The Very Thought of You (2 page)

Roberta’s nerves and Anna’s excitement meshed into mutual high spirits as they strolled through the penny arcades, just for the fun of it, before reaching Pontings, the famous drapers, with its fluted pillars and white-iron galleries.

This was Anna’s favourite shop, an Aladdin’s cave of coloured cloths and trimmings, laden with rolls of silk and swathes of
damask. On the ground floor, beyond the hanging boas, she chose herself a white handkerchief starred with violets.

“
Thank
you,” she said, kissing her mother.

While Roberta queued to pay, Anna glanced upwards to the bright atrium above, where sunshine streamed through the stained-glass flowers in rays of coloured light. Anna’s eyes swam around the shop, with its reams of ribbons and baskets of glinting buttons, brass, silver, mother-of-pearl. The sounds of the shop receded as the dream light washed through her until, for a moment, she vanished from herself.

“You can carry your package, my darling,” said her mother, breaking her reverie. Anna sprang to attention, and was the first out of the shop, planning the next purchase. At Woolworth’s they bought a small cardboard case and luggage labels for Anna’s journey, then they crossed the road to look for shoes.

Shiny brown lace-ups they bought, at Barkers. They smelt new and luxuriant. They reminded Anna of her father in his uniform, with his big black boots. She and her mother had seen him off a month ago, just after her eighth birthday; he had swung her right round when she hugged him goodbye. Sometimes he sent her letters with funny drawings, describing his army drills. She wasn’t really worried about him, because it was common knowledge that most of Hitler’s tanks were made of cardboard.

“Britain has the greatest empire in the world, so the war won’t last long,” she announced to the bespectacled lady who fitted her shoes.

Then mother and daughter were out on the street again. It was time for Anna’s promised treat: a knickerbocker glory. She had seen American films in which children sat at counters, with ice creams in tall glasses. That was her dream.

Roberta led the way through the art-deco splendour of Derry and Tom’s department store, along lavish blue carpets, whisper-quiet, until they reached a wall of lifts and stepped into a cool chamber of copper and nickel.

“Fifth Floor, ladies and gentlemen, world-famous Roof Gardens,” chanted the liveried lift boy. The gardens had opened with much fanfare a year ago, but they had never visited: it was too dear.

But today was special, and they emerged to glittering sunlight amidst the rooftops of Kensington. Before them, a profusion of fowers stretched away on every side, outstripping all their hopes. There was a Spanish garden, with a terracotta Moorish tower, and tumbling bougainvillea. Beyond, through a winding courtyard, they found themselves in a water garden of lily pads with a hint of gleaming carp. Another turn took them through dainty Elizabethan arches with climbing roses.

They found their way to the café, with tables set out beneath striped umbrellas, and a fountain tinkling nearby. From the tall menu Anna picked her ice cream with care: vanilla and chocolate, topped with cream and cherries and nuts. To her mother’s relief, she did not seem disappointed when the towering confection arrived.

A small palm-court band played familiar melodies, muting any sound from the streets below. The unreality of the place and the peculiar occasion of their visit only increased their light-headed pleasure in each other.

“Before today, have you ever sat in a garden in the sky?” asked Anna.

“Never,” laughed her mother, “nor would I want to, without you here too.”

“When I get home again, can we come back here?”

“Of course, sweetheart.”

“With Daddy too?”

“
For sure
,” said Roberta, and clasped her daughter’s hand.

Later, when the ice cream was finished, and the teacups empty, and the garden’s secrets all explored, they set off together, subdued, for home.

It was not until they reached the store’s entrance lobby that Anna admitted the one shadow lurking over her day: she had no bathing costume.

Anna had seen the newsreels about evacuation, and they all showed children travelling westwards, to the seaside, to Devon and Cornwall. She longed to join them, but feared that with all they had spent today a bathing costume would be one item too many to ask for.

“But how will I swim?” she blurted out.

Roberta paused to hear her child’s fumbled request, and knew at once that she must keep this afternoon intact, not scupper her daughter’s hopes. Back to the lifts they went, and up to the sporting department. With abandon, Roberta spent two shillings on a blue striped bathing costume, and saw her daughter’s face shine with pleasure. It was more than she meant to pay, but it perfected the afternoon. Then they set off for the underground station, united in satisfaction.

As Anna skipped ahead, Roberta rejoiced in her daughter, knowing that she was bright and resourceful, with an uncluttered face easily lit by smiles. That tiny gap between her front teeth gave her a frank charm.

They clattered down the station steps, Anna always in front. A train rolled in and opened its doors, and passengers stepped past them. Suddenly, on the half-filled platform, Roberta found herself brimming over with love for her straw-haired child.

“Anna—” she said, and Anna turned, her eyes bright and clear. In that instant, Roberta sensed the spontaneous rise
of her daughter’s soul, which had flickered to life in her eight years before. She reached out for her daughter and held her fast in her arms. For a moment, they could feel each other’s heartbeats.

“I love you, my darling,” said Roberta, stroking her daughter’s hair.

Anna looked up at her mother with unblinking eyes.

In the years to come, she would remember that fragile day, its touchless light, their quiet elations.

2

Warsaw, 1st September 1939

Inside the Warsaw Embassy, Sir Clifford Norton had been up most of the night; now he watched a pale-blue dawn that was serenely oblivious to their troubles. Vaguely, he realized that the last summer of the decade was over.

All night his staff had been working in shifts, everyone engaged in these final frantic negotiations to stave off war. Typists had been rattling away, telephones ringing, messengers coming and going, even his wife had been there with her small portable typewriter, encoding and deciphering telegrams.

Danzig
,
Danzig
,
Danzig
was the word on every letter and report. The Polish port had rapidly grown from a place to a principle, Norton refected, as Hitler demanded its release into the Reich. Now they were facing a diplomatic deadlock, and the embassy was on emergency alert. But at this early hour, some of the staff were still napping on camp beds, and Norton was alone in his office waiting for the next round of telegrams from London.

Suddenly craving the new day, he pushed his curtains right back until he could feel the arrival of daylight, subtle, spreading, now obscuring his desk light. The brightness cheered him; there was still a time for spurious delight.

The eerie disquiet of these last summer weeks had been contagious. Warsaw was gripped by a strange
Totentanz
, the restaurants overflowing with odd gaiety and the hotels thronged with journalists firing off telegrams and spreading rumours. The shops had run out of sugar and candles, and the Poles had been burying their silver and crystal in gardens and parks.

The telephone on his desk rang, startling him. 5.45 a.m. It was the Consul in Katowice.

“The Germans are in. Tanks over the border at 5 a.m.”

The news struck Norton distantly, as if it was a piece of history which might roll past him if he stepped aside. This was the moment they had all been waiting for, yet it had never seemed inevitable.

Norton had not yet put on his shoes. The floor beneath his feet seemed to push upwards, hard. He felt as if he were living in the third person. He put down the telephone and spurred himself into mechanical action, cabling the news to London, rallying his staff.

In the embassy, people came and went as if in a dream. Only a few hours ago they were still negotiating the price of peace, they thought, but Hitler had outmanoeuvred them all.

At 6 a.m. Norton heard an air engine and went out onto the embassy balcony. Straight ahead in the clear sky, he watched a German fighter plane swooping over the Vistula. Sirens wailed, and there was a boom of anti-aircraft guns. Ahat was a shock; the frst air raid in Warsaw so soon. War had reached them already.

3

London, 1st September 1939

Anna lay on her back, suspended in the stillness of sleep. Roberta sat on the bed and smoothed back her daughter’s hair until she opened her eyes.

They both smiled, then Anna reached out her hand
.

There had been so many things to prepare for the evacuation. They had already picked up the new gas mask, in a box you could carry over your shoulder. The previous evening, Roberta had carefully packed Anna’s case with three changes of clothes and her wash things. And her bathing costume, of course. Her mother also produced a surprise book as a special treat. Into this she had slipped a loving letter and a family photograph.

Roberta had stowed the food in an extra bag, because she didn’t want Anna to open her case and have everything else fall out. There was a tin of evaporated milk, some corned beef, two apples and a bar of chocolate. There was also a luggage label with Anna’s name and school on it, and her age.

“A label, round my neck?” asked Anna, surprised. It felt strange, the itchy string against her skin.

Anna had already decided not to take her teddy with her, in case anyone laughed at him. So she propped Edward on her pillow and kissed him goodbye.

“I won’t be long,” she promised him.

Roberta was so anxious as she fed her daughter that she had no chance to feel sentimental. But she was careful to be loving, not impatient, as they put on their coats and left their Fulham house. There was little time for Anna to look back at the green front door and be sad.

But as they walked together towards the school, both of them began to feel the ache of parting. The coming separation made Roberta breathless – it would be several days before she could know where Anna had been sent. She thought with dread of some dismal, dirty house.

“You
must
keep your hands clean,” she said.

Walking along in the cloudy sunshine, war seemed remote and unimaginable. Roberta wondered how she could be doing this to her beloved daughter. Perhaps war would not touch them. Perhaps it would not happen. Would any German planes really fly as far as London?

After her husband joined up, her first thought had been to leave the city with Anna. But they had no family outside London, nor the means to move. So, like other reluctant mothers, she had signed up for the evacuation scheme: all the parents at Anna’s school had been urged to take part. At first she had thought she could go with Anna, but was later informed that only nursing mothers would be able to stay with their children. It’ll only be temporary, Roberta told herself.

Anna, meanwhile, had no such trepidation. She assumed that all the evacuees would be going to the seaside, like a holiday. She had only ever been on a beach once before, at Margate, and she was longing to run through wet sand again. And now she had her own bathing costume, packed and ready.

She was expecting adventure; she had read so many fairy tales that she longed to set out into the world alone. Like Dick Whittington. The long road, the child with a small case, it seemed only natural.

Her shoes were polished, her socks were clean. She carried her kit with pride. She did not fear parting, her mother’s face felt closer than her pulse. She could not yet imagine any rift.

Beneath the red-brick gaze of the old Victorian school they joined an uneasy crowd of mothers, fathers, children, all there to say farewell. Children were crying, some of them howling. Mothers also were weeping. A sudden sadness washed over Roberta, though she and Anna were too resolutely independent to make any public display of sentiment. But still Roberta’s resolve wavered. She sought out a head teacher to ask where the children would be going.

“Buses will take them to St Pancras station.”

“Can we go with them there?”

“No, I’m sorry,” he said defensively, “you must say goodbye here.”

There was a long wait in the school yard, and children sat on the ground, yawning. Roberta and Anna stood together, not saying much, just holding hands. Soon they were organized into class lines, with teachers ticking names on clipboards. Roberta was proud that Anna looked so pretty, so bright and fresh.

She could always take her back home again.

Suddenly the buses arrived, coming on from another school in World’s End. Before Roberta had the chance to change her mind and retrieve her child, the crowd’s momentum had swept Anna’s class forwards. Without a backwards glance, Anna hurried to find a seat. She put down her bags and realized that, after so much waiting, she had hardly said goodbye to her mother. She pressed her face to the window.

There she was below, looking up at her – gleaming brown hair, and a smile meant for her alone, wishing her every joy and all good things.

“Goodbye, Mummy!” called Anna, through the glass. Suddenly, she began crumpling inside as she fixed her gaze on her mother. She could feel the pull of her mother’s eyes right through her – until she was going, gone, and Anna was away on her journey.

She sank down in her seat. The bus had a sour smell of stale cigarettes which made her nauseous. She yawned in the heat; there wasn’t much air. She felt odd – excited and suspended in a strange new world, where anything might happen. She did not miss her mother yet, because she was still so firmly rooted inside her – her face, her voice, her touch.

But for Roberta the separation was immediate. She walked back home from the school feeling limp, like a wilting plant. The trees she passed looked parched and weary, and the pavement was cracked beneath her feet. The dryness of late summer was all around her, and the streets seemed unnaturally deserted.