Somewhere Over England Read online

  Helen rang the door bell because she was not allowed a key. Her hands were cold now and the porch seemed foreign to her. There was a broken tile in the right-hand corner, and the lead which swept upwards on the stained glass window was thinner at the top and cracked with age.

  The door was opening and her mother stood motionless, her smile fixed, her hair newly permed. Helen could smell it from here. It was crimped and tight, hard like her mother’s eyes as they looked past her.

  ‘Mother, I’d like you to meet Heine.’ She could only move slightly aside in the cramped porch but her mother had not yet opened the door wide enough for them to enter.

  ‘Heine, this is my mother, Lydia Carstairs.’

  ‘Mrs Carstairs,’ her mother said, still with a fixed smile. ‘How do you do. You had better come in.’ She shook Heine’s outstretched hand but looked at Helen. ‘Go through to the dining-room.’

  They walked down the dark hall and through the first door and Helen wished that she had been able to be honest with her mother. She had wanted to tell her that Heine was her life now, that at lunchtimes she had been walking in the park or sitting in a Lyons Corner House with him but she had been unable to. She had been too afraid that it would all end, that she would not be strong enough to fight for him.

  She heard her mother go on into the kitchen. She could hear the kettle humming through the hatch, then its whistle, abruptly halted as her mother lifted it from the gas and poured water into the teapot. It would be the silver one, she knew.

  Helen smiled at Heine who raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Do sit down,’ she said and wondered why she whispered.

  ‘Did your mother not know of my existence?’ Heine also spoke quietly, his face serious.

  Helen flushed. ‘You don’t understand how difficult it can be. I am all she has. She depends on me too much.’ She was still whispering. She rubbed at her hands, at the lichen dust, the dirt from the stone parapet, the bark stain.

  ‘My darling girl, you are not that frightened of the situation are you, or of her reaction? I didn’t realise.’ His voice dropped almost to nothing. ‘I should not have put you in this position, you are too young, too fresh.’

  Helen caught one of his hands. ‘I am not too young. Just nervous, that’s all. It needs to be put to her gently.’ Her voice was still a whisper but she must not think of herself as frightened or she would be lost.

  ‘Then I will be careful, but I just wish it need not be this way. There seems to be no end to obstruction.’ His voice was still low but it now sounded tired. ‘Go and wash your hands now, leave me alone with her for a while.’ He kissed her hand, holding it to his mouth for a moment. ‘And now I have dirt on my lips?’

  ‘No, my love.’

  In the bathroom Helen scrubbed her hands and then her nails and soap sprayed on to her pink blouse and even when she wiped it with the towel the marks still showed. He had spoken to her as though she were a child and she was, inside she still was. He was right, she was frightened; so frightened that it would all be destroyed, that he would go and leave her here with her mother. Alone with her mother whose voice was not kind, whose hands had never shown her the stream but had pushed her into the darkness.

  She held the towel to her face. She must not cry, she never cried, and today if she did it would show in her eyes and her mother would say that all men did this to you; that mothers were the best companions. She looked in the mirror, she could not go down yet. She opened the window and stared out across the garden, across the fields they had just passed through, breathing in the spring air, letting the breeze cool her face.

  They were both sitting at the table when she re-entered, her mother pouring tea from the silver pot.

  ‘So your father is a solicitor, is he?’ she was saying, her face stretched into a smile. ‘And you have a studio just a few yards from the Underground station. Cannon Street did you say? Alton Mews? Most convenient.’ She turned to Helen. ‘Do take a scone, Helen. Heine says that he has not tasted anything like them ever.’

  ‘Indeed they are quite delicious, Mrs Carstairs.’ Heine smiled at Lydia and then at Helen. ‘Really, Helen, you did not tell me you had such a talented mother. I should have insisted on visiting you before at this …’ he paused and looked around the room. ‘At this comfortable and tranquil home.’

  Helen watched her mother smile, not at her but at Heine. She could see that he had already eaten three sandwiches and she knew he did not like egg.

  ‘Yes, my father is a solicitor and of course is kept extremely busy. And my mother too because unfortunately our home is not as cosy as yours. It is big, too big.’

  Helen watched as her mother looked again at Heine, her face thoughtful, but Helen knew she was just waiting.

  ‘And how large is your studio in London, Mr Weber?’

  ‘It is integrated into the flat I have. There is a pleasant garden and in the flat there is a spare room for guests. And of course I am not very far from Waterloo.’

  ‘And they’re bringing those new trolley buses in soon, aren’t they, the ones they use in Yorkshire? You know, Helen, those trackless trams. They’re cheaper, the paper says, and don’t interfere with the traffic so much. That will make it easier for you won’t it, Mr Weber? For your business?’

  ‘You are quite correct, Mrs Carstairs,’ Heine took a sip of tea from the bone china cup with pink flowers. Her mother’s best, Helen noticed. He set the cup carefully in the saucer, before looking up at Helen and her mother.

  Helen also looked at her mother who was patting her mouth with her napkin then back at Heine. His smile was sincere, his voice anxious. She felt warmth flood over her. Perhaps it would be all right. Perhaps Heine was going to make her like him.

  ‘Helen, the meringues are on the kitchen table. Now pass me your cup and I shall refill it for you, Mr Weber.’

  Helen rose, looking from her mother to Heine. It would not be all right. She understood her mother’s words. Helen carried the plate back into the room together with the silver-plated cake tongs and placed it beside her mother. She could not look up.

  ‘Now tell me more about yourself, Mr Weber,’ her mother asked as she chose the largest meringue for Helen and placed it carefully on a small white plate and then passed one to Heine. ‘I think from your accent you must be Dutch.’

  Heine did not falter, he did not look at Helen who had stopped and turned. Her chair was still two paces away from her.

  ‘I was born in Germany, Mrs Carstairs.’

  Her mother held the plate quite still, her fingers whitening. She said nothing but she smiled and there was satisfaction in her eyes. It was the smile she used when Helen came out of the cupboard.

  Steam was coming from the spout of the teapot, a slash of light caught the lid. Heine reached forward and took the plate from her mother’s grasp, saying as he did so, ‘Do you mind if I begin? It looks too delicious to ignore.’

  Her mother said nothing. Helen moved to her chair now but did not eat her meringue. Didn’t Heine know what had just happened? Couldn’t he see from her mother’s eyes? But no, of course not, no one could but her.

  Heine looked at Mrs Carstairs, his face gentle, his voice firm. ‘I know that it is difficult to divest ourselves of the past. Of the pain that both our nations experienced. There are some who cannot forgive or forget but I know that those of us with compassion and tolerance, such as you, Mrs Carstairs, can see beyond that. I have chosen to live in England because I prefer it to my own land. I prefer its people, its tolerance. Its essence. I know that you will understand what I mean.’ He was holding her mother’s arm now.

  Lydia Carstairs was looking at him, feeling the weight of his hand, hearing his words, hating him for thinking that he could take her daughter from her. She is mine, she wanted to shout into his face, but she said nothing.

  ‘I wish to marry Helen, Mrs Carstairs. I love her and I will take care of her but I will not marry without your approval.’ He looked at Helen who still did not eat. Heine smile
d at her but she could only look at him and then at her mother who had still not spoken, still not moved.

  Heine pushed back his chair. ‘I feel it would be too impolite to smoke in your home, Mrs Carstairs. I shall go into the garden if I may.’ He rose and smiled again at Helen but his blue eyes were dark and the lines were deep across his forehead and around his eyes and as he left the room his limp seemed more pronounced.

  When his footsteps could no longer be heard her mother turned slowly to Helen, her lips thin.

  ‘How could you do this to me? After all your poor father’s suffering you expect me to accept a German into my life, into the Avenue.’

  There was no steam coming from the pot now, or was it just that Helen could not see it in the fading light, for the sun seemed to have vanished. There was no gleam to the silver, just this hard lump in her throat which obstructed her breathing, her vision, her words. She clenched her jaw, pushing away the plate with the meringue as far as she could reach.

  ‘Mother, I love Heine. Even if he were English you would not be pleased. You would not let me go. I know you are using his nationality as a reason to stop my marriage. You can come and stay often. We are not too far away. He is of the right sort of family to please you. Mother, I love him.’

  She could feel her throat thickening, aching, and knew that tears were near but she must not cry. There was no time in her life for tears, she had told herself that years ago.

  ‘You love him more than your own mother?’ Lydia’s voice was harsh, her hand had bunched into a fist.

  Helen sat back. She picked up the crumbs around her plate, one by one, placing them in a neat pile along the blue painted edge then she looked up at her mother. The ache in her throat was gone and there was a coldness in its place, a strength, and she spoke clearly as she picked up the plates, laying the knives side by side, neatly, quietly.

  ‘I love Heine as a woman loves a man. You must let me go, Mother.’

  ‘You are disgusting.’ Her mother was shouting now, opening her hand and striking the table. ‘He is so old. You are only eighteen. The neighbours, what will they say when they know he is a German? Mrs Jones lost Albert, Mrs Sinclair her husband.’

  Helen stood up now, standing above her mother, realising that she was taller than the other woman. ‘Tell them he is Dutch.’

  She wanted to strike her mother for daring to use the grief of her friends to hurt her daughter. The grief of Mrs Jones who had once been plump, of Mrs Sinclair whose eyes were deep set now when they had not been before.

  ‘Tell them he is Dutch,’ she repeated, suddenly tired. ‘I shall come and see you often, you must come and see us but I shall marry him, and I shall do so in the autumn.’

  Her mother spoke again. ‘But…’

  ‘Mother, I will marry him, even if I have to become pregnant in order to force you to agree. It is your decision.’ Helen’s mouth was hard and set. Heine would not marry without her mother’s consent and she had spent too many years waiting to be loved, waiting to be free. She would say and do whatever was necessary.

  Heine stood beyond the patio, on the grass. It eased his leg to stand on something which accommodated the difference in length between the right and left, slight though it was. He drew on his cigarette before holding it away, watching the ash as it fell. He could feel and taste a shred of tobacco between his lips. He removed it with his thumb and forefinger.

  He looked at the forsythia which grew up against the wooden fence surrounding the garden and at the two apple trees near to the gate which led out across the field. Had Helen walked through that with her father, he wondered.

  It seemed strange that there were no lime trees as there were in his garden. He corrected himself – in his parents’ garden. Momentarily he could smell their scent. He drew on his cigarette again and the memory dissipated but at least it had existed and he felt warmed. For the first time for what seemed like years he had found his way back beyond the darkness.

  He turned and looked back at the house. A dog barked somewhere in the neighbourhood. The tea had been difficult. Helen should have told her mother, it was not correct to approach their marriage in this way and fear rose in him that he would lose her, this girl who pushed shadows away. Should he go back in? But no, it was for the mother and daughter to decide, as he and his mother had decided.

  Yes, you must leave Germany, she had said, her face pinched and anxious, her voice low as they sat before the tiled stove. You must leave for the sake of harmony in this house. Your father is a good man. You are also good, but impulsive. He will not change and you will make his position awkward. We love you, Heine, but you must leave.

  Heine walked across the lawn, across the path to the forsythia. He threw his cigarette in an arc on to the damp earth to one side and bent to the shrub. There was no scent.

  He had left Germany.

  He turned and stood, his hands deep in his pockets, his jacket rucked beneath his arms. The dog was still barking in one of the gardens further down the Avenue. He looked up at the sky, it was still blue though the sun was going down slowly. And then he remembered how his own dog had barked like that when his parents had taken him as a child on holiday to one of the North Sea islands. It had barked and barked as his parents waded into the sea in red swimming costumes which reached to their knees. His mother had clasped his father’s short sleeve as she tried to keep her balance against the waves but she had brought him down as well. He and his cousin Adam laughed until they ached, and his father and mother had laughed too.

  Heine took another cigarette from the packet, tapping it on his nail before lighting it. This time there was no shred of tobacco to become caught between his lips. Again and again he heard that laughter and he knew that his father was a kind man, a precise man, but a man who could not see that the order he craved would only be achieved at great cost. That such order would only be achieved through black boots and brown shirts kicking and pulling and punching until the most common German words would be ‘Vorsicht’ and ‘Leise sprechen’.

  ‘Careful and speak softly,’ he repeated aloud in English, turning again to the house. Still there was no sign of Helen, but she was here with him, because it was through her that his love for his family had come back to him, for a moment at least.

  If they married – but then Heine corrected himself – when they married, for he could not bear to think that they would not, he would take her to Germany because she had made him promise that he would. He touched his leg. He would take her to Hanover, his home town. He would take her to the forest near his home. They would walk beneath the elm, the ash, the beech and the linden and his leg would be less painful there, walking on the softness of mulched, shaded, ground. He would take her to one of the rest houses which were scattered through the forest. They would eat food cooked by the woodsman’s wife. Maybe they would see elk, or deer. Yes, he would take his ‘Frauchen’, his little wife, to the beauties of his land while they were still untainted.

  He drew on the remains of his cigarette, the heat of the enflamed tip warmed his fingers. He would take her to the Kröpcke as he had promised today by the stream and they would sit within that glass-domed café and he would order her coffee topped with whipped cream and shavings of chocolate and watch while she ate enormous cream cakes. He would relax in her pleasure and her youth.

  And yes, Helen, he said silently as he ground out his cigarette on the path, yes, I will take you to the land of my birth but I will not take you to Munich where my friends live; where something else is being born which will go far beyond law and order and decency, unless we protest again and again. And I am not there to do my share, because my mother made a decision for me. Or did she, my love? Was I just scared of being hurt again?

  The sun was fading now and still Helen had not come for him and so he moved to the low wall which edged the patio. Yes, his father was a kind man and would welcome the wife of his son even though she was English because, after all, she was Aryan. Yes, he was a kind man but was he still
proud of his National Socialist membership? Did he still quote Herr Hitler’s every utterance as the Austrian toured the country electioneering? Heine was not sure whether he had spoken aloud, shouted aloud.

  ‘Vorsicht, leise sprechen!’ This time he knew that he spoke aloud but only in a whisper.

  Then he heard the back door opening, and turned but did not move, could not move as he saw Helen coming towards him, because he could not tell from her face what their future would be.

  CHAPTER 2

  Helen waited in the car as Heine walked to the German customs office carrying their passports and the international carnet. They had driven at a leisurely pace for several days through Belgium and it had been the honeymoon they had not yet had time for because Heine had been inundated with work. Only nine months late. She smiled as she ran her hand along the walnut dashboard of the motor car Uncle had lent them for the trip. She had not known life could be like this, that such happiness existed; that there were such nights of love, such days as gentle as a stream in full sun.

  The wedding had been quiet. It had not taken place in Hemsham but in London, away from the neighbours. Her mother had not smiled even when Aunt Sarah and Uncle Harry had said how much they liked Heine.

  He looks a good steady sort, they had said, with a damn sight more breeding than most and it’s something to have a thriving career these days. Helen had seen her mother looking at Heine, her pale eyes hard, but it did not matter now, she had Heine and their future, so full, so good. It swept memories to one side.

  Now the birds sang from the branches of the trees, which were too far from her to give shade as she watched Heine talk to the German border officials. He had become quiet as they approached the customs post and she had watched as he gripped the wheel, his face becoming still, and she had heard him say through lips that barely moved, ‘So my darling, we enter the land of my countrymen, most of whom seem to have pebbles for eyes and cauliflowers for ears.’

  Helen turned now to look at the slender pole which hung between two posts and barred their entry to Germany. What was this country like? What were his parents like?