The Londoners (35 page)

His relief was so vast she couldn’t help saying, fresh laughter thick in her voice, ‘I hope you won’t be disappointed. There are no raisins and currants in it. Only ersatz
dried fruit.’

‘And what,’ he asked, dreading the answer, ‘is ersatz dried fruit?’

Her laughter was husky and unchained. ‘Grated carrot.’

He closed his eyes in mock despair and then, opening them again, said, ‘Then you’ll just have to be extra generous when you pour the rum over it!’

Later on in the evening he brought a pack of playing-cards down from his room and taught her how to play brag. Later still they listened to a midnight carol service on the
wireless. The volume stayed steady and no sirens sounded.

‘I think we’re going to be lucky tonight,’ Kate said as she made two bedtime drinks.

Leon knew that she was referring to the blessedly
Luftwaffe-
free night sky but he said, suddenly serious instead of teasing, ‘I already think myself pretty lucky. If you
hadn’t come down to The Swan and offered me a room I’d be in an overcrowded hostel tonight.’

She flushed slightly, not wanting his gratitude, only the uncomplicated comfort of his friendship. ‘And I would have sat on my own all evening,’ she said, handing him one of the mugs
of milky Ovaltine, ‘apart from Hector, of course.’

‘Of course,’ he said, and because he sensed the discomfort his seriousness had aroused in her, his voice was light and easy again. ‘And now I’m off to bed,’ he
said, before even the least shadow of awkwardness could fall between them. ‘Goodnight, Kate. And Merry Christmas.’

‘Merry Christmas, Leon.’

She stood alone in the kitchen, listening as his crutch tapped its way up the stairs; until his bedroom door had opened and then closed. A few minutes later there came a dull clatter. A smile
touched her mouth. He had dropped his crutch to the floor, no doubt heartily wishing he was doing so for good.

She leaned against the solidity of a kitchen dresser that had once belonged to her mother’s mother, sipping at her drink. Despite the easy camaraderie that had existed between them almost
from the first instant they had spoken to each other, it was an odd feeling having a man other than her father in the house. Especially one who was physically so very different from any other man
she knew. And by physically different, she wasn’t thinking of his injured leg, but of his skin colour.

She stared thoughtfully across the kitchen to the far wall. Above a calendar, a twig of red-berried holly balanced precariously. He was an attractive man and his skin colour was part and parcel
of his attractiveness. She liked the way his hair curled as tightly as a ram’s fleece. She was fascinated by the paleness of his palms in contrast to the rest of his body. She certainly
didn’t like him
in spite
of his being black, just as she wouldn’t want him to like her
in spite
of her being half-German. She simply liked him as he was. As he,
apparently, liked her.

She eased herself away from the dresser and crossed the kitchen towards the sink, turning on the tap and rinsing out her mug. Harriet Godfrey had once gently asked her why she didn’t cease
wearing her hair in such a pronouncedly Germanic way. ‘I could cut it for you,’ she had offered. ‘You needn’t have it too short. A shoulder-length bob would look lovely. And
it wouldn’t shriek the fact that you are half-German.’

‘But I’m not
ashamed
of being half-German,’ she had said to Harriet’s deep disconcertion. ‘To be ashamed would mean that in some way I was ashamed of my
father. And I’m not. He’s the kindest, most tolerant person I’ve ever met. And as he’s German, it means there must be other Germans with the same qualities. They can’t
all
be rabid Nazis. There must be some Germans, however small a minority, who are as appalled by Hitler as we are and who are vehemently opposed to everything he stands for.’

‘Maybe there are,’ Harriet Godfrey had said, deeply troubled, ‘but it isn’t a viewpoint I would express to anyone else if I were you, Katherine. I think what you are
saying would be very much misunderstood.’

It was an understatement, and Kate knew it. Yet she didn’t think Leon would misunderstand. If an action as simple as a haircut could change the way he was perceived by people, she doubted
if he would take it. He would want people to accept him for what he was, not for what they could be led to believe he was.

She turned the tap off and reached for a tea towel. And Leon was half West Indian and she was half-German. In their different ways they were both misfits. Misfits who instinctively understood
one another.

She put the two dried mugs away in a cupboard and looked around the kitchen, checking that it was neat and tidy to come down to in the morning. A sensation she hadn’t experienced for a
long, long time, flooded through her. It was one of unalloyed happiness. Her father was safe and well in his internment camp on the Isle of Wight. Her baby was kicking gently, making its presence
felt. And it was Christmas morning, the most special morning of the year.

As she walked out of the kitchen and through the darkened house to the foot of the stairs, she knew she had a lot to be grateful for. And high on the list was a man she hadn’t met until
eight hours ago; a man who was now sleeping beneath her roof in a bedroom only yards from her own; a man she knew, beyond any shadow of doubt, was her friend.

On Christmas Day afternoon they took Hector for a walk on the Heath. Down beyond Greenwich, on the north side of the Thames, smoke hung heavy in the air.

‘The East End,’ Kate said bleakly. ‘The fires after a raid sometimes last for days. I can’t remember the last time I breathed in clean air. There’s always a smell
of smoke and sulphur.’ She shivered, but not from cold, hugging her arms around her coated, distended body. ‘How long do you think it’s going to go on for, Leon? Is Hitler still
planning to invade us as soon as possible or will he wait until the weather is in his favour? Will he wait until spring?’

‘God knows,’ Leon said, pausing for a moment and leaning on his crutch, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he looked over the Heath in the direction of the river. ‘He’s
likely to do anything, isn’t he? No-one was prepared for him invading Norway. The Norwegians hadn’t even mobilized. And if he can launch invasion forces, in April, against a country
with Norway’s terrain, a bit of English Channel snow and ice won’t deter him.’

‘So we can expect anything?’ Kate said as Hector raced in circles around them, impatient for the walk to continue.

Leon’s laughter-lined face was grim. ‘Where Hitler’s concerned, we can expect the worst,’ he said starkly, having too much respect for her to tell her anything but what
he believed to be the truth.

She was silent for a moment and then she gave herself both a mental and a physical, shake. ‘Have you ever been to Barbados?’ she asked, changing the subject completely.

He grinned, the crinkles at the corners of his eyes deepening. ‘No, though I expect if I stay in the Navy long enough, I will. Have you ever been to Germany?’

She shook her head, her mane of plaited hair swinging gently against her back. ‘No.’

There was no need for either of them to say any more. Unsaid but understood was the knowledge that their non-English heredity was equally alien to them; that though they didn’t fit
smoothly into the social fabric of the country of their birth, they would feel even less at home in Barbados or Germany.

Leon crooked his lips wryly. However unfamiliar Barbados might be to him, when he eventually visited it he would assimilate a damn sight more quickly than Kate ever would if she were to find
herself in Nazi Germany. His wry amusement deepened. For once in his life he had met someone with a far more grave social disability than his own. If it came to a choice between being half West
Indian or half-German, he’d plump for being half West Indian every time!

‘Come on,’ he said, throwing a stick for Hector. ‘Let’s walk into Greenwich Park and get a proper view of the river and the City from General Wolfe’s statue. At
least St Paul’s is still standing. That’s something to be grateful for.’

‘And Big Ben,’ she said, falling into step beside him. ‘Though you can’t see it as clearly from the Park as you can St Paul’s. You’d think two such landmarks
would be prime targets, wouldn’t you?’

‘I imagine they are,’ Leon said dryly, looking eastwards into the winter-grey sky, wondering when the
Luftwaffe
would next appear; wondering how much more punishment the
battered city could take. ‘I imagine all that’s spared them so far is luck.’

Three nights later it seemed to both of them as if all luck for London had run out. It was late evening when the radio went off without warning.

‘They’re on their way,’ Kate said, rolling her knitting up and sticking her knitting needles firmly into her ball of wool. ‘I think there’ll be time to make a
Thermos of tea, there usually is. Will you take Hector into the shelter for me while I put the kettle on?’

‘No,’ Leon said, closing the atlas he had been studying and rising to his feet. ‘I won’t.’

Her eyes widened.

He held his hand out to her, helping her to her feet. ‘I won’t do it, because that’s what you’re going to do.
I’m
the one who’s going to stay behind
and make a Thermos of tea. Take your knitting with you.’ The rising wail of sirens nearly drowned his voice. ‘And my atlas.’

Though his voice was quiet there was utter authority in it. Kate didn’t trouble to argue against it. There wasn’t enough time and the issue wasn’t important enough.

She tucked her knitting under one arm, picked up the atlas and said to Hector, ‘Come on, Hector. Shelter time again. Lead the way.’

Hector’s heavy black tail hung miserably between his legs. He didn’t like the sirens and he didn’t like the word ‘shelter’. He knew what it meant. Hours of sitting
in a half-buried tin hut in the back garden enduring unspeakable roaring and whooshing sounds.

‘Be careful out there in the dark!’ Leon shouted after Kate as she stepped out of the kitchen door on to the narrow path leading down to the shelter.

Kate felt almost light-hearted as she made her way cautiously towards the Anderson, Hector pressing close against her. Always, previously, this was a nightmare she and Hector had endured by
themselves. Tonight they wouldn’t be doing so. Tonight they would have Leon to keep them company.

The few steps leading down into the Anderson were damp and slippery and she descended them with very great care. She was nearly eight months pregnant and she didn’t want any accidents.

Hector whined and nuzzled her hand with his head. She patted him lovingly. ‘It’s all right, Hector,’ she said as she stepped inside the pitch-black shelter. ‘And
we’re going to be snug tonight. Leon has put a paraffin heater in here and a storm lantern.’ She fumbled in her pocket for the matches that went everywhere with her. ‘We’ll
wait till Leon joins us before lighting up,’ she said, talking to him as if he were a person, as she always did. ‘It will save him having to fight with the black-out curtaining in order
to get inside.’

She sat down, her hand lovingly on the silky-smooth fur of his neck. ‘It may only be a hit and run raid. It may even be a false alarm.’

Moments later, as Leon limped down the steps and into the shelter, she knew that her optimism was unfounded. Eastwards, in the distance, came the approaching
zhoorzh, zhoorzh, zhoorzh
sound of hundreds of unsynchronized German engines.

‘Have you got the matches?’ Leon asked, handing her the Thermos flask. ‘And if your next-door neighbour is an Air-Raid Warden, why the hell didn’t he check on you before
haring off to the ARP post? To the best of my knowledge he doesn’t know I’ve moved in here as a lodger. For all he knows you’re on your own.’

‘We don’t speak,’ Kate said succinctly. ‘We haven’t spoken ever since he supported the Cricket Club Committee’s decision to relieve my father of his captaincy
of the team.’

Leon lit the storm lantern and turned his attention to the Aladdin paraffin heater.

‘Mr Nibbs is scrupulous where duty is concerned,’ Kate continued, aware that for the first time she was talking about Mr Nibbs without bitterness or rancour in her voice. ‘It
must worry him, his not knocking to check on me.’

‘Then he should stop worrying and do it.’ Leon’s voice was blunt. He had no time for a man so unchivalrous.

‘He can’t,’ amusement was thick in her voice, ‘because he’s even more stubborn than he’s scrupulous. In fact, when I think of his dilemma, I feel quite sorry
for him.’

‘I don’t.’ There was no amusement in Leon’s voice. ‘He knows you’re pregnant and on your own. He should be checking on your safety whenever there’s a
raid.’

The sound of the ack-ack guns on the Heath blasting into life made further conversation impossible. Kate removed her ball of wool from her knitting needles. She was knitting a matinee-coat for
the baby. Leon picked up the atlas he had been studying earlier and opened it up again at North Africa, trying to work out just where British and Australian soldiers were engaging with the
Italians.