The Last Summer at Chelsea Beach (21 page)

I gripped the side of the table. I’d heard back home, of course, of Hitler’s hatred for the Jews, how schools and businesses had been closed. I knew that some had been arrested, though I’d assumed that they were mostly political activists like my father. But murdering innocents, in civilized Europe. They had automobiles, for goodness’ sake, movie theaters. I thought of my parents and felt sick. Could such things be happening in Italy, too?

“I knew I had to tell someone.” I forced myself to concentrate on his words, which poured forth now. To get the story. His eyes grew moist as he told of the family he had left behind. “I tried to bring them with me, but my wife’s mother was too sick to travel and she would not leave her.” Though not a Jew himself, he had risked everything to help people he did not know.

From the other room came a din of voices, growing louder as the door opened at a suited man whom I presumed was a diplomat stuck his head in the room. “Prosze.” He gestured for Mr. Tomaszewicz to follow him.

“Wait!” I blurted. “Mr. Tomaszewicz, may I take your photo?” He nodded. When the man who had come for him did not protest, I put in the spare film I always carried, then snapped hurriedly.

The man gestured again for Mr. Tomaszewicz, more impatiently this time. As Mr. Tomaszewicz passed me, I put my hand on his shoulder. “God bless you and your family.”

“Thank you,” I said to Claire when they had gone. We stepped into the hall.

“I met Tomaszewicz earlier and I sensed he needed to talk. But the translator was nowhere to be found. I thought of you.”

“Me?” So the meeting had not been incidental.

“I knew you spoke some other languages and hoped there might be one in common.”

I blinked, puzzled. “I’m sorry, but have we met?”

“You’re Teddy’s girl, and everyone knows Teddy.”

“I work for Teddy but I’m not his girl.” The words came out harsher than I had intended, bordering on rude.

One of the suited men who I had seen earlier outside and also in the corridor was also in the hallway, watching us with interest. My skin prickled. “I know this may sound silly,” I whispered, “but I think that man may be following us.”

Claire chuckled. “He is following us. Security and all that.”

“I don’t understand.”

“When I’m working, MI-5, and my uncle, insist upon it.”

“Your uncle?”

A man in military uniform came up to them then. “Excuse me, Miss Churchill? The prime minister is looking for you.”

“Sorry, my dear, I must go. Good afternoon.” As Claire walked off, I stood speechless, my jaw hanging in disbelief. The woman who had gotten me the interview was none other than the prime minister’s niece.

After she’d gone, I waited, uncertain whether to head back to the office. I went outside and lingered by the main door where the guard had ushered me from the building. Several minutes later, Teddy came rushing out. “A dissident from Poland with proof of the awful things Hitler is doing. They introduced him at the press conference, but he didn’t take questions. There’s a story here, more to tell, if we can just get to him.”

“I know. I met him.” I could not keep the pride from my voice. “Got the interview.”

“Met him? That’s brilliant! How on earth did you manage it?”

“I’ll explain later. Right now let’s get back so you can write up the story before I forget everything he said.”

“Me? Adelia, it’s your story. You’ll write it up and you’ll get the byline.” That would never happen, of course. At best, the story would go out under Teddy’s name with a credit to me.

At the bureau, we went straight to the darkroom, where I began to develop the film. “Tell me everything and I’ll write it down.” As I gently bathed the film in chemicals, I recounted Tomaszewicz’s tale.

“It’s unbelievable,” he said when I finished. “We knew that the Germans were arresting Jews and that there had been some isolated killings, but this is a whole other level of barbarity.”

Suddenly, overwhelmed by everything Mr. Tomaszewicz had told me about the Jews, I could not take it anymore. “Oh!” I dropped the film into the liquid and brought my hand, which smelled of chemicals, to my mouth.

Teddy was at my side them. “I’m sorry.” He was standing close to me in the dim light now, his arm touching mine. He put his hand on my shoulder.

“It’s fine. It just reminds me of my own parents. Is that what happened to them?” I had told Teddy before about their political activism and the way they had disappeared.

He put his hand on my shoulder. “Would you want to know? If it were possible, I mean.”

I hesitated, feeling the unfamiliar warmth through the fabric of my blouse. Something inside me stirred. “I don’t know.” I had been born with the need to know the truth, to peel back the lid and see what was inside. But there was a fantasy I’d allowed myself that somewhere my parents were still out there. Finding out could destroy all that. Would it be better to no longer have hope? “I suppose,” I replied finally. “In some ways I’m still a child, waiting for them. I’d give anything for that to be true. Finding out what really happened might help to explain why they disappeared. It doesn’t matter, does it? We just don’t know.”
And probably never would
, I finished silently.

He looked at the photo I was hanging to dry. “These are phenomenal, Adelia.” They were good, I conceded inwardly, secretly pleased. I’d caught the light so that every line of Tomaszewicz’s face was etched, a map of bravery and grief.

“Dinner tonight to celebrate. That’s the wrong word, of course, for such a sad story,” he hastened to add. “But you’ve done really good work here.”

I hesitated as I cleaned up the darkroom, searching for the right answer. Teddy had made clear his interest in me ever since I arrived. I’d held him at arm’s length, the idea of being with anyone but Charlie unthinkable. I opened the door, letting in harsh light. “I’m sorry, I can’t.”

“You would almost think there was someone back home,” he baited as he followed.

I flushed slightly. “It’s nothing like that.” And it wasn’t a lie—because there really wasn’t someone anymore, was there?

“Then what is it?”

“I can hardly date the boss,” I replied, keeping my voice light.

“I’ll fire you.” Was he serious? But his eyes crinkled and that dimple appeared.

“Don’t tease. I can’t.” He was watching me still, looking for a greater explanation of the things I could never put in words. I understood his confusion: I’m sure Teddy was used to women falling all over him, not refusing him. “I’m just not going out these days,” I offered lamely.

“At least let me see you home. That’s not out, it’s in.”

“I’m planning to walk.”

“All the way to Bayswater?” I nodded. I walked home often in good weather, though it took more than an hour. “I’ll join you. The exercise will do me good.”

“All right,” I relented.

“Don’t sound so excited,” he chided.

“I’m sorry, I was still thinking about the story,” I lied, then forced a smile. “That would be swell.” We started from the office and down Fleet Street, winding west past the shops closing early because there was nothing left to sell. But as we neared Covent Garden, the stalls were lively with shoppers, and the cafes packed thick with people enjoying a quick drink before heading home for curfew. I wondered if Teddy might suggest stopping for a cocktail.

“It’s nearly seven o’clock,” I said, surprised at how the time had passed.

“And still light out,” he added. “It’s lovely isn’t it, these long evenings?” He took my hand impulsively. I stopped, caught off guard by the smooth skin on my own, so unlike Charlie’s. But I didn’t pull away. We continued on. “At our house in Kent you can sit on the patio in the evenings and watch the swans on the lake. You would love it.” There was a suggestion of something more in this last bit. I stepped away, taking my hand from his.

We strolled down Oxford Circus, eyeing the shop windows at Marks & Spencer, which bore the latest fashions as though anyone had the money to wear them anymore. My own coat was darned in places that no one could see, but I’d improved it with a scarf bought secondhand at the Portobello Road market. The money I made at the paper was just enough to cover my room and meals. I had the remaining bit of what Uncle Meyer had given me tucked away beneath my mattress, but I wouldn’t touch that unless I absolutely had to.

At the end of Oxford Street, the windows to a pub were smashed, jagged glass hanging from torn blackout strips. “Some American lads had a brawl,” Teddy explained, a note of disapproval to his voice. I cringed, as though personally responsible. American GIs had crowded into London, packs of young men with too much time and energy on their hands, filling (and sometimes fighting in) the bars and clubs, talking and laughing loudly on the streets. They had taxed the restrained city to the brink with their boisterous ways, seeming to fill every stereotype Brits might have had about us Yanks.

We reached the edge of Hyde Park and passed a victory garden, now withered to brush. “I miss vegetables,” I said, “Fresh ones from the garden. When I go home I’m going to eat tomatoes and peppers by the bucket.” Home. I didn’t even know where that was anymore.

“There were oranges last week,” he pointed out. I laughed, recalling the sudden shipment in the markets, the rinds that littered the gutters everywhere. I must have eaten six, sucking out the juice and eating every bit of the delicious orange flesh. Then they were gone again just as quickly, as though it had all been a dream. “You know we’ll have those things in England again after the war.” His voice was once again pointed: you could stay.

“The war has to end somehow first.”

“It will. We’re going to win, now that the Americans are coming. It won’t be soon or easy, but it will happen.” I admired his confidence. Most people, including me, didn’t quite believe it yet. The Germans had rolled so easily over half of Europe, destroying boundaries and swallowing nations that had been for centuries. Would the Americans really be able to stop them? I could see it in the eyes of the Londoners as I walked the streets: beneath the stoic resolve, this was still very much a city under siege.

We reached Porchester Terrace. Despite Teddy’s recommendation, I’d found my own place in Bayswater, a room atop a yellowed four-story town house with white shutters far from where the other typists lived. It was owned by an Indian woman whose husband was off fighting. I loved the neighborhood with its winding backstreets and tiny, eclectic shops. There was a used bookseller at the corner where I could trade in the ones I had read and then get a new one from the overflowing shelves for just a tuppence.

We passed the bookshop, its shades now shuttered for the night, stopping just after the red mailbox at Number 59. Teddy lingered awkwardly by the porch steps as I opened the low gate. “Would you like to come up for tea?” I wasn’t sure of the propriety of the situation and hoped he would not take it for more than what it was. “I don’t want to keep you,” I hastened to add. “You must be exhausted from your trip.”

“Not at all.” Teddy seemed to run on pure adrenaline, always chasing the next story. “But it is a bit late, and I want to make sure our story has been filed properly.”
Ours.
I stood a bit straighter at the word. “Perhaps just some water before I start back.”

We climbed the long flights of stairs, which smelled faintly of curry. I opened the door to my single-room flat, glad I had straightened up that morning. I braced myself, though, self-conscious about how small it must look. He did not seem to notice. Instead he whistled, taking in the photographs I’d framed around the room of the city, the lives of the people at war. “Adelia, these are fabulous. Photography isn’t just your hobby. You’re really talented.”

I blushed. “Thank you.”

He glanced out the window then which looked down on an alley where a man was picking through the garbage cans. His brow winkled. “But you’re here all by yourself.” He was concerned about me, I realized, touched. Impulsively I reached up and kissed his cheek.

His eyes widened and he turned, bringing his lips to mine. I froze. Only Charlie had kissed me before and there was something about these strange, soft lips that was both exciting and, well, wrong. I put my hand on his chest, pushing him away. “Oh, God, sorry,” he stammered, jumping back, face flushed. “I didn’t mean for that to happen.” Except that he had—ever since the first day we met.

“It’s all right.” In other circumstances, I might have been offended by him taking such liberties without so much as a date. Everything moved faster with the war, though. I saw couples intertwined in the corners of Green Park at dusk, lined up to marry at the churches on Sunday. It would have been fine if I was any other girl.

But I wasn’t—and my heart was still somewhere else. “I’m sorry, Teddy. I’m just not up for that right now—with anyone.”

Teddy raised his palms plaintively. “There’s been no one since I met you, Adelia. Not that you asked me to be exclusive. Heck, you haven’t even agreed to go out with me. But ever since I met you, I’m ruined for the rest.” He smiled bashfully. “My whole life I’ve felt as though I was writing the story. With you for the first time I feel a part of it.”

I took his hand. “I know, and I’m grateful.”

“That’s the last thing a fella wants,” he groaned. “We’re perfect together,” he added. Behind him the sun had dipped low to the buildings.

“The sirens are going to go soon,” I pointed out. Being caught out after curfew would result in a fine.

“I don’t care,” he said, still staring at me, his longing unabashed now.

“Good night,” I said firmly, my head swimming with confusion. I closed the door to the flat, shaken. For a moment, I might have liked him back.

But I couldn’t. The memories of home, and of Charlie, loomed large again. I remembered the envelope in my purse, still unopened. I pulled it out, too curious to resist any longer. As I opened it, a photograph fell out to the ground and I picked it up, choking back a cry. It was an image of myself and all four Connally boys set against the backdrop of Steel Pier that last summer. Usually I was on the other side of the camera, obscured from view. Who had taken it? I tried to remember. Jack was lifting Robbie playfully, as if about to toss him over the railing to the water below. Liam stood to the side, pretending to be disinterested, but even he smiled a bit around the eyes, his anger momentarily gone. Charlie hovered behind us, protective even in his mirth, arms spread above us like giant wings. His hand was brushing my shoulder casually and I could almost feel it there now, how that touch had sent shivers through me.