The Londoners (7 page)

‘She wasn’t to know that you’re not like the Germans who carted her mother and grandmother off to a concentration camp,’ Nibbo had said to him reasonably.
‘
We
know you’re not like them, but she don’t.’

Her father had said that he understood Christina’s action utterly and that there wasn’t the slightest iota of ill feeling on his part. Kate had known he had been speaking the
absolute truth and she had known also that the incident had shaken him far more than he was allowing people to believe.

‘If it does come to war with Hitler, people will remember Christina’s reaction to me,’ he had said heavily. ‘Though everyone in the Square knows I was born in Germany,
very few people have ever thought of me as German. Now they will.’

His anxiety hadn’t been eased when the Home Office had, on the grounds of his nationality, refused to allow him to act as sponsor to a Jewish refugee family. Three months ago, on the day
Hitler annexed Austria, the worst blow of all had fallen.

‘I’ve been asked to resign my position at the school,’ he had said to her in stunned tones when he had come home from work. ‘From now on German is being dropped from the
syllabus.’

He had sat down at the table she had laid ready for their evening meal and said unsteadily, ‘The headmaster could hardly look me in the face when he told me. He said that the education
authority had hinted to him that it would be better if no-one of German extraction was working in the school and that, very reluctantly of course, he was forced to agree with them.’

He passed a hand across his eyes and to her horror Kate saw that it was shaking. With an overpowering feeling of nausea, she had sat down beside him and taken hold of his hand. ‘You
mustn’t take it too much to heart, Daddy,’ she had said, so sick at heart herself she had found it hard to speak. ‘Something else will turn up. Something much more enjoyable than
teaching German.’

As she walked from the Heath into Magnolia Terrace she reflected that for once her optimism had been fully justified. Within days of the news of his forced resignation from the school becoming
public knowledge, Nibbo had told him that the elderly owner of the bookshop, next door to his own green-grocery shop in Blackheath Village, was looking for a manager. By the end of the month her
father had exchanged teaching for book-selling and, to both his and her vast relief, was enjoying the novelty of his new occupation.

On the other side of the terrace, Charlie Robson was walking in the opposite direction, Queenie at his heels. She gave him a wave which he cheerily reciprocated and it occurred to her that he
hadn’t been absent from the neighbourhood for quite some time. In the old days he was always dropping out of sight and it was common knowledge when he did that he wasn’t on holiday or
visiting friends but was serving time for petty theft in one of His Majesty’s many prisons.

She began to cross the Square, wondering if Charlie’s new way of life was in any way connected with Miss Godfrey and the reading lessons she had given him. Whether the reading lessons were
still continuing or were now no longer necessary she didn’t know, but she did know that Miss Godfrey and Charlie were still on friendly terms.

Smiling to herself at the oddness of some friendships, she neared the Jennings’ house. Ever since the incident between her father and Christina she hadn’t been as regular a visitor
there. It wasn’t that Carrie’s mum and dad and gran had changed in their attitude towards her, but Christina was still living with them and her relationship with Christina was extremely
strained.

In the aftermath of the horrendous incident in the tea-tent, Albert Jennings had explained to his guest that the gentleman she had spat on had lived in England for nearly twenty years and that
Kate’s mother was English and that Kate had been born in England and had never ever left England. Christina had remained unimpressed.

‘She says you have German Aryan blood and that all German Aryans are the same,’ Carrie had said to her resignedly. ‘Mind you, when you think of the Nazis dragging her family
off to a concentration camp, you have to sympathize with her. Dad says he reckons her mum and gran will be dead by now. And her father and brother are dead. The Nazis shot them in the street when
they tried to prevent a mob burning their shop to the ground.’

Like everyone else in Magnolia Square, Kate did sympathize with Christina. She also felt resentful towards her. No matter what the horrors Christina had endured in Germany at the hands of the
Nazis, it had been unfair of her to have publicly reacted towards one of her new neighbours as if he, too, were one of Hitler’s National Socialists. It had caused her father deep distress and
it was because of the distress he had suffered that Kate couldn’t bring herself to totally forgive Christina.

‘Nice to see you,
bubbelah!
’ Leah called out from the hallway as Kate walked up to the already open front door. ‘Carrie is upstairs trying her dress on.’

Her usual cheery face looked strained and Kate remembered that Leah, alone of everyone else in Magnolia Square, was not wholeheartedly looking forward to the wedding and, though she had promised
to bake pies and tarts and bagels and blintzes for the reception, wasn’t going to be in the church when Carrie became Danny’s wife.

‘She’s never got over my mother marrying a
shaygets
,’ Carrie had said in affectionate despair. ‘Why she should have thought, after the rackety way Mum and Dad
have brought me up, that I would have a
kosher
wedding I can’t imagine.’

‘But your gran doesn’t
dislike
Danny, surely?’ Kate had said, feeling rather out of her depth.

Carrie had shaken her head, her thick mane of hair tumbling around her face. ‘No. If he was Jewish she would think he was the bee’s knees. She just doesn’t like the way Mum is
so oblivious of what she sees as being Mum’s religious and cultural heritage.’ She gave a wry smile. ‘If you ask me, I think it’s one of the reasons Gran is so very Jewish
in her speech. She does it in the hope that it annoys my dad and as a constant reminder to Mum that she’s let the side down.’

Now, as Kate entered Carrie’s bedroom, Bonzo yapping at her heels, Carrie turned towards her saying anxiously, ‘What do you think? Does the waist need letting out another half inch?
I’ve been living on lettuce all week but I still seem to have put weight on since the last time we fitted it.’

Thankful that Christina was obviously not in the house, Kate sat down on the edge of Carrie’s bed and looked with critical eyes at the slipper-satin wedding dress the two of them had made
from a McCalls paper pattern. ‘You’re imagining things,’ she said to Carrie’s vast relief. ‘The fitting is perfect. You look wonderful.’

It was true. The design of the dress was simple and very elegant. The neckline was heart-shaped, the sleeves long and narrow, dipping to a medieval point over the backs of her hands. The bodice
and skirt had been made in one piece, princess-fashion, the skirt merely skimming her toes in front and falling into a short train at the back. Although completely unadorned by ruffles or flounces,
it looked magnificent. Laid out on Christina’s bed was a headdress of imitation orange-blossom and a thigh-length, lace-edged veil that Carrie’s mother had worn on her wedding day. The
bouquet of crimson roses and white carnations that would complete Carrie’s ensemble was being made by a family friend who had a flower stall in the market.

‘And I shall wear the pearl necklace Gran gave me for my birthday,’ Carrie had said to Kate when they had first begun to discuss dress styles, ‘that will make up for Gran not
being there when I say my vows. I need to be wearing “something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue.” My veil will be the something old, the necklace can be my
something new. I’ll wear Miss Helliwell’s white net gloves for the borrowed bit and pin a blue ribbon to my underslip for the something blue.’

Kate said now: ‘Do you think I should try my bridesmaid dress on again?’

‘What on earth for?’ Carrie asked in mock exasperation. ‘You’re as likely to have put weight on as fly to the moon!’

Kate grinned. ‘That’s because I don’t work down the market. If you didn’t help yourself so liberally to whatever it is you’re selling, you wouldn’t have a
weight problem either.’

‘I only eat when there’s a lull in customers and anyway, fruit isn’t supposed to make you fat.’

‘It depends how much you eat of it,’ Kate said, amused. ‘And isn’t there a pie and mash stall near to your stall? Don’t tell me you don’t have a sneaky pie
and mash every now and again because if you do, I won’t believe you.’

‘I haven’t had a pie and mash since I knew the date of the wedding,’ Carrie said grimly, breathing in and viewing her reflection sideways on. ‘The prospect of lumbering
down the aisle like a cart-horse with you sylph-like behind me has been nearly enough to make me stop eating altogether.’

‘What about Beryl?’ Kate asked, amused. Beryl, Mavis’s two-and-a-half-year-old daughter was also to be a bridesmaid, though very much at Mavis’s insistence, not
Carrie’s. ‘Is she looking forward to tomorrow?’

‘She’s looking forward to it all right, but it’s whether she’s going to behave or not I’m worrying about,’ Carrie said, beginning to carefully lift her
wedding dress over her head.

Kate rose from the bed to help her and, from beneath the sumptuous folds of material, Carrie continued, her voice muffled, ‘Thanks to Mavis she seems to think tomorrow is going to be a
cross between a day trip to Folkestone and a church fête.’

Kate lifted the wedding dress free of Carrie’s hair and laid it reverently on the bed.

‘I told Mum I thought Beryl was too young to be a bridesmaid but Mum said Mavis would create murder if Beryl wasn’t asked and so there you are, she’s been asked and I have to
worry about whether or not she’s going to behave herself,’ Carrie finished darkly, stepping into a cotton dress patterned with azure-blue cornflowers and scarlet poppies.

She pulled the dress up on to her shoulders and fastened the zip. ‘Ted says I’m worrying unnecessarily. He says he’s explained to her she’s got to stand very quietly with
you and Christina during the service but I have a vision of her saying she wants to wee-wee or have an ice-cream.’

‘And what about Bonzo?’ Kate asked, as Bonzo laid his head on her knee. ‘Will he be at the wedding too?’

Carrie brushed her dishevelled hair away from her face, anchoring its heavy weight with tortoiseshell combs. ‘He’d better not be in the church!’ she said, overcome with horror
at the thought. ‘Though I wouldn’t put it past Mum to try and take him in. She’s already made a big blue satin bow for him to wear.’

Kate giggled and Carrie said in sudden solemnity, ‘I can’t believe it’s really going to happen.’ She stroked the heavy satin skirt of her wedding dress lovingly.
‘I’ve looked forward to it for so long, ever since the day Miss Helliwell read our palms, and now it’s actually going to happen. By this time tomorrow I’ll be Mrs Danny
Collins.’

Kate’s giggles subsided. ‘It is what you still want, isn’t it?’ she asked gently.

Carrie sat down on the bed beside her. ‘Yes,’ she said unhesitatingly. ‘I can’t describe it in clever words like you would be able to Kate, but when I’m with Danny
I’m happy, it’s as simple as that. We suit each other. He may be a bit of a rough diamond and I’m not so love-struck that I think he’s the handsomest man in the world, or
the brainiest, but he’s the one person in the world right for me.’ She took hold of Kate’s hand and squeezed it tight. ‘He knows what I want out of life and I know what he
wants out of life, and what we want is the same thing. Someone to love and laugh with; someone who’ll be a friend as well as a lover; a home of our own; kids.’

Kate felt her throat tighten. It all sounded so simple and straightforward and, for Carrie, it was. ‘I’m glad you’re so happy,’ she said thickly, ‘I think Danny is
very, very lucky.’

‘His mother doesn’t think he is,’ Carrie said with dry humour, her moment of seriousness over. ‘She seems to think that the minute he’s married to me he’s
going to begin starving to death!’

Later, as she returned home, Miss Godfrey called out from her garden, ‘Katherine! Could you do me a favour? Could you help me carry some boxes of crockery and cutlery
down to the church hall?’

Kate nodded and opened Miss Godfrey’s immaculately painted gate.

‘Mrs Jennings has asked me to lend her whatever I have for tomorrow’s wedding reception,’ Miss Godfrey said in relief as Kate walked up the short front path, ‘and if you
gave me a hand it would mean my making only one trip, not two.’

She led the way into the house, saying as she did so, ‘Is everything under control at Carrie’s? I did offer to go down there and give Mrs Jennings any help she might need but she
said she thought she could manage. Apparently her mother is doing all the catering and Mavis and her friends are setting out the tables in the hall.’

It had been a long time since Kate had been inside Miss Godfrey’s home and she couldn’t help being aware of how strikingly different the furnishings and decor were from the
Jennings’ house and even from her own home. A bordered red and brown patterned carpet runner graced the passageway leading towards the kitchen and Kate suspected it was no ordinary carpet but
was probably Turkish or Indian. Through the open door leading into the sitting-room she glimpsed a highly polished glass-fronted bookcase and a walnut-framed easy-chair. Watercolours framed in gold
hung on the cream papered walls and she remembered her father saying that Miss Godfrey possessed an exceptionally fine landscape by an English nineteenth-century artist he much admired, John Sell
Cotman.

‘Here we are,’ Miss Godfrey said as she walked into her kitchen. ‘Two cardboard boxes and a carrier-bag. Do you think we can manage them between us?’

‘Is the crockery valuable?’ Kate asked nervously. Everything Miss Godfrey owned seemed to be genuine this or genuine that and if the boxes contained precious china she knew it would
be just her luck to trip and fall and smash the lot.