A Gathering Storm (33 page)

‘We were taken captive by a Panzer commander whose tanks overtook us on the road to Dunkirk,’ Rafe told her. May 1940, it had been, fifteen months ago. ‘For several days they kept us penned in a nearby barn with other prisoners, French as well as British. We were given only scraps of food and little water. After that we were made to march. We knew right away that we were going to Germany. It was a pretty grim feeling.’ He stopped to light a cigarette and Beatrice saw his hands were shaking. ‘Christ, they were brutal, some of their soldiers; they seemed to hate us British, I don’t know why. The French were given an easier time of it – not so many beatings and better rations.

‘We marched for weeks, walking all day and sleeping in churches and farm buildings by night. We crossed the German border and I thought,
This is it
, and it seemed so wrong that the countryside was so lovely, vineyards everywhere. At Trier they put us on trains to a transit camp, God knows where that was. They split us up after that. I was sent to an Oflag in Eastern Germany and that’s where I’ve been most of the time. They told us the camp was impossible to escape from, but after ten months of trying I managed it.’

Rafe described how another officer had received a Red Cross parcel in which, against the rules, had been secreted a map and a compass. Over time they conceived a plan that involved stealing uniforms and money. Another prisoner fashioned false papers. Towards the end of June, two months ago, they had sauntered out of the camp in broad daylight dressed as guards, their plan to head for neutral Switzerland. In the event, their route was barred and Rafe’s companion was recaptured. Rafe went into hiding then was forced to take a tortuous route back through France with the help of the Resistance. Finally, one moonlit night a week ago, he’d been picked up by a British plane from a hillside in Normandy.

‘I was taken to Dover, where I presented myself to the authorities and was given a hearty welcome. Less so when I rang home. My stepfather answered. He wouldn’t believe it was me for a while. Thought it some elaborate joke.’ Rafe laughed.

‘You’ve been back a week. And nobody told me.’

‘Nobody seemed to know where you were living. It took me a while to find out. In the meantime there was a lot to catch up with. And when I discovered – well, you know – I didn’t feel like seeing anyone much for a few days.’

‘Angie.’

‘And my brother, yes.’

‘Who told you?’

‘Angie’s father. As a matter of fact it was he who got me your address.’

‘I didn’t know he knew it.’ She didn’t remember ever telling Michael Wincanton. Why should she have done?

‘Oh, he can find out all sorts of things. Anyway, I’d telephoned the Wincantons’ house as soon as I got to my mother’s, and asked after my fiancée. Michael said she was living down in Sussex and I’d best ask her myself. I mulled over the meaning of that and thought in the end I should see her face to face, get the truth. So I got a train down to Sussex and surprised her. It was me who was on the wrong end of the surprise. My own brother.’

‘Oh, Rafe.’

He sounded so bitter, so unlike the Rafe she remembered.

‘Gerald wasn’t there, of course, and after I’d seen Angie, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I went back to the station, got on what I thought was a train for London and ended up down at Brighton. I couldn’t care where I was, to tell you the truth. I stayed there two or three nights, drinking an awful lot of whisky and sleeping in a cheap little boarding house, until my money was all gone. I eventually came to and managed to get myself back home; thumbed a lift with a couple of ATS girls driving a truck to Wimbledon. From there I walked the rest of the way. Since then I’ve been at my mother’s place, sleeping most of the time. Then I knew I’d got to see you. Damn it to hell, Bea, the thought of home kept me going all this time, but this isn’t the place I left. Hitler’s blown it half to bits and everyone seems to have gone mad.’

‘I’m the same, Rafe. The same old Bea.’

‘No, you’re not. Look at you.’ Bea wrapped her arms around her belly, defensively. ‘Angie’s father told me of your loss. I’m so sorry. I didn’t even know you had a fiancé.’

‘Guy,’ she said. ‘Yes, it’s knocked me back a bit.’

They were silent for a while and she could see his thoughts were drifting, his gaze wandering about the room. He looked so tired, she thought again, tired and worn, as though he’d packed twenty years of suffering into the past eighteen months.

‘What was it like?’ she whispered. He looked up, uncomprehending. ‘In the camp, I mean?’

‘As bad as you can imagine.’ He spoke haltingly of the deprivations, the humiliation and the casual brutality.

When he’d finished, an expression of deep weariness settled over Rafe’s face, a face that had lost the glow of youth like a bud blighted before it could bloom. He sat staring at his hands, lost in his thoughts, and she felt a terrible sense of alarm that something vital inside him had gone, or retreated beyond her reach. She couldn’t think what to say to him for fear of it being inadequate, so stayed quiet until he came to himself and saw where he was, not in a prison camp but in a shabby room in London. It was growing dark and chilly, though the evenings weren’t cold enough yet to merit a fire.

‘Can we go out?’ he asked. He stood up. ‘I’d like to walk. If you would, that is.’ He was glancing at her body again curiously now.

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I’ll go and change.’ Once in her room, she pulled on a pair of slacks that she’d had to let out and a bulky cardigan, then powdered her face and searched out some remnants of lipstick.

He seemed to cheer up once outside in the rough gusts of wind that set the trees dancing and the leaves falling around. She held his arm and they ducked through a gap in a hedge into the park.

At that moment some distant searchlight sent its beam across the sky. He flinched, then slowly relaxed. ‘I didn’t appreciate how free I’d been,’ he said, ‘until that freedom was taken away.’

He threw back his head and stretched his arms. ‘Do you know what helped me? I used to picture myself walking on the cliffs by Saint Florian, watching the sea break against the rocks, feeling the wind on my face, trying to remember the taste of salt on my lips and the scent of the gorse – you know that smell.’

‘Like coconuts.’

‘Yes. Oh, what I’d give for the taste of a coconut.’

‘I dream about food,’ she said. ‘It’s absolutely maddening. Do you remember that chocolate cake your aunt’s cook used to give us?’

‘Those cakes to die for? Begone, temptress,’ he said, laughing hoarsely, as though he hadn’t laughed in a long while and was out of practice. ‘I’m just glad to have had steak and kidney pie again, even though it was all gristle and suet. And fresh bread.’

From time to time they passed other people, a courting couple, a shambling old man hauling a suitcase, an air-raid warden. At the top of Primrose Hill they sat on a bench and looked out over the city, where the silhouettes of bombed buildings etched an alien line across the darkening sky. There had been no raids for many nights now. How tranquil it all looked. A sickle moon was rising. For a long while they were silent.

‘Are you still staying at your mother’s?’ she asked him and when he nodded, said, ‘She must be so happy you’re safe.’

‘Of course she is. They both are. They’re just very bad at showing it, that’s all. They’re embarrassed about my brother and Angie. Anyway, my stepfather keeps asking me what I’m going to do with myself. I fear I will quickly be outstaying my welcome.’

‘What
are
you going to do with yourself?’

Another week’s leave and I’ll be back with my regiment, I expect, but there’ll be plenty of faces gone. I’m learning not to ask questions. People look away and shuffle their feet. I’m a bit of an embarrassment, turning up out of the blue like Rip van Winkle.’ His tone was so bitter, it struck her to the heart.

‘Rafe, it’s so wonderful you’re back. I’d almost stopped believing.’

‘No, you hadn’t,’ he said, patting her hand. ‘Not you.’

She didn’t think Angelina had exactly stopped believing. Or had she? If there hadn’t been a war and Rafe hadn’t disappeared, would she have found Gerald anyway? The question was of course unanswerable, but Beatrice sensed that Gerald was more than a replacement for Rafe. Perhaps Rafe had been a sort of preparation for Gerald. Angie certainly seemed to be content with him.

‘Perhaps I shouldn’t be so cut up,’ Rafe said, plucking fiercely at the grass. ‘We were all so young. It was asking too much of her to wait.’

Only a year and a half ago, but how innocent they’d been. Back then, Beatrice had still believed she and Rafe were made for each other. But Rafe had fallen at Angelina’s feet as though worshipping a goddess. Looking back now, part of her couldn’t blame him. She, too, had been fascinated by Angie, had longed for the girl’s approval. There were no goddesses now, only ordinary people under pressure, trying their best to survive, all glamour stripped away. And, believing Rafe to be gone from her life, Beatrice had picked herself up and done her best to find happiness. And she had been happy. Guy. His image flashed on her inward eye and she felt a swell of sadness.

Back at the flat, she hung up their coats and poured Rafe a glass of whisky from a bottle Dinah kept in case of male company. She reached to replace the bottle on its shelf and when she turned back she saw he was looking at her again curiously; that same look Sandra Williams wore when she was working out the most tactful question to ask.

‘Bea, forgive me for intruding, but are you all right?’ The same question as Sandra.

‘Yes, of course I’m all right. Why shouldn’t I be?’

He stole another look at her fullness, opened his mouth and closed it again. She smiled to herself, thinking of all that he must have been through, and now he was daunted by this little thing, didn’t know what to say.

‘If you’re in any kind of trouble,’ he said, ‘I can help. Money and so forth. You know.’

‘Thank you,’ she said gravely. She knew she should be grateful, so why did she feel angry with him? No, not with him, but with the situation in which she found herself. ‘I’m fine at the moment.’

‘But you’ll ask if you’re not. Do you promise?’

‘I promise, Rafe.’ She smiled at him, at his dear face, so anxious and concerned for her. ‘It’s so wonderful that you’re back,’ she said. ‘I can still hardly believe it.’

They met again the following week. He took her out for dinner in a quiet restaurant near her flat.

This time he seemed a bit more relaxed, though there were signs of his trauma. He laid out his napkin carefully, almost marvelling at it, and ate and drank slowly, as though wanting to taste every mouthful. He started at the guncrack sound of a falling metal pan in the kitchen. The elegant waitress was French, the wife of the proprietor, and Rafe spoke to her in her own language without effort, though Beatrice smiled at his English schoolboy accent.

She told him what had happened to her grandfather. He watched her as she talked and his eyes were full of sympathy and pain.

He reached across the tablecloth to touch her fingers. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘That’s how it is there. Most people watch out for themselves. They see no other way. I was lucky to find some to help me, despite the danger. And there is a network there.’ He glanced around as he spoke to check no one was listening.

‘Rafe, it couldn’t happen here, could it?’ she whispered. ‘The Nazis, I mean.’

‘Ssh. No. We’ll make sure it doesn’t, don’t worry.’

She finished her meal, remembering what the old French soldier had told her when she’d shown him the letter from Thérèse. To do her best and believe. Some nights she’d lie awake, feeling the baby move within her and dark thoughts would swirl in her mind. What kind of world was she bringing this child into? What kind of a life would it have? On such nights the dawn was a sign that she’d survived. None of this she felt she could tell Rafe.

She knew Dinah would be home, so after they left the restaurant, Beatrice didn’t invite Rafe in and they said goodbye on the doorstep.

‘I’ll come to see you again as soon as I can,’ Rafe said, ‘but I might not be around for a little while. I’m sorry, I didn’t like to tell you before.’

‘Oh, Rafe.’

‘But I’ll write. Promise you’ll let me know if I can help you.’

‘I will.’ She felt she was losing him all over again.

Sensing that she was trying not to cry, he wrapped his arms around her, kissed her forehead and held her close.

‘Goodbye, Bea,’ he said, and was gone.

She unlocked the door, walked very slowly up the stairs and let herself into the flat. Dinah was in the kitchen making a hot drink. When she saw Beatrice’s woebegone face she said, ‘Whatever’s the matter?’ and Beatrice burst into tears.

It was everything, losing Guy, the prospect of the baby, the thought of losing Rafe again.

It was Dinah who helped her see clearly. Dinah, with her crisp cold manner that wasn’t uncaring but which went straight to the nub of the problem.

‘You don’t have to keep the baby. They make you give it up if you go to one of those places, you know,’ she told Beatrice. ‘It happened to a friend of mine. You have it, then they take it away and give it to some grateful married couple who can’t have children, then you can forget about it, get on with your life.’

‘I am not giving the baby away.’

‘Beatrice, it’s much the best thing. It’s what your mother thinks, too, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’ She felt a terrible sense of betrayal over this, though she knew Delphine meant well. ‘You’re probably right, but I can’t.’

Dinah shrugged. ‘You’ll feel differently after it’s born. All that messy business and you won’t have a nanny to look after it. Absolutely frightful, if you ask me.’

‘Dinah, I don’t know how I’ll manage, but if I can I will.’

‘You’re a stubborn old thing, aren’t you? But I like that. So let’s work out what’s best to do. Is there anyone else you could ask for help?’

‘I won’t ask Guy’s parents, I can’t. And my father’s family would be terribly shocked if they knew.’

‘Friends, then.’

Her mind flew like an arrow to Angie.