Opposite Sides (71 page)

“
Thank you.
Thank you.” Hans replied with sincerity. He pushed the parcel under
his arm and with a last salute, he walked out of the door for the
last time. A free man. And with a quick change of clothing, he once
more became plain Mr Erwin Hans Resmel.

CHAPTER
23

Jan

The autumn day was
wonderful. It crept in under a thin layer of white mist which
dissolved to expose a brilliant, clear, blue sky. It was a
welcoming day for several reasons: firstly, it was Hans’ first day
as a normal civilian; and secondly, it was he who would be
travelling to meet Jan. He hadn’t done anything like this since . .
. well, since he had been going out with Caroline. The world had
changed so much since then, but so had they. Jan had been living
together with Andrea and Miss Turner since Armistice Day. She had
told Hans that her aunt did not get out much and used a walking
stick to help her balance. The days she most enjoyed were those
times when she was able to sit out in the garden and watch Andrea
with her friends.

The train pulled into the
familiar station. Hans was relieved to find the familiar things
were still there: the coal smelling smoke, the shrill whistles of
the train guards and the background calls and clatter as luggage
was deposited on the edge of the platform. The variation and
percussion of banging carriage doors as passengers threw them wide
open or slammed them shut sounded all along the platform from one
end of the carriages to the other, mixed with a familiar babble of
voices as passengers lined up in front of the exit gate where the
station master checked and punched each ticket. The station had not
changed, or had it? The once colourful billboard signs had been
covered with dull grey war-paint or carried warnings such as ‘idle
gossip wastes lives’ and ‘remember to keep the home counties safe’
and window panes still carried their protective black criss-cross
lattice patterns against the shattering of glass during air-raids.
The ticket office looked stark and blank and Hans became aware that
there were no train timetables or advertising notices pinned to the
walls. Then he noticed there was no station name either, for all
those had been taken down during the war when the threat of
invasion had seemed so real. Hans did notice a single sandwich
billboard that had been propped up against the wall. A platform
official stood with his back facing the hurrying crowd as he
chalked up the time and destination for the next train to depart.
That, alone, lent an air of normality to the place.

Hans had not sent word to
Jan about the exact time and date he would be arriving. He wanted
it to be a surprise. With a suitcase in one hand and his coat over
the other arm, he walked briskly up to the platform ticket
collector, handed over his ticket for punching and then made his
way through the station entrance and out on to the street. He felt
like a free man again.

Jan lived in a house not
far from the station. She had sent him a hand-drawn map and marked
the house with a red cross. It would be easy to find. Rather than
hail a taxi, Hans decided to walk. It was the first enjoyable walk
he’d had for many, many years and although he had felt like a
stranger in the station, as he walked along the road, the
surroundings became familiar and the people he passed seemed
friendlier and for the first time in his life, he felt as though he
could consider this place as home. The thought brought a lump to
his throat. The emotion he felt began to overwhelm him and he could
feel the prick of a tear forming in the corner of his
eye.

As he continued, he
became aware of how gradually the low surrounding hills rose above
the valley and much of the land was an earthly-golden mass of corn
shooks that stood interspersed across the harvested fields. The
land still had plenty to offer its people. And along one side of
the road edge he caught glimpses of well-grazed grass fields hidden
behind thick hedges and tangles of tall willowy weeds. On the
other, he saw brick and stone buildings, restful and sleepy as if
they had never been witness to the hectic and dangerous last five
years. Such normality of the countryside contrasted with the
noticeable damage he had seen closer to London where silent rows of
houses stood witness to gaping gaps and great piles of rubble where
once complete houses had stood. He wondered whether the little flat
where he and Caroline had spent a happy time together still
remained or had it succumbed to nightly bombing raids and now lay
in a heap of broken bricks on the road.

Finally, Hans arrived at
the front door. Number 58. He checked his notes. Number 58: the
open letter-slit proudly proclaimed its ownership. Behind this door
would be Jan. He lowered his suitcase down on to the doorstep and
lifted the door-knocker and knocked. He waited, the closed door
only a little in front of his face. The latch and bolt were moved.
Slowly, the door opened; cracked just a little, just enough to
allow the puzzled face of a grey-haired elderly lady peer round its
edge. She wore a pair of plain rimmed spectacles which had two long
loops of black cord dangling like wiry threads from either side of
her spectacle arms. She tilted her head as far as she could and
examined him from behind the gap between frame and door.

“
Hello. Can I
help you?”

“
I hope so,”
he answered. “I’m sure I have the right number . . . 58. Miss
Turner?”

Suddenly, the old lady’s
face broke out in a smile of recognition as she picked up the
accent in his voice.

“
Hans
Resmel!” she exclaimed. “Why, it’s Hans Resmel.” She noticed his
suitcase. “You’ve arrived. Do come in. Just a moment. I’ll unchain
the door.” She pushed the door to and he could hear the clinking of
metal as she undid the latch. He stepped through the doorway with
his suitcase in front and she moved back to give him enough room.
“Jan and Andrea are not in at the moment. But they shouldn’t be too
long. Come through into the front room.” She motioned him to put
his luggage down. “Leave your case in the hall. It’ll be fine
there. Jan will come in through the back.”

She led him into a small
room, where he noticed several photographs, two hanging on the wall
and another smaller one sitting on a shelf.

No
, he thought at once.
The offending one’s not there
.

Instead, there were
photographs of Jan and Andrea, and to his amazement, one he saw was
of a group of well-dressed young people, happy and smiling back at
him.

“
When was
that taken, Miss Turner?” he asked pointing to the photograph
within a dark wooden frame.

“
Now you are
asking me! Let me see. It must have been, oh yes, ’26 or ’7. I
think someone took a photograph when you were all at the ball.
Don’t you remember having to sit so still for it to be
taken?”

“
Now I do.”
He took the frame in his hands and peered at the young black and
white faces. He laughed as he found himself in the back row,
standing next to Bertie Williams. “That’s me beside Bertie. I
hardly recognise myself. Oh, and there’s Lofty and Robert. Haven’t
seen Robert since Caroline and I were together. Alastair. He could
bat a ball right over to the back fence. Then Anne and . . . I
can’t think of that girl’s name beside her . . . and then Jan at
the end. Almost twenty years. I wonder where they all are today. Do
you know anything about them?”

“
I’m not sure
of Alastair Montgrove. He went into the navy. On convoys. Ship was
torpedoed, I think. He was one of the lucky ones. Last I heard, he
was on one of the ships doing the Russian route. Did you know that
Anne’s husband went down in the Channel?”

“
Gerald?”
Hans’ voice rose an octave as the realisation that his friend from
before the war had not made it through. “Flew hurricanes. Did
Gerald survive, do you know?”

The elderly lady shook
her head. Hans could feel her pain for Anne and Gerald had remained
in touch with Jan ever since they all left school.

“
His plane
went down sometime in March. He was posted missing until a month
ago.”

Poor
Anne
!
Hans
thought of his old friend and found the news was shaking him up.
“How did Anne take it?” he asked, having cleared his throat but it
still came out rather husky and shaky.

Miss Turner took the
photograph from him and began placing it back on the shelf in the
exact position it was before.

“
Anne looked
as if she were taking it well but we who really knew her, could see
she was under great strain and was missing him deeply. The children
helped. She’s got four, you realise. Having them around was a
godsend but not the same as Gerald. Jan went over as soon as we
read his death notice in the paper.” Miss Turner sighed deeply and
looked away. “Too many of the boys died young. Anne is a widow and
her children have no father. Who would have thought it would happen
again?”

“
I’m
surprised you agreed to let me come here, considering. In a way,
I’m responsible for Gerald’s death.”

“
No, the war
did that,Hans. You, Gerald, all of you boys had no choice. You all
had a duty to do. All of my boys. I followed you all in the hope to
understand what sacrifices you were prepared to make. And I mean
all of you.”

The elderly lady looked
directly at Hans and nodded to herself. She stood looking at the
photograph for a while longer, giving time for her memory to recall
those feelings and remembrances of those who had been her boys, no
matter on which side they had been thrown. Just as an old
photograph fades, so does the sharpness of memory mellow until all
the faces become the same. Faces she once knew well but now found
hard to recall.

Hans did not know what to
say. He felt as awkward as he did when he first stepped into Miss
Turner’s life. Those young men he had grown up with had been forced
to take opposite sides, just as their own fathers had done when
they, too, were young.

Miss Turner smiled sadly
as she let the happy, laughing family in the photograph go back
beyond the war years. Her stick guided her to her favourite chair
and she lowered herself slowly down.

“
My boys:
Alistair, Peter, Eddie, Robert, Richard, Gerald . . . ” She looked
straight at Hans again and smiled. “Even you.” Hans didn’t know
what to say. “Jan kept me well informed of everyone, including you.
I know far more about you than you think.”

Hans wondered what
information this ex-matron had about himself: his war service,
perhaps, or about his time in England shortly before the war or
during his time in the camp.

“
I don’t
think I understand,” he mumbled, his brow knitted together in
puzzlement. He took a seat opposite.

Miss Turner smiled to
herself, knowingly, just as he remembered her doing from his
schoolboy days. She had caught his interest and she held all the
trump cards.

“
You never
did understand why I took you into my home, did you?” she
asked.

“
No. I
thought it was because of what I’d done and it was a way of keeping
me under control.”

“
Not exactly.
Your grandmother, Julia Crawford, and I were very close friends. Of
course you already know she was from these parts.”

“
Yes.”

“
We grew up
together. We’d been through the same schools, shared holidays
together. It was a surprise when she said she was going to Europe
by herself. Maybe, she had a feeling she was not coming back for
when she left, she promised that if
she
did not return, she’d make sure
one of her children or grandchildren did. When Lester was killed .
. .”

“
You told me
that you had only been married a short time,” Hans added,
remembering the day when he had learnt of their connection to each
other.

“
Yes,” the
elderly lady answered. Miss Turner had travelled back to the time
she was known as the young Mrs Crawford. “My Leister was killed
only two days before he was due to come home. The Crawfords were so
kind to me. Julia and I wrote letters and exchanged photographs
right up until nineteen fourteen. I was treated like one in the
family and I was so grateful for that. So that’s why I took an
interest in you. I owed Julia that much.”

“
Really?” His
eyebrows shot up in amazement.

Miss Turner nodded but
her gaze went far beyond him into a time before he was born.
Minutes elapsed. Neither broke the silence until she was ready to
return to the present.

“
Andrea’s
very much like Julia,” she commented. “I see Julia in her more and
more. Yes, very much alike, those two. And it’s so nice that Jan’s
taken a liking to the girl.”

Hans was
quite speechless and sat looking her, his mouth agape in disbelief.
That was
his
Andrea she was talking about.
His
Andrea;
Caroline’s
Andrea. He
had assumed that Andrea would be like her mother.
He never gave a thought that she could be like her
great-grandmother. The shock of that realisation made him
momentarily lose the thread of what Miss Turner was saying and when
her words began to get through again, he found she had changed
topic.