Magnolia Square (3 page)

Leon Emmerson might have walked jauntily into the Square after an absence of information indicating he hadn’t drowned over three years ago, but German-born Jews, Jacoba Berger and Eva
Frank, dragged from their Heidelberg home and incarcerated in a concentration camp even before the war had begun, weren’t likely to be so lucky.

Distantly, on the light summer breeze, came the sound of piano playing and discordant but exuberant singing. Magnolia Square’s street party was still going at full throttle. In a nearby
shrub, two sparrows wrangled noisily. A butterfly alighted briefly on one of the shaking leaves and then flew off, the sun glinting on the scarlet markings of its wings. Christina’s fingers
dug deeper into the flesh of her arms. Ever since she had escaped from Germany, she had schooled herself to accept that her mother and grandmother were dead. Why now, after all this time, had doubt
begun to return? Certainly the news reports of the last few weeks had given no cause for hope. The first Allied troops into the camps had found horrors beyond imagining, and the estimate of the
number of Jews who had died in them now ran into the millions. To entertain any hope that two women who had been imprisoned as long ago as 1936 could have survived was not only vain, it was
ridiculous.

Or was it?

The sparrows flew off, still wrangling. A bee began to circle the bush, looking for flowers and pollen. Slowly, as she stood there, the hope she had suppressed for so many years began to take
fierce hold. All over Europe displaced people would be struggling to make their way back to their homes. All over Europe, reunions similar to Leon and Kate’s would be taking place. What if
her mother and grandmother hadn’t died in the concentration camp they had been taken to? What if, by some miracle, they, like Leon, had survived?

‘Hello there!’ a middle-aged woman she knew only by sight called out to her cheerily, a mongrel skittering at her heels. ‘I’ve just been told your vicar’s thinking
of marrying again. Lovely woman Bob Giles’s first wife was. I remember the day she was killed. The first air-raid of the war, it was. Such a shame, and her only a young woman too. Still,
it’s nice he’s found happiness again.’

With great effort Christina dragged her thoughts away from a ravaged Europe and the thousands upon thousands of displaced persons trailing the rutted road, their pathetically few belongings
piled high in old prams and handcarts. ‘Yes,’ she agreed, smiling politely. ‘It is.’

The woman would have liked to stay for a longer chat, but there was something about Christina Robson that was definitely not encouraging. She was polite enough, of course, but she wasn’t a
friendly, jolly south-London girl, like her friends Kate Voigt and Carrie Collins. She was too reserved. Too deep. Which all came of her being a foreigner of course, and Jewish into the
bargain.

‘Toodle-oo,’ she said amiably, making allowances for what the poor girl couldn’t help, adding as an afterthought, ‘Your hubby will be demobbed soon I expect, or he will
be if he doesn’t decide to make a career of commando-ing. I’ve seen newsreels of Commando attacks. The Commandos were all guyed up in balaclava helmets with muck on the bits that show
so they’d merge into the background, and they were bristling with knives and pistols. Should suit your Jack a treat. He always was on the wild side.’

Christina made no comment. She didn’t want to think about Jack yet for a bit. Thinking about Jack was too unsettling, too intimidating. She would think about her mother and grandmother
instead. She would think of ways she could try to discover what had happened to them, if they were alive or dead and, if they were dead, where they had died, and how. And if they were alive? Her
throat was so tight she could hardly breathe. If they were alive she would find them. She would find them if it was the very last thing she ever did.

Kate sidestepped a running toddler and joined Leon as he continued to chat with Carrie and Danny and Danny’s dad, Daniel.

‘. . . that kid should’ve bin a requisitions officer,’ Danny was saying, quite obviously referring to Billy and his private ammunition dump. ‘’E’s got a
natural-born talent for scroungin’.’

Kate slid her arm around Leon’s waist. The street party seemed to be going on for ever. When on earth would it come to an end? When would they be able to escape and have some privacy?

His hand cupped her far shoulder as he hugged her close, his thoughts exactly the same as hers. As she leant her head against his shoulder, he looked down at her in utter love, his throat
tightening in emotion. Christ, but she was beautiful! No woman he had ever seen had hair of such a rich, glorious gold colour. Or hair so long and lustrous. And she had waited for him. For over
three years she hadn’t known whether he was dead or alive, but she had given birth to his son and had waited faithfully in fierce hope.

‘I love you,’ he whispered in her ear as their son continued to ride high on his shoulders, and Daisy and Matthew engaged in a giggling game of tag with Rose. ‘When the devil
can we escape and be alone together?’

Before she could make a response, Daniel Collins said genially to her, ‘Have you heard that you and the Vicar aren’t the only ones having weddings this month? Charlie Robson has just
announced he’s going to marry your next-door neighbour. Funny old couple they’ll make, her a retired headmistress and a spinster and him a widower with a criminal past, barely able to
read and write.’

‘They’ve been friends for a long time,’ Carrie said, wondering what Christina would think of her father-in-law’s rather surprising wedding plans.

Danny ran a hand through his spiky, mahogany-red hair in baffled bemusement. ‘Wasn’t ’Arriet Godfrey Jack’s old ’eadmistress? And didn’t she once say Jack was
more suited to a Borstal than ’er junior school? I wonder what ’e’s goin’ to think when ’e comes ’ome and finds she’s about to become ’is
stepmother!’

They all roared with laughter, not noticing Mavis’s approach. ‘Is it a private joke or can anyone join in?’ she asked, strolling up to them on perilously high, peep-toed,
wedge-heeled sandals, her toenails a vivid scarlet beneath her sheer silk stockings.

Carrie sighed, her laughter subsiding. Her older sister was a constant source of irritation to her. Where, in these days of deprivation, had the silk stockings come from, for instance? Wherever
it was, the supply would have to stop when Ted was demobbed. He’d been upset enough about her long-standing flirtatious relationship with Jack Robson, and he knew Jack well. He certainly
wouldn’t countenance a similarly dubious relationship with a stranger, and the stockings must have come from a stranger because Jack hadn’t swaggered into Magnolia Square on leave since
the weekend he’d been home and married Christina.

‘We were just anticipating Jack’s surprise when he comes home and finds his dad has married Harriet Godfrey,’ Kate said, flashing Mavis a wide, warm smile. ‘She used to
be his headmistress when he was in junior school. I can’t imagine he’s going to find it easy calling her Mother, can you?’

At the very thought, Mavis spluttered into throaty laughter, and even Carrie began to giggle again. ‘Well, we’ll all be finding out how he’s going to manage soon enough,’
Mavis said when her laughter finally subsided. ‘I had a letter from him this morning. He says he thinks he’ll be home by the end of next month, and demobbed soon after.’

‘When he does come home, you just make sure you give him a wide berth,’ Carrie said, suddenly serious. ‘He’s married now, and no matter how much you and he might protest
that your horse-play is innocent, Christina mightn’t think it innocent. And she’s been hurt enough in the past, losing all her family the way she has done, without being hurt by your
shenanigans.’

Mavis put a hand on an aquamarine-skirted, curvaceous hip, and tapped a foot up and down. ‘Why the hell can’t you keep your useless opinions to yourself, Carrie?’ she demanded
witheringly, uncaring of their embarrassed audience. ‘Me and Jack are mates. Always ’ave been. Always will be. And ’is ’avin’ married Christina isn’t going to
make a ha’p’orth’s difference to that friendship, so don’t you go ’opin’ it will. And as Christina is ’eading this way at this very moment,’ she
added, her eyes no longer holding Carrie’s but looking over Carrie’s shoulder, ‘I suggest we put the kibosh on this conversation, don’t you?’

Before Carrie could make any response, they all heard Nellie boom out from the depths of her sagging armchair, ‘Where the ’ell ’ave you been, Christina? You’ve been
missing all the fun!’

‘I’ve not been far,’ Christina said, smiling at Nellie with affectionate warmth. ‘I just wanted to be on my own for a little while.’

‘Well, you chose a rum day for it, dearie!’ Nellie’s red balloon still bobbed jauntily on the end of its string. ‘Still, it takes all sorts and I ’spect you wanted
to enjoy the news about your Jack coming ’ome and ’opin’ to be demobbed soon. It’s grand news, ain’t it?’

Christina stared at her. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, utterly bewildered. ‘I don’t understand. How do you know Jack’s going to be home soon?’

‘Mavis told me,’ Nellie said blithely. ‘She ’ad a letter from ’im this mornin’. I expect her Ted will be ’ome soon as well. I ’aven’t
’ad news about ’Arold, but that’s only to be expected . . .’

Christina was no longer listening to her. She was looking across at Mavis, her face so white it looked as if it were carved from marble.

‘Bloody
hell
,’ Mavis said graphically to the world at large, ‘that’s torn it. How was I to know Jack hadn’t written her with the news yet?’

‘Well, you know now,’ Danny said dryly as his father began prudently edging away from what was obviously going to be the centre of a very unpleasant explosion.

‘And if I were you, Mavis, I’d start thinking what to do about it,’ Carrie added, grim-faced. ‘And I’d start thinking fast. Very fast indeed!’

Of all four girls, Christina was the most petite. Though Kate was ethereally slender, she was tall. Carrie was curvaceously heavy-bosomed and broad-hipped, far too much so for
her own liking. Mavis was narrow-waisted and buxom, and happily emphasized the fact. Christina was small-boned, and there was an air of fragility about her that brought out fierce protectiveness in
some people and irritation in others. In Mavis, well aware that beneath Christina’s apparently wand-like fragility lay true steel, it brought out irritation. It brought it out in
bucket-loads.

Christina’s true steel was blazingly apparent now. It flamed out of her eyes, turning their beautiful amethyst colour near black. ‘Nellie says my husband has written to you, telling
you he’s coming home on leave and hopes to be demobbed soon. Is that true?’ She faced Mavis full square, not putting her hands on her hips in confrontational south-London fashion, but
with her hands clenched at her sides, every nerve and muscle as taut as a coiled spring.

Mavis sighed. For all her noisy exuberance, she didn’t like scenes and she had no particular desire to spoil Magnolia Square’s street party by pitching into a full-scale brawl with
the Jewish refugee it had collectively taken under its wing. ‘Yes,’ she said, keeping her voice as pleasant as her patience would allow. ‘It was a general sort of letter. A letter
to the family. If you haven’t heard from him yet it must mean his letter to you is snarled up somewhere. You can’t expect Forces post to be normal these days, can you?’

‘No,’ Carrie said, hurriedly agreeing with her and trying to defuse the situation. ‘Whenever Danny wrote to me and his mum he always posted the letters off together and they
never arrived together. That’s true, isn’t it, Danny?’ She looked towards him for support.

Danny dutifully nodded, his freckled face struggling for an effect of earnest sincerity. ‘Absolutely. Carrie would receive her letter weeks before Mum did, or Mum would get ’ers and
Carrie’s wouldn’t even arrive!’

Christina was not remotely interested in the vagaries of Danny’s mail. ‘I would like to see the letter,’ she said tautly to Mavis, her lips nearly as white as her face.
‘I would like to read Jack’s comments for myself.’

The conga procession had begun making its way back up the Square, with Albert Jennings spiritedly leading it. His two daughters and Kate and Christina were oblivious of him.

Mavis eyed Christina thoughtfully, the tension almost unbearable. ‘I don’t think I can ’elp you out there,’ she said at last as Leon cleared his throat uncomfortably and
Danny shifted his feet. ‘Letters are private things. Sorry, Christina.’

Christina sucked in her breath, furious with herself for having asked anything of Mavis; furious with Mavis for so laconically refusing her request; furious with Jack for having written the
letter to Mavis in the first place.

‘Aiya, aiya . . .
conga
,’ Albert bellowed, kicking his left leg out at a jaunty angle as he led his tipsy conga line towards them. ‘Come on, Mavis! Show a leg there!
Aiya, aiya
conga
! Churchill is a
hero
. . . !’

Mavis grinned and accepted her dad’s invitation with relief. The local young scoutmaster, who had long wanted to get his arms around her, seized his opportunity and latched on behind her
and away they all went, conga-ing rumbustiously towards the Blackheath end of the Square.