Somewhere Over England (43 page)

‘There is no news,’ he said, and for a moment they were both quiet and she knew that he had not yet solved his own darkness, his own dreams.

Chris moved from them, over to the rail, looking out towards New York.

Claus raised an eyebrow at Helen, his dark hair grey now. ‘So like his father.’

Helen shook her head. ‘He would deny that, my dear Claus. He doesn’t like the Germans.’

Claus nodded, his face sad. ‘But one day he will have to face that he is partly of that race.’ He eased himself down into a deckchair, beckoning her to do the same. ‘One day, my dear, he will have to be made to face it, be proud of it.’

Helen nodded, looking at her son who was so torn again.

‘And now, the future for you?’ Claus asked, looking through his camera, sizing up an angle.

‘Who knows? Getting used to peace, I suppose, getting used to all this.’ She watched Claus as he focused.

‘Will you stay in Montana or can I persuade you back to photography? We need you. They remember you over here.’

Helen smiled, surprised. ‘Really?’ She leaned forward, her arms on her knees, seeing the wind lifting Chris’s hair, the brides walking past talking quietly. ‘It’s tempting but Ed’s home is in Montana. It’s what he needs. At least, I think it’s what he needs.’

She held her hands loosely together, enjoying his familiar voice, talking of little things, brushing against the larger ones, reaching out and bringing England close, Germany close, and now the future did not seem so vast. Then he left, called away by the First Officer because his time was up but before he went he left his camera with her, laughing at her face.

‘Yes, why not, my dear? You own half the business. Who knows, you might decide to take on a project in those mountains. I could sell your work, you know.’ He bent to kiss her. ‘It might be something to hang on to, Helen, if the darkness comes between Ed and his life, as it did once with me. Call me, if you ever need me. I loved Heine, he saved my life. You saved my life too.’

He shook hands with Chris, his face solemn.

‘You must not deny your roots. You are from good Germans. Remember that.’

Chris turned and ran off along the deck and Helen did not go after him but watched Claus walk down the gangplank waving, waving until she could no longer see him.

The next morning they ate a breakfast that was too large or was
it just that none of the women were hungry? Names were called over the loudspeakers, requesting that the following brides report to the Immigration Officer in the lounge and have their landing cards stamped before proceeding to the library for their, luggage tags. Chris sat with Helen, waiting, but so far they had only reached the Ds. Neither mentioned Claus and there was a barrier between them; it was slight but it was there and Helen wanted to push it aside but did not know how.

At noon they heard McDonald and joined the queue for Immigration and then for luggage tags. Helen told Chris to fetch his case while she collected hers from her berth. She tied the tags on, knowing that in a moment she would be starting on the final stage of the journey which would take her to Ed. They had also been given identity labels which they had to pin to their coats but Helen refused because she had not come all this way to be labelled. No one insisted when they saw her face.

Together with thirty other brides they were bused through the Holland Tunnel to New Jersey accompanied by two Red Cross personnel and there they boarded a Pullman which was larger than any train in Britain. The station was so large, the train too, and the suitcase was heavy in Chris’s hand and cut into his fingers. He thought of the string bag he had taken from London to Greater Mannenham but he pushed that from him, because now he was going to a new life and, therefore, he had no use for his old.

He looked at his mother. Couldn’t she understand that all he wanted to do was forget? That he could not bear to be from the same people who had made the village hate the Germans again because they had murdered so many people in camps? He couldn’t bear always to be on the outside because of who he was. It was easier just to push it away.

They travelled for forty-eight hours, sleeping in bunks, then sitting for hours, and the rattle of the train drummed through their heads as they lurched through cities and great open spaces. They walked in the corridors, stretching cramped limbs, and Helen wondered how long she could stand it, but there were other brides and so they could still laugh together, and listen to familiar English accents.

When they reached Chicago she and Chris were met by the Red Cross, driven to another station and put on to another
train, this time alone. The conductor was told that he must hand Chris and Helen over to relatives or take them on to the next town where the sheriff must take custody of them. They must not be allowed free access to the country in case they became a drain on the economy. Helen listened to the poignant hoot of the train as it drew out of the vast town and she knew now how Heine must have felt, arriving as an alien in a strange land.

They travelled for another twenty-four hours and all the time her head was throbbing in time with the rattle of the train over the sleepers. The last four hours were covered in darkness. Chris and she had talked as the country unfolded, staring at the space, the mountains, the plains, the valleys, the rivers which seemed endless. They had talked of Ed, of the food, of the language, of Mary and Laura, but not of Heine because Helen knew that she must be careful or lose her son.

They drew up at last into Little Fork station which was small, like so many others they had passed through, but Helen could not see Ed as she peered through the window, holding her hand to her face to shield it from the light. The conductor came through, taking them to the door, helping them down on to the platform.

The Red Cross had sent a telegram informing Ed of her arrival. He should be here. She looked, then took Chris’s hand and he let her because he was uncertain too. They walked through the booking hall with the conductor, then out on to the yard where cars and trucks were drawn up but he was not there and the sky was so vast, this land was too large and she was frightened of being adrift in it.

She turned back, walking towards the train and Chris but then she heard feet running behind her, his hands turning her, holding her, his breath gasping in his chest.

‘You’re early, for Christ’s sake, you’re early, darling.’ He was kissing her, holding her and pulling Chris to him, clutching them both and he felt the same. Just the same as Helen leaned into him, so tired, so glad to be with him, so glad that, for a moment, it almost felt as though she were coming home. But only for a moment.

Helen lay in bed that first night, feeling Ed beside her, his arms round her and neither of them slept and they did not speak, just touched and kissed, and as dawn rose she looked out through the window at the leaning jackpines on the ridges which seemed to surround the valley, holding them gently within the mountain range. The journey was at an end.

She stretched, counting the roses which climbed the wallpaper trellis, seeing their colour picked up in the new curtains. The chest of drawers was rough pine, made from the trees she could see from the window. A mirror stood on the top and Ed’s hairbrush was there, silver backed; his graduation present. His photographs were on the wall, his face smiling down as a young man without lines, without fear.

She could hear the sound of pans in the kitchen and smell cooking and as Ed looked at her through lids half open she bent to kiss him, wanting to stay within the scent of his skin all day.

‘I love you, I love you,’ he said, reaching for her and as she sank beneath his kiss she thought of Yvonne and wondered how her mornings were.

She dressed at last, knocking on Chris’s door but he was up, and as she ran down the stairs she heard him talking in the kitchen to the woman who had welcomed them to Little Fork last night; the woman who had taken her in her arms and held her close, saying that her son loved her and she did too. Ed’s father had kissed her cheek and smiled, then picked up his pipe again and puffed before looking at Chris and saying that he needed a few more vittals inside him and then he’d pretty soon lick the hired hands into shape.

Mom, as she insisted on being called, cooked waffles and passed them thick corn syrup, followed by steak for breakfast
and Chris looked at his mother and then ate until it was finished, drinking coffee while Ed laughed.

The black stove threw out heat though the spring morning was not cold, but fresh, the frost and snow all gone as April drew towards its end.

‘So,’ Ed’s mother said, sitting down with them, pouring more coffee, her plump face pink from the heat of the stove, her grey hair caught up in a bun. Ed’s eyes were the same as his mother’s, Helen thought, looking from one to another and she felt good to be here amongst his people, but so far, it was not her home.

‘So, there’s no work for you today, Ed, your pop says. You’re to look after this little family of yours, and look after them good.’ She was shaking her finger at her son who dodged and grinned at Chris.

‘We’re going into town,’ he said, levering himself up from his chair stiffly since his back and his left thigh were still not fully mobile. ‘Thought I’d show Helen the place, get a few clothes for them both because there’s this hotpot supper at the house behind the drug store on Friday.’ He smiled at Helen. ‘It’s kind of a welcome shower.’

Helen looked up as she stacked the plates. ‘A shower?’

‘That great kid of mine means a party I guess you’d call it. It’s just that a few folks said they’d like to meet “this girl from England” and I thought it would get it all over and done with and then you can get on with your life.’ His mother wiped her hands on her apron smiling at Helen. ‘That’s what you all need, you, Ed and Chris. Just to be allowed to get on with your lives the best you can.’ She turned and walked to the sink with the dishes, waving Helen away and calling to Ed.

‘Just get your new wife downtown to the store to pick up some books for her to read when she’s feeling kind of lonesome for England and then on to Joanie’s for some clothes. But before that, maybe you should show her the house.’

Ed put his hands around Helen’s waist, pulling her down on to his lap. His laugh was the same and his body too. His lips as he touched her neck were gentle and she smiled at Chris who was lifting his eyes to the ceiling and drumming his fingers on the table.

‘Shall we get into town first, Ed?’ he said. ‘And then, when we get back can you show me the horse you said I could have?
Mum and I have been learning to ride on John’s old mare for the last year you know.’

‘Is that so? Well, you kept that kind of quiet in your letters, didn’t you, Mrs McDonald?’

He laughed and kissed her forehead and Helen remembered the falls she had taken as old Betsy had trotted up and down, up and down, and how she thought the world had taken a tumble when she had been lurched into her first canter.

Ed squeezed Helen and let her rise, holding her hand as they walked to the door, slapping Chris on the shoulder.

‘Come on, cowboy.’

They drove down the narrow road which ran alongside the creek edged by muddy banks and interrupted by clumps of willow. Helen looked out either side of the truck towards the mountains. Those to the west had snow on them which, Ed told her, remained throughout the year. Those to the east had been whipped into towers and turrets by the winds which swirled around the range day after day without respite.

‘We get our ravens here too,’ he told Chris. ‘Some real mean storms blow in but towards the end of the summer I guess.’

There was mud on the road and tracks leading to fields where hay was beginning to grow and he looked at Helen as they passed and both were remembering the first time they discovered one another’s bodies. Ed told Helen that the roads were always like this in the spring because there was so much snow.

‘When it thaws it makes one hell of a mess,’ he said. ‘And it makes it kind of slippy to drive. Now, you must remember that when I teach you because you’ll need to learn out here. It’s not like England with buses and trams.’

He drove on, showing them where he had skidded off the road when the first snows had come after he had just learned to drive. He pulled in to show them where his pop said his great-grandfather had first pitched his tent, down on the bank of the creek.

‘My great-grandfather settled here because it looked so like his home. He had come from the lowlands of Scotland and ran sheep here because it was all he knew about. He kind of bought up the other homesteads.’

They sat quietly for a moment and Helen thought of these people coming so far and staying to build a farm and a family and felt less alone.

He started the engine again, slipping it into gear, showing her what he was doing and it was not so very different to the old van which John had insisted she drove round with the hay in the hard winter of forty-five.

In the town he drew up and pointed to the railroad shipping pens to the left of the station where they would bring the sheep in the autumn.

‘Who was here before the settlers?’ Chris asked, peering through the window at the swallows’ nests which hung beneath the eaves of the few stores in the street.

Ed drew into the side of the road, checking his mirrors, pulling the steering wheel over before stopping. ‘The Crow Indians. They hunted across here in the early days. There was wild turkey, all manner of things then, or so pop says.’

‘Where did they go?’ Helen asked climbing down from the truck behind Chris, looking up and down the street, wondering if this really was all there was to Little Fork.

‘Across to the long-grass prairies over the Missouri River,’ Ed replied, touching his hat to the two old men who had chairs at the open hotel door. ‘Hi, Jack, Tim. This is my wife straight out from England. And her boy, Chris.’

‘Hello,’ Helen said and smiled. The men nodded and sucked on their pipes, their faces wrinkled and their hands gnarled.

‘Couldn’t find no nice clean girl over here then, Ed?’ Jack said and Helen felt cold and turned, walking on, hearing Chris come up behind and then Ed who took her arm, his lips thin. ‘Ignore ’em, honey. They are the only two likely to be sour. Nothing’s ever right for them.’