards her and then, as they drew nearer, she understood. Christina Frank was beautiful. Tiny,
delicate features graced a face filled with enormous dark eyes and a gently curving mouth.

‘Jack Robson,’ Jack was saying to her without waiting for Carrie’s mother to introduce him. ‘I saw you in the street the night you arrived.’

A few feet away from them, Albert Jennings let his arrow fly free. It soared, but not in the right direction.

‘Lord help us, Albert!’ Miriam protested. ‘Another few yards and you’d have done for one of the donkeys!’

Albert took no notice of her. Wiping the perspiration from his forehead with a large handkerchief, he said bluntly to Jack, ‘I thought you’d buggered off to Spain.’

Well aware that it was his obvious interest in Christina that had put Albert’s back up, Jack grinned. ‘Not me, Albert. You’re thinking of Jerry and he doesn’t go till
tomorrow.’

Sensing that her father was about to suggest to Jack that he accompany Jerry, Carrie said hastily, ‘Christina hasn’t been introduced to anyone.’

Without waiting for anyone else to do so, she proceeded to introduce Christina to Jerry and Danny, saying finally, ‘And this is Kate, my best friend.’

Christina smiled a little shyly at Kate. ‘I’m very pleased to meet with you,’ she said in carefully rehearsed English and with a very heavy German accent. ‘You are going
on the trip to Folkestone, yes?’

‘Yes,’ Kate said, shaking her hand warmly. ‘Welcome to England, Christina.’

‘Thank you,’ Christina said simply. ‘It is good to be here. Very good.’

As their eyes held, Kate saw with a stab of shock that Christina’s brave, shy smile was not reflected in her eyes. They were dark with grief and suffering – and stoic resignation.
Immediately her thoughts flew to Christina’s mother and grandmother. Only her father had wondered about their whereabouts. Was the reason they, also, had not requested help from the Jennings
family because they were being held in a Nazi concentration camp? Were they perhaps dead?

With a heart full of compassion, she squeezed Christina’s hand wishing she could say something comforting, knowing that anything she said would be hopelessly trite and inadequate.

‘Come on boys,’ Miriam Jennings said robustly to Danny, Jack and Jerry. ‘Show us what you’re made of and try and get an arrow into the bull’s-eye. The Vicar’s
already shot one in so it can’t be that hard!’

Everyone laughed, even Christina, and for the next hour Danny, Jerry and Jack vied with each other for the highest score. It was Jerry who won and Jerry who, later on in the afternoon, won the
official archery competition.

When the vicar’s wife graciously presented him with the prize of a teddy bear, he turned to Kate, handing it to her and saying with a grin she found quite heart-stopping, ‘Look after
him for me. I won’t have much use for him in Spain.’

Later, still remaining together in a group that included Christina, they strolled over to the cricket pitch that Kate’s father and Nibbo had marked out earlier in the day.

As they sat on the grass calling out encouragement to whoever was batting, Carrie’s hand rested snugly in Danny’s, Jack sat as close to Christina as was humanly possible and Jerry
chatted almost exclusively to Kate.

Years later Kate had only to close her eyes and she could conjure up every detail of that sun-scorched, carefree afternoon. Her father, a panama shading his head from the sun, batted as if his
life depended on it. Nibbo shouting, ‘Well played, sir! Well played!’ Mavis’s euphoria as she told them that Beryl had won the Bonny Baby Competition. The universal amusement when
Charlie Robson won the raffle and was obliged to accept the teddy bear prize from the vicar. It had seemed as if the only cloud marring the day was Jerry’s imminent departure for Spain. Then
the cricket match had ended. They had all walked over to the tea-tent. And her father and the rest of the cricket team had joined them.

‘You put up a good show out there, Carl,’ Albert said, his shirt open almost to the navel, a pint pot of steaming tea in one hand, a buttered scone in the other. ‘I thought the
last ball you hit was going to reach Dover!’

‘You haven’t introduced Christina,’ Carrie said to her father as Miss Helliwell squeezed past them, a flamboyant scarf worn exotically gypsy-fashion.

‘Why all the fuss about introductions?’ her father grumbled in mock exasperation. ‘It ain’t a Buckingham Palace garden party!’

Carrie raised her eyes to heaven and took the honours on herself, ‘Christina, allow me to introduce you to Mr Voigt. Mr Voigt is Kate’s father and captain of the pub cricket
team.’

Carl took hold of Christina’s outstretched hand. ‘I’m very pleased to meet you,’ he said in German. ‘Welcome to England.’

Christina froze, ‘You’re German?’ she said uncertainly. ‘Jewish? You’re a refugee also?’

‘I’m not Jewish and not a refugee,’ Carl said as Hettie Collins pushed through the throng towards them. ‘But I am German. I was born in Heidelburg.’

Christina snatched her hand from his grasp as if from a fire and then, in front of all his neighbours and the entire pub cricket team, she spat full in his face.

JULY
1938

‘It’s going to be a lovely sunny day for tomorrow’s wedding,’ Miss Pierce, Personnel Officer, said to Kate as they walked out of the forecourt of
Harvey’s head office.

Kate found Miss Pierce nearly as daunting as Miss Godfrey and in her eighteen months at Harvey’s had never got beyond exchanging polite pleasantries with her. The only reason a hint of
familiarity had now entered their conversation was that she had been obliged to make arrangements with Miss Pierce for a day’s unpaid absence.

‘I know it’s a bloomin’ nuisance,’ Carrie had said to her when she had asked her to be her bridesmaid, ‘but Danny’s leave is from Wednesday to Friday and so
we have to be married on a weekday. Dad’s pleased, of course. It means he won’t have to miss a Saturday’s trading.’

Kate said now, as she and Miss Pierce stepped out into the steep street that ran up alongside Greenwich Park to the Heath, ‘The long-term weather forecast has been a relief to Carrie. She
was certain the heatwave was going to break on her wedding morning.’

‘There’s absolutely no chance of that,’ Miss Pierce said confidently, pausing on the pavement before turning and making her way down the hill towards Greenwich. ‘Enjoy
your three day break. Next week is going to be
very
hectic. It’s never easy having Mr Harvey in the office and with his grandson joining us next week he’s bound to be calling
in.’

‘I’m not sure I’ve understood just why Mr Harvey’s grandson is going to be working in the office,’ Kate said, genuinely puzzled. ‘It obviously isn’t
because he needs a job.’

Miss Pierce’s thin mouth twitched in amusement. ‘Goodness me, no. Harvey’s is a family firm and Mr Joss Harvey is obviously preparing his grandson for the day when the company
will be his responsibility.’

‘And so he wants him to spend some time in each department? Sales? Accounts? Marketing?’

‘Exactly. It’s becoming an old-fashioned concept that the head of a large company should be familiar with the mundane day-to-day running of that company, but then Mr Harvey is
old-fashioned.’

It was the longest conversation that had ever taken place between them and both of them were rather surprised by it.

‘Have a nice day tomorrow,’ Miss Pierce said, realizing that she was on the verge of committing what was, in her eyes, the cardinal sin of gossiping about her employer. ‘Give
my best wishes to the bride.’

‘I will. And thank you for arranging the day off for me.’

With a gratified smile, Miss Pierce continued on her way down into Greenwich and Kate began to walk up the hill. She had known ever since the day of the fête, nearly two years ago, that
Carrie intended marrying Danny but it still seemed incredible to her that the wedding was actually going to take place; that it was only hours away. She knew that she should be looking forward to
it, but she couldn’t help feeling a pang of regret. No matter how Carrie might deny it, their friendship would never be quite the same after she married Danny. There would be no more going to
dances together; no more spending all their free time together.

As she neared the Heath she scolded herself for her selfishness. Carrie hadn’t the faintest shadow of doubt that her future happiness lay in marriage to Danny. Tomorrow was going to be a
joyous occasion and there had been far too few such occasions of late. Reflecting back on the events of the last two years she shuddered. Ever since the traumatic scene between her father and
Christina at the church fête, hideousness had followed hideousness.

A month after leaving England for Spain, Jerry Robson had been killed fighting for the Republican side against Franco’s Nationalists in a small Spanish town no-one had even heard of.

‘Badajoz,’ a grief-stricken Charlie Robson had said, pronouncing the name with great difficulty. ‘Jerry died in a place called Badajoz.’

His stunned incredulity had been heartrending. Even worse had been the knowledge, a month later and care of the Foreign Office, that Jerry had not died in battle but had been one of hundreds of
disarmed militiamen who had been rounded up by the Nationalists and slaughtered in the city’s bullring.

Kate had sat on her bed for a long time after hearing the news, her arms around the teddy bear he had given her. They had spent only one afternoon together and that had been in the company of
his brother and Danny and Carrie and Christina. They had never kissed, never even held hands, yet she knew that in those few hours together at the fête he had become as suddenly aware of her
as she had of him.

When she finally rose to her feet and put the teddy bear back on her dressing-table, his orange-gold fabric fur was wet with her tears. She wouldn’t forget Jerry. Not ever. And she
wondered if Miss Helliwell had seen his death when she had read her palm and if that was the reason she had been so disconcerted and had brought her palm-reading to such an abrupt end.

The news continued to be as grim in the rest of the world as it was in Spain. In November, Hitler and Mussolini signed a formal pact agreeing that in future they would hunt as a pair.

In the New Year the international situation had become so perilous that the British government announced it was aiming to treble the strength of the air force via a massive recruiting drive. By
the end of the year gas masks had been issued to all London schoolchildren and practice gas-mask drill had become compulsory.

‘Do you think it’s really going to come to a shindig with old Hitler?’ Hettie Collins had asked her one day in the street. ‘Mr Nibbs says it’s bound to and
he’s digging an air raid shelter into his garden. Can’t say I’d want to go down into one of ’em myself. It’d be like being buried alive.’

Kate didn’t fancy the thought either but her father thought it was a precaution they should take and in the spring of 1939 she helped him dig an Anderson shelter into what had once been
his prized back lawn.

It was hard physical work and by the time they had finished her father was exhausted.

‘I’ll make you a cup of tea,’ she had said, disturbed by the extent of his weariness and knowing it was a weariness that went far deeper than temporary physical tiredness.

Ever since Christina had spat at him there had been a change in him. Always a quiet man, he had become even quieter and more withdrawn. Everyone had assured him, of course, that it was an
incident he shouldn’t take to heart; that Christina’s action was understandable after the horrors she had endured at German hands.