Daughter of Riches (30 page)

The tears were flowing freely now and somehow without knowing how it had happened they were in each other's arms, Bernard holding her close while she sobbed. Inexplicably it made him feel better. Tears he could understand. They were far more human than that strange hard calm. By the time she had cried herself out he was even feeling quite hopeful. She had turned him down now but she hadn't wanted him to go. Perhaps when she had come through this terrible emotional trough she would reconsider.

Sophia brewed the tea and they drank it, determined to make the most of the treat of ‘real tea'.

‘Well, perhaps I'd better get back to work,' Bernard said at last, standing up. ‘Shall I come back this evening?' She nodded and he pulled her briefly into his arms; there was no awkwardness now as he kissed her.

‘Look, love, I shan't mention it again, but don't forget if at any time you change your mind … well, the offer will always be open.'

Sophia nodded again. ‘Thank you, Bernard. I don't deserve it but … I won't forget.'

When he had gone she put her head down into her hands and sobbed again as if her heart would break.

‘Do you think it would be all right for Sylyie to come over tonight and listen to our wireless?' Catherine asked one day when she came home from school.

It was June 1944 and the island was seething with barely contained excitement for word was that an invasion of France by the Allies was imminent.

Since Lola and Charles had been arrested Sophia had been half afraid to risk listening to the crystal set, which was still hidden under the floorboards, but during the last week her anxiety for news had overcome her caution. Tuning in to the disembodied voices that crackled over the air waves had become the highlight of the day and she and Catherine took turns at keeping look-out whilst the other crouched over the radio wearing the earphones that had once been part of a telephone handset. But Sophia was all too aware of the risk they were taking. Being in possession of a radio was a serious offence that warranted heavy punishment and Sophia was afraid that if they were caught she and Catherine might even be dragged off for deportation as their parents had been. She had never so much as mentioned the existence of the ‘cat's whisker', as they called it, to anyone with the exception of Bernard, much less invited friends or neighbours to listen in with them as somany islanders did.

‘No, you certainly can't ask Sylvie!' she snapped now.

‘But she's my very best friend and her brother is away fighting too. She would really like to know what is going on …'

Sophia looked at Catherine with suspicion. ‘You haven't told Sylvie about our ‘‘cat's whisker” have you?' she accused.

Catherine coloured slightly. ‘She wouldn't split on us. She wouldn't, Sophia, honestly …'

‘Catherine!' Sophia exploded furiously. ‘You
have
told her, haven't you? How could you be so stupid! Well, I shall just have to get rid of it now. Oh Catherine, I could kill you!'

Catherine glared defiantly at her sister, wondering what had happened to the old Sophia. She was so different these days, cold and hard and very prone to flashes of temper not unlike the ones Lola had. But with Lola they had always been soon over, the memory of them eclipsed by a hug or some other gesture of loving reassurance. Catherine's throat ached with tears as she thought of it and she was overcome with longing to feel her mother's arms around her, holding her close, and to hear her murmuring that everything would be all right soon, as she had done when Catherine was a little girl.

‘I can't believe you would do something like this, not after all we've been through,' Sophia went on angrily. ‘What were you thinking of?'

Catherine swallowed at the knot of tears.

‘I told you – Sylvie's my friend. I have to have friends – I'm not like you. And anyway, I trust her.'

‘You can't trust anyone. Surely you know that?'

‘That's a terrible thing to say! But it's just like you – like you are now, anyway. Well, I won't be like it – I won't! I couldn't bear it if I thought my friends could tell on me –'

‘Oh Catherine, don't you understand?' Sophia was suddenly more sad than angry. ‘I'm not saying Sylvie would betray you. I don't think for one moment she would, not knowingly. But one careless word is all it would take. If she tells just one more person, her mother, even, and that person tells someone else, before you know it it's common knowledge the Carterets have, a ‘‘cat's whisker''.'

Catherine looked a little crestfallen, but she remained defiant.

‘So? Who would tell the Germans anyway? Everyone hates them.'

Sophia sighed. She did not want to tell her sister what she knew to be true – that there were all too many islanders who would be willing to inform either in the hope of gain or, worse still, out of jealousy or spite. It was not a nice thought and Sophia shrank from destroying Catherine's innocent trust in those around her, but it had to be done. Catherine must be made to realise how vulnerable they were, two girls living alone.

Still, the damage, if damage there was, was done now. There was no point in going on about it. ‘Look – just remember, don't ever tell anyone else,' she said wearily. ‘ With any luck the war will be over soon and we will be able to get back to normal. But until we do, please, please don't chatter to your friends or anybody else about things like our radio.'

Catherine nodded. She didn't want to be bad friends with Sophia. Goodness knows she was all the family she had left.

‘I'm sorry, Sophia, I didn't think. But … we don't really have to get rid of the wireless do we? I'm quite sure Sylvie won't breathe a word.'

Sophia grimaced, looking at her watch. The radio was so precious – their one link with the outside world.

‘Well, all right, perhaps not tonight at any rate,' she agreed.

The Allied landings began that night, wave after wave of planes passing over Jersey on their way to the French coast, and the quiet of the night was torn apart by gunfire. For a while the two girls stood at the window watching, then when things quietened down for a while they went back to bed, but they were quite unable to sleep for excitement.

At last! Sophia kept thinking. Surely now it would soon be all over! But the war had gone on for so long now that normality seemed like a distant dream.

Will it be too late for me to go to Music College? she wondered – and then almost hated herself for thinking about something so petty while men were fighting and dying and her own parents were still in captivity. Yet no feeling of guilt could reduce the importance to her of her lost dreams for her future. A whole slice of her youth had been stolen from her. Suddenly Sophia wanted only to weep, as Catherine had earlier, without really knowing why.

Motor vehicles went racing by on the road outside, voices yelled to one another in German, and after a while the guns began again. Sophia whispered a prayer to a God she had almost forgotten how to believe in, pulled the sheets up over her head and once more, vainly, tried to sleep.

Throughout the summer months the Allies continued their advance through France, liberating towns and villages that had been ground under the heel of the jackboot for four long years. But in Jersey things seemed to be getting worse instead of better. Hitler, determined not to give up the one little piece of the United Kingdom that he had been able to occupy, brought in even more troops and as wounded Germans were evacuated from France too there were many more mouths to feed and less to feed them on. As the French channel ports fell one by one the line of supplies was broken. Food could no longer come in from the outside world and Jersey must exist on what she could produce herself.

Sophia, struggling to feed herself and Catherine, cursed Hitler's intransigence. Didn't he know he would have to give in in the end – might it not just as well be now? But of course it wasn't
him
who was eating only husk-filled bread and being glad of it, it wasn't
him
drinking tea made from blackberry leaves and having to do without medicines and soap, it wasn't
him
who had been forced to do without every little luxury that makes life worth living for four long years and now was having to go hungry as well. And Churchill was as bad. He was determined to starve the enemy out and if it meant starving the islanders as well – so be it.

Inevitably tempers became frayed and on occasions it was not only the German occupying force that indulged in physical violence.

One afternoon in September Catherine came home from school with a long scratch mark on her cheek and a tear in her admittedly thin-as-a-bee's-wing blouse. She changed out of the blouse before Sophia arrived home from work, but try as she might she could not conceal the scratch and Sophia noticed it almost at once.

‘What on earth have you been doing, Catherine?'

Catherine coloured slightly. ‘Oh, it's nothing really. Just that little cat Jeanne Pinel.'

‘You mean she did it deliberately? But why?' Sophia demanded.

Catherine's colour deepened. ‘She thinks I've stolen her boyfriend.'

‘And have you?'

‘Of course not! At least, I haven't stolen him – he didn't belong to her in the first place.'

Sophia's mouth twitched. She had wondered how long it would be before Catherine began taking an interest in boys. ‘ Who is it then?' she asked.

‘Wallace Patterson. I've liked him for ages and I
thought
he liked me, but I was afraid to hope. Then last night he was waiting for me after school. He asked me if I wanted some of his nuts and we were sharing them when Jeanne came along. She didn't say a word then but at lunchtime today she just
went
for me.'

‘And what did you do?'

‘Oh, not a lot. I was too surprised. But I did pull her hair – you know she's got those plaits so it was quite easy. We got hauled up before the Headmistress and she was furious when she heard there was a boy involved. She said we'd come to no good, either of us, and she kept us in for half an hour after school. But when we came out Wallace was outside, waiting. And he walked
me
home!' Catherine giggled triumphantly.

‘For heaven's sake!' Sophia said sternly, but as she dished up the thin soup that was all she had been able to rustle up for supper tonight she was smiling. Her little sister was learning fast!

The following evening the girls had just finished supper when there was a loud knock at the door. They glanced at one another, fear naked in their eyes. Friends always came around to the rear of the cottage, tapping lightly and calling a greeting. But this heavy pounding was reminiscent of the morning when they had been awakened by German soldiers searching for the escaped prisoner. Sophia got up.

‘Stay here,' she instructed Catherine. ‘I'll see who it is.'

Her heart was beating fast as she opened the door. Outside, as she had expected, stood an officer of the Feldgendarmerie and drawn up at the gate was one of the cars they had commandeered. Sophia could see several more Germans sitting inside it.

‘Yes?' she said, trying to sound cool. ‘ What do you want?'

The officer clicked his heels. ‘We wish to make a search of your home. It has come to our notice that you have a wireless set. I am sure you are aware that is not permitted.'

For a moment Sophia thought she was going to faint. Then as suddenly, she was in control of herself once more.

‘How dare you!' she flared. ‘Who told you a lie like that?'

The German's eyes were very cold, very blue. ‘I am sure you know I cannot divulge our sources. But if you do not have a wireless set then you have nothing to fear. Now, are you going to let us come in or do we have to enter uninvited?'

Sophia's mind was racing. Would they find the wireless if they searched? It was hidden, yes, but how well? The Germans must know every likely hiding place by now. And was there anything else in the house that could get them into trouble? She didn ‘t think so, but how could one be sure? Still, she really had no choice but to bluff things out.

‘All right, you'd better come in,' she said. ‘You won't find anything though.'

She led the way into the kitchen where Catherine had begun washing the supper dishes. Her sister glanced up, her eyes dark with fear, and Sophia touched her arm reassuringly.

The first officer was already in the kitchen, the reinforcements marching down the path. Sophia drew herself up, determined not to let them see how afraid she was.

And then her heart seemed to stop beating. That soldier of the Feldgendarmerie, his good-looking face shockingly familiar beneath his helmet … it couldn't be … surely it
couldn't
be … Dieter!

But it was. Dieter had recognised her too – she knew it though his face was totally impassive, determinedly wooden. Nerves spasmed in her throat and she almost cried out his name. But his eyes seemed to be warning her: Say nothing. She glanced swiftly over her shoulder at Catherine but there was no trace of recognition on her sister's face. Perhaps Catherine had been too young to remember him clearly, and in any case, one face under a Feldgendarmerie helmet was very like another.

Unless it happened to be a face you had loved with all your heart, a face that still crept into your dreams … Sophia closed her eyes for a moment, trying to regain control of herself.

The soldiers fanned out and began their search. One partially disappeared up the big old chimney, another tipped the macaroni she had been saving for a pudding out of its jar on to the bare table top. Dieter, rifling through the balls of wool she had painstakingly unpicked to make a new jumper, glanced up at her and as their eyes met again, her stomach fell away. Fear, she thought. It couldn't be anything else … could it? But even as she formulated the thought and her own quick denial she knew it was not true. The war had not changed the way she felt about Dieter. Nothing ever would. The insistent flickering flame that was running through her now like the long slow fuse of some explosive device would ignite the self-same volcano of desire, given half a chance, as it had done in the balmy days of peace when Dieter had been a waiter and she had been no more than an innocent child.