Dominion (68 page)

The hotel was a strange little place, with narrow corridors, small rooms, threadbare carpets. The bed in Sarah’s room sagged from the hundreds of people who had slept
there before. Channel View was probably full in summer, but now the only other guests were a few middle-aged men in shabby suits who nodded to her in the dining room. She nodded back, politely but
distantly. The food was awful.

For the next few days Sarah barely spoke to anyone. Several times when Jane was on her own at reception, Sarah asked if there was any word of when her husband’s group was coming, and
always she was told not yet. Jane was pleasant enough but Sarah sensed that Bert was uneasy about her. She wondered if it was because she wasn’t in the Resistance, she was just a spy’s
wife, an encumbrance.

She avoided the communal lounge, only going in to see the news on the old TV. On her first night she wondered whether there might be something about the policeman Meg had killed, half expecting
to see her house appear on the screen, but there was nothing. They would hush it up of course. There was only the usual news – there had been a big demonstration in Delhi, the Blackshirt
mayor of Walsall had been shot and injured by Resistance terrorists, the Germans were making ‘temporary strategic withdrawals’ on sections of the Central Volga. When the news was on
some of the commercial travellers muttered and grunted about Communists and uppity wogs.

Sarah spent long hours in her room, reading dog-eared romantic novels that guests had left behind in a little bookcase, or sitting looking out of her window, with its view of a yard choked with
bins and the backs of neighbouring buildings. During the short December afternoons she went for walks around the almost-empty town, drinking tea in little cafes. Once or twice she saw small groups
of Jive Boys on the corners in their long, colourful coats and drainpipe trousers; but they looked listless and pasty, smoking roll-ups. Probably just unemployed lads, she thought, as she steered
away from them. Occasionally, on walls, she saw the Resistance logos ‘V’ and ‘R’ painted, just like in London. The weather was sunny but very cold; there was ice on the pond
in a little park she walked round. She thought constantly about David, where he could be, what he was doing, when he would get here. She ached with worry and longing but she was also filled with
fury about his lies to her, going over his absences in her head. She knew David had loved her once, but then Charlie had died and he had turned aside from their quiet home life together to become a
spy. Without a thought of telling her, taking her into his confidence. Making her into what Bert thought she was, an encumbrance. She remembered her desperate jealous anxiety when she thought David
was having an affair with Carol. She determined she would never put herself through anything like that again. If David didn’t love her any more they had to part. If they survived this, if
they did go on to new lives, she would not cling onto something that was dead. Walking the cold streets, the seagulls making their sad cries above her, she could have cried out, too, with
desperation and anger and sorrow at the thought of losing the only man she had ever loved.

On her sixth night at the boarding house, she saw a thin man in his forties with a big, untidy moustache at the next table, reading the London
Evening Standard.
The
headline caught her eye. ‘
Fog Brings London to Standstill
’
.
Hesitantly, she asked the man if she might see the paper when he had finished with it.

‘Of course,’ he said. He nodded at the headline. He had friendly brown eyes, like a dog’s. Sarah noticed there was dandruff on his collar. ‘I’ve just come down from
the city, it’s brought chaos up there. Worst ever, some say. Lot of people in hospital. Are you from London?’ he added.

‘Yes. Just – having a few days away.’ She heard the coolness in her voice.

The man smiled gently. ‘I’ll leave you the paper when I’m finished.’ He nodded and returned to his meal.

Later that evening Sarah sought out Bert and Jane in their little office. She said she was worried there was still no news and asked if the smog in London was part of the problem. Jane smiled
nervously. ‘I’m sorry, dear. We don’t know any more than you’ve been told. It’s always a worry for us too, the waiting time.’ From the way Jane had spoken, this
wasn’t the first time they had helped people get out of England.

On Sunday she went for another walk, down to the promenade. It was still sunny but very cold, the sea completely still and calm, the promenade deserted apart from a few elderly people walking
dogs. The sea looked freezing cold. She walked towards the Palace Pier, past closed booths advertising their summer wares in faded paint.

She went onto the pier, her shoes clumping on the wooden boards. She passed the carousel and the shuttered freak show, and walked on towards the end of the pier. There was a little breeze out
here, cold as a knife, the sound of the sea all around.

There was only one other person there, leaning over the rail, gazing towards the shore. She recognized the man whose paper she had borrowed at the hotel. There was a battered suitcase at his
feet. Hearing her footsteps he looked up, tipping the brim of his bowler hat to her. ‘Out for some sea air?’ he asked.

She approached him. ‘Yes. Freezing, isn’t it?’

‘Bitter.’

‘I heard on the radio that the fog is as bad as ever in London.’

‘Yes. So they say.’

She was about to walk on, she knew she shouldn’t be talking to him, but there was something appealingly pathetic about the man huddled against the railing, and she was desperately lonely.
So she said, ‘Not working today?’

He shook his head. ‘Just booked out of the hotel. Off back to London now. Not having much luck this trip. I travel in toys and novelties, you know. Going round the Sussex resorts. People
normally buy in for next spring at this time of year, but times are hard.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘I’m not going to be splashing out on Christmas this year, I don’t
think.’

‘Toys and novelties?’ She remembered her committee, the toys for poor children in the North, Mrs Templeman.

‘Yes.’ He smiled. ‘I’m from Brighton originally, everyone knows me round here.’ He extended a gloved hand. ‘Danny Waterson.’

‘Sarah Hardcastle.’

They were silent for a moment. He said, ‘I heard the Coronation’s fixed for June.’

‘Is it?’

‘Yes. I phoned the office this morning and they told me. They still haven’t found anyone she’ll marry. They say the Queen Mother’s pressing German princes on
her.’

‘Maybe she’ll stay single, like the first Elizabeth?’

He looked across to the shore again. ‘I remember this place in 1940. Barbed wire all along the promenade, down on the beach too, concrete tank traps in the water. You can’t believe
it now.’

‘No.’

‘And the rationing, remember that?’

‘Yes.’

‘Now you can buy what you like. So long as you can afford it.’ He spoke with a touch of bitterness. ‘I was in the Home Guard for a couple of months, remember them?’

She did: old men and boys on the newsreels, parading with wooden sticks because there weren’t enough rifles. She had thought of how they would all be slaughtered in an invasion. Danny went
on, ‘I was just too young to be called up. Then in a couple of months it was all over.’ He leaned on the railing again. ‘I wonder what would have happened if we hadn’t made
peace, whether the Germans would’ve invaded. It would have been difficult, you know, getting an army across the Channel.’

‘They tell us it would have been easy. We’d lost all our equipment at Dunkirk.’

‘Maybe. Well, we made our choice in 1940 and here we are.’ From his tone he was anti-regime, though he hadn’t actually said anything incriminating.

‘Yes.’ Sarah sighed heavily.

Danny shook his head sadly. ‘I worry about my kiddies’ future, I do. I saw one of those places where they’re holding the Jews outside Worthing yesterday. In the distance, from
the train, it looked like an old army barracks. Surrounded with wire, guards patrolling. My wife says the Jews deserve it, they can’t be trusted, they’re not really loyal to
Britain.’ He shook his head again. ‘Well, there’s nothing we can do.’

Sarah realized she had hardly thought about the Jews over the last few days. ‘There’s been nothing on the news,’ she said.

‘No. People will forget soon, they do if it’s things they can’t see and don’t affect them.’

‘How old are your children?’ she asked.

‘Two boys. Six and eight. You?’

‘No. I – I’m a widow.’

‘From the 1940 war?’

‘No. Recently. My husband died in a car crash.’

‘Ah. I’m sorry.’

‘Maybe I should be getting back,’ Sarah said. ‘It’s cold.’

He looked at her. ‘Must be a hard time for you, Christmas.’

‘Yes. That’s why I had to get away for a few days.’ She realized that lying was already coming easily to her. Had it been like that for David? She looked into Danny’s sad
face and felt guilty.

He said, nervously, ‘Perhaps you’d like to come for a drink. Lots of nice little pubs in the Lanes, warm coal fires. They’ll be opening up about now.’

She thought, he’s trying to pick me up. But maybe not, perhaps he was just looking for companionship on this bleak morning. She hesitated a second, then smiled and said, ‘Thank you
very much, but no. I should be getting back.’

He was apologetic and a little embarrassed. ‘Of course, I’m sorry, I hope you don’t mind—’

‘Not at all. But I must go.’

He tipped his hat again, an awkward little gesture, then said, ‘This is a sad sort of town in winter. Maybe, don’t think I’m intruding, but maybe you’d be happier back in
London.’

She sighed. ‘Yes, perhaps. Well . . .’ She turned away.

‘I hope I didn’t speak out of turn—’

‘No. No, it was nice to talk to you.’

She walked away, down the pier, back to the promenade, bleakly conscious of the loneliness that might now lie ahead for ever.

As she reached the promenade a newsboy was shouting, from the stand outside the Old Ship Hotel. ‘Hitler dead!’ she heard, ‘Führer dies!’

A
FTER PASSING THROUGH
the roadblock the fire engine continued racing dangerously fast down the road, sirens blaring. At one point the driver sounded the
horn and a man in a white facemask crossing the road jumped wildly out of the way, his leaping figure momentarily visible in the headlights. Then, so suddenly that David was thrown violently
sideways, the powerful machine juddered to a halt. He and the others stood, a little shakily, and looked over the side. The headlights were still on and though they barely penetrated the fog David
was able to see that they had stopped in front of a large stationary truck, its canvas-covered back facing them. An army truck, he thought with horror. Beside him the young man who had rescued them
threw off his helmet. ‘Go on,’ he said cheerfully, ‘get down. Your new transport’s waiting.’

‘But it’s army . . .’

He laughed. ‘We stole that, too. Now, come on. It won’t take the police long to realize this engine was on a fake call.’

David climbed down into the street, Ben and Natalia and their young rescuer following. The three firemen who had been in the cab stepped out too. David looked round; they were in a cobbled
street, lock-up garages on either side. He saw a man in military uniform standing beside the army truck, tall and burly.

‘Who’s that?’ David asked the young fireman.

‘Don’t know, mate. We were just told to bring you here.’ He clapped the side of the truck. ‘Good old Merryweather engine, never lets you down.’ He brought out a
packet of cigarettes and passed them round. David took one gratefully.

The military man came over, looming out of the fog. He was in his fifties, with a lined face, black moustache and severe, hard eyes. He wore the uniform of a captain. He looked them over.

‘Are you a real soldier?’ Ben asked.

‘Yes,’ the captain answered brusquely. ‘I’m with Churchill now. Right. All of you in the back of the truck. We need to get you out of here.’ He turned and barked,
‘Fowler, open up!’ The canvas back was pulled aside and a stringy little man in a private’s uniform jumped down, lowered the tailgate and waved them up impatiently. David saw he
was carrying a rifle.

David shook the hand of the young fireman. ‘Thank you.’ He looked at the rest of the crew. ‘Thank you all.’ They raised their hands in acknowledgement.

‘Come on,’ the captain said impatiently. ‘We haven’t much time.’

They all climbed in. The truck smelt of sweat and machine oil. The private shone a torch into the back, showing a double row of benches. Another man in private’s uniform sat at the far
end, with a rifle across his knees. Next to him was a civilian in a dark jacket, hunched over. David’s heart jumped when he saw it was Frank. Frank’s face lit up and he cried out,
‘It’s true! You’re alive!’

‘No thanks to you,’ the stringy man said grumpily in a Cockney accent. He waved his arm to indicate that David and Ben and Natalia should sit down on the benches. He closed the
canvas flap, and the soldier next to Frank leaned over and banged on the back of the cab. There was a little window, giving a view into the front. The driver, another man in military uniform, was
already sitting there; the captain got in beside him. The truck started and began moving slowly down the street.

The stringy private played the torch across their faces. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘We’ll get into one of the sidestreets and then you’re all going to change into uniform.
We’re going to be a group of soldiers travelling to guard duty at the Jew camp in Dover.’ He turned the beam on Natalia. ‘Except you, miss, they’ll not take you for a
soldier if we’re stopped, you’re going to be dropped off and debriefed about today. You’ll rendezvous with the others later.’

‘Where?’ Ben asked.

‘You’ll find out when we get there,’ the soldier next to Frank answered quietly, in a Yorkshire accent. ‘Can’t really say anything more.’ He was a big man,
with a wrestler’s build, but his manner was friendlier than his comrade’s.