Last Telegram (16 page)

“Stefan,” I said quietly, “are you okay?”

“What do
you
think?” he muttered through his teeth.

“I think you have misunderstood something. About Robbie being at The Chestnuts that night,” I said carefully, still unsure what he might or might not have seen.

He took a deep drag, sighed it out. “I think you have lied to me,” he said bitterly.

“No,” I almost shouted. “Look at me,” I whispered, waiting till he finally raised his eyes. “There is nothing between me and Robbie. Nothing. My parents invited him to stay. Because of the blackout.”

Stefan turned away and took another drag.

“That night, he caught me on my way out to see you. He had gone to check his car, he said. He was standing at the back door and he told me he had seen you. He threatened me. Said he would tell Father. I couldn't get away. I am
not
lying to you. I promise.”

More silence. I felt like shaking him.

“Stefan? Say something.”

Eventually, he whispered, “I saw you kissing. It made me sick to see.”

So now the truth was out. How could I persuade him what had really happened?

“Listen to me, Stefan. You must believe what I am going to tell you.”

“How can I believe, when you lie to me?” he hissed.

“I am going to tell you, and then is it your choice whether you want to believe me. Robbie threatened me, and then he forced me to kiss him. It was disgusting. It made me feel sick too. But I couldn't get away.”

There was a long silence. Stefan finished his cigarette and stubbed it out defiantly into the floor. We had always agreed to take care with cigarette ends, to clear up any evidence behind us.

“How can I know if you are telling the truth?” he said at last, his eyes glittering with anger, or was it tears? I didn't stop to check. I decided to risk it, turned his face to mine, and kissed him lightly on the mouth. At first, his lips stayed hard and unyielding, but he didn't pull away. Then, at last, he started to kiss me back.

“I love you,” I said, when we stopped. “You believe me, don't you?”

“I think so,” he said, kissing me again.

Quite a bit later, he said, “I wanted to meet you that night because I missed you so much. But when I saw you with Mr. Cameron, I felt like killing him. I was so angry it frightened me.”

“That won't help, you know. He's paying our wages at the moment.”

He snorted mirthlessly. “Does this allow him to threaten you?”

“Of course not,” I sighed, “but it's complicated.”

“Will he tell Mr. Harold, as he said?”

“I don't think so. I think it's just a threat. He likes to have power over people.”

“It is still dangerous for us to meet, I think,” he said sadly.

“But Robbie is not usually here. It's only Father we have to worry about.”

Stefan pulled me to my feet, kissing me again, on my forehead, nose, and chin, behind my ears, down the back of my neck, and pressing his body into mine as if we could just become one. I felt giddy and reckless with relief and desire.

“I can't live without this,” I breathed. “Perhaps we could just ration ourselves?”

“Ration what?” he said.

“How often we meet?”

“Like chocolate,” he laughed. “You're so much sweeter.”

“And you are much more addictive,” I said, stroking his cheek.

“We just have to be very, very, very careful,” he said solemnly. We sealed our agreement with a final kiss, and as I picked my way home in the dark and sneaked back into the silent house, my cheeks ached from smiling to myself. I was happier than I'd been for months.

The next time, Stefan brought bottles of pale ale and I'd stolen some biscuits from Mother's store cupboard, but we didn't really need peace offerings. For two blissful hours, we talked and kissed, drunk on the joy of being together again, as though we'd been separated for years, not just a couple of months. All the mistrust and confusion cleared like clouds on a summer's day.

We kept strictly to our agreement, being very careful at all times, and meeting only once a fortnight. At least we now knew, with a certainty like a warm blanket, that we would always love each other, whatever happened. The tennis hut was hardly the most romantic trysting place, but despite the constant concern about being discovered, those stolen hours were some of the happiest in my life. Even now, the smell of tar instantly evokes their heady joy.

Spring arrived at last. Bees hummed in the apple blossom, the birds were courting, and baby calves cavorted on the water meadows. When you are in love, romance seems to be everywhere, and sure enough, when John and Vera turned up for supper together, I'd never seen her looking so pretty before—she positively glowed. He was back from Canada for five days, leave before joining his squadron. They were holding hands and looking so pleased with themselves, I knew at once what they were about to tell us. She wore a new, shapely floral dress, and her hair was elegantly waved, with a silver clasp on one side. The ring glistened on her finger.

Once we were all together in the drawing room, John said, rather formally, “Mother, Father, Lily. We've got something to tell you. I've proposed to Vera, and I'm glad to say she has accepted.”

Vera blushed gratifyingly as he kissed her on the cheek. “Last night, her parents gave us their blessing.”

Mother threw her arms around them both. “Oh, my lovely children, this is such wonderful news,” she said through her tears. “I hope you will both be very happy.”

Father slapped John on the back and shook his hand. “Excellent choice, old man, jolly good show. You'll make a lovely couple.”

“You little minx, seducing my brother like that,” I said, hugging her.

“He's a pushover,” she giggled, looking up at John. “What do you think?”

“I'm thrilled. Don't tell me he got down on one knee?”

“C'mon, Lily, you know your brother. It was over a pint, in some squalid London pub.”

“The very best beer,” John said cheerfully. “No expense spared.”

“Let's see the ring.” Vera held up her finger. It was a simple elegant silver setting with a single diamond. “I never knew you had such good taste, John.”

“We men have hidden depths,” he said, winking at Vera.

“Where will you get married?” Mother asked. “Church or registry office?”

“Not sure where or when yet,” John said. “I'm just overjoyed she's agreed to be my wife.”

It was so good to have him back home. His squadron was stationed in Cambridgeshire—just a couple of hours away from Westbury or London—so he would be able to visit whenever he had a few days off. We all tried not to think about the dangers he would face with each bombing raid. Only after several glasses of champagne did Vera's mask slip. I found her in the toilet, trying to remove mascara that had run down her cheeks.

“I just want to lock him up and throw away the key,” she sobbed.

“That's the only thing that would stop him,” I agreed. Now he had graduated with top marks as a bomber pilot, John was keener than ever. “But he's obviously very good at this flying business. He'll be fine,” I said, convincing neither of us.

Legend has it that silk was brought to the West by two Persian monks who in AD 552 penetrated into China as Christian missionaries, and amid their pious occupations, viewed with a curious eye the manufacture of silk. Indignant zeal, excited by seeing unbelievers engrossed in a lucrative branch of commerce, prompted them to conceal some silkworm eggs in a hollow cane, coming thence to Constantinople and presenting them to the Emperor Justinian for a handsome reward.

—
The
History
of
Silk
by Harold Verner

By May 1940, the news from Europe was grim.

German troops were in Holland and Belgium, just the other side of the North Sea, and rapidly moving forward into Northern France. In East Anglia, we felt perilously close to the front line, with only a narrow strip of North Sea between us and their apparently unstoppable forces. Our holiday beaches became off-limit fortresses, with roads barricaded and coastal bridges blown up to impede the progress of any invading force. Even Churchill's bullish speeches failed to lift our optimism, and a sense of gloomy inevitability seemed to settle over our lives.

In this febrile atmosphere, spy fever became an epidemic, and official posters everywhere warning that CARELESS TALK COSTS LIVES only helped to heighten people's fears. One evening in the tennis hut, Stefan pulled out a torn-out page from a tabloid newspaper and pointed to the headline. It read: GERMAN SPIES HELD IN SABOTAGE PLOT. I quickly scanned the story. It was a lurid and unlikely tale, ending with the exhortation: “
It
is
every
Briton's duty to protect our noble country: report all suspicious behavior to your local police station, NOW.
”

“What if someone reports me, Lily? About my papers? About my age? Could they send me back to Germany?”

“Your papers were good enough to get you here, weren't they? No one's going to check them again now. Don't worry, my darling,” I said, trying to distract him with a kiss.

But my reassurances soon began to sound increasingly hollow. Soon enough, newspapers were reporting that new laws were being prepared, requiring all German and Austrian men over twenty years old to register as “enemy aliens.” Kurt and Walter were too young to qualify and so, officially, was Stefan. But that didn't stop him being consumed with anxiety. His memories of being arrested and imprisoned in Germany seemed to replay themselves in his mind. I pressed him to talk about it, but he refused.

It got worse. As large-scale casualties were reported from fighting in France, anti-German sentiment seemed to spread like a rash. I tried to put it to the back of my mind: the boys had been working at the mill for over a year now, and seemed to be well liked by everyone. I was so convinced that no one who knew them could possibly dislike or mistrust them that I failed to notice what was really happening.

I was collecting the office tea tray from the canteen when I noticed that Kurt and Walter were not sitting, as usual, with Bert and the tacklers. Stefan was not with his usual group of weavers. Instead, the three of them sat at a table on their own. It struck me as odd, but I didn't give it a further thought.

Then, a few days later, I was washing my hands when, through the open door into the toilet area, I overheard two women talking to each other between the cubicles.

“Only stands to reason,” one said. “Shouldn't trust any of 'em.”

The response was inaudible over the sound of the flush, except for the words “parachute silk.” I couldn't be absolutely sure what they were talking about, but whatever it was sent prickles up the back of my neck. I crept away and lurked behind some shelves, waiting for them. After a while the women emerged: two older weavers who had worked for Verners all of their lives and had always appeared motherly, even protective, toward Stefan. I'd jumped to silly conclusions. They must have been talking about something else.

Perhaps we were all deluding ourselves, like the Fischer family in Vienna. We'd had no news of them since the outbreak of war and I remembered what John had said about their attitude to the Nazis: “if they keep their heads down it will all go away.”

But just two weeks later, the red paint splashed over the front door of the boys' cottage brought us face-to-face with the shocking reality. It was so crudely daubed that the words were hard to read, but as Father and I got closer, the obscene words became plain: FUCK OFF JEWBOYS.

We called the police, and soon afterward a stout man arrived on a bicycle altogether too flimsy for him. “Constable Kilby, Westbury police,” he said, puffing as he leaned the bike against the wall and took off his helmet. He looked at the door, mouthing the words as he read them, twice. He shook his head. “This is a bad old business, sir. I understand these lads are your employees at the mill?”

Father nodded, “That is correct, Constable. Now, shall we go inside?”

The six of us crowded awkwardly in the tiny front room. “Now lads, who's going to tell me what's been going on?” he said gravely.

Kurt and Walter nudged Stefan simultaneously.

“Begin at the beginning then, laddie. Don't miss anything out.”

“A few nights ago, there was a crash,” Stefan started, studying his feet. “A stone through our window. With a piece of paper.”

“A stone? A piece of paper?” I struggled to understand. Why hadn't he mentioned this?

“With writing on it.”

“What did it say, laddie? Speak up now.” The policeman frowned and wiped his brow.

“It said,” Stefan cleared his throat, “it said ‘Krauts go home.'”

I heard a moan and realized it was me.

“Then, this morning,” Stefan gestured toward the front door. “That.”

“Have you still got the piece of paper?” Constable Kilby asked.

“We burned it,” Kurt said.

“Don't worry, laddie. Any idea who wrote it?”

They shook their heads.

“What about those men from the pub?” I said.

“What men are these, exactly?” asked the policeman.

Father's face reddened as Stefan recounted the story about the attack outside the pub. “Why didn't you tell me about this before?” he growled. “This is not just casual prejudice, it's anti-Semitism. It must not be tolerated.”

Stefan shook his head. “We did not want to bother you, Mr. Harold.”

The constable sighed. “I'm afraid it'll be tricky to prove who did it, sir. I could go to the King's Arms and have a word with the landlord. See if he can identify the men.”

“But they might come and find us again,” Walter said in a small voice.

“Can't deny that's a possibility, laddie,” Constable Kilby said, shaking his head sadly. “On balance, it might be best to keep your heads down, stay out of harm's way. In my experience, if you don't react, they'll get bored with the idea soon enough.”

• • •

When Gwen called in on her way home from work a week later, she found us huddled around the radio once more, listening to the six o'clock bulletin. The news about the Expeditionary Force was devastating, but at least they were now being rescued.

“All those little ships. Incredible what they're doing at Dunkirk,” I said.

“Yes, I've heard,” she said rather curtly, her face drawn and somber. “It's hard to imagine what they're going through. But I need to speak to you and Harold, in private, please. It's more bad news, I'm afraid, only closer to home.”

Instinctively I knew it was something to do with the boys, and it felt as though a stone had dropped into the pit of my stomach. “Come in,” I said. “Would you like a drink? Sherry?”

“Any chance of something stronger?”

“Gee and tee? They haven't rationed that yet. Or whiskey and water?”

“Whiskey please, straight.”

We went into the drawing room and I turned off the radio as Father poured and handed her a glass. She took a long slug.

“I'm afraid I have unwelcome news, Mr. Harold. There are rumors going around the mill.”

“Rumors? What about?” Father said, frowning.

“They say parachute silk is being deliberately sabotaged.”

I thought for a moment this was just a repeat of the gossip I'd overheard a few weeks before. Then I quickly realized it had escalated into something much more dangerous; these rumors were malicious, intended to get the boys into trouble, perhaps get them sacked or worse. It wasn't just aimed at Stefan either. He wove parachute silk, but Kurt and Walter also worked on it, in the finishing plant.

“What utter tosh,” Father exploded. “We test every roll. I've not been told of any problems.”

“I'm just reporting what I've heard, sir.” Gwen crossed her arms defensively.

“Quite right, quite right,” he muttered, pulling the pipe out of his pocket. “And thank you for bringing it to my attention. Do you have any clues who it is?”

Gwen shook her head. “I've tried to find out, believe me. I have suspicions but couldn't pin it on anyone in particular.” Should I tell them what I'd heard in the toilets, I wondered. I had no proof that the conversation was anything to do with the boys.

And while I was wondering, a more treacherous thought occurred. Could Gwen have heard similar gossip, and be exaggerating it deliberately to stir things up against Stefan because she disapproved of my relationship with him? Surely not? That was several months ago; she hadn't said anything about it since then, and I knew she valued him very highly as a weaver.

I was grateful when Father stood up, purposefully knocking out his pipe in the hearth. “We need to put a stop to this, right now. We'll call a meeting tomorrow, for all staff,” he said, reassuringly decisive. “Tell them it is mandatory, Gwen. The day shift folk must come to the canteen at five o'clock sharp after work—and make sure the evening shift know so they can get there in time too.”

After seeing her out, he came back into the room and sat down beside me on the sofa. “I know what you're thinking—someone's trying to discredit those boys. Leave it to me. We'll scotch these rumors. Don't you worry, my darling. Time for supper.”

His words did little to reassure me. The truth was slippery and increasingly treacherous, I thought, like walking on marbles. I had no idea who to trust anymore.

• • •

The canteen was packed. Chairs and tables had been stacked against the walls to make room for more than a hundred workers—both shifts—gathered in their usual groups. A buzz of expectant chatter filled the room. Stefan, Kurt, and Walter were in the corner, looking cheerful enough. I hoped they were unaware of the rumors. Squeezing through the crowd, I checked each face, hoping the culprits might somehow reveal themselves. Gwen held out her hand to steady Father as he stepped up onto a chair.

He cleared his throat and held up his hand. The room went quiet.

“Thank you for coming at short notice.” He composed his features into a genial expression and modulated his voice into that combination of authority and amiability that earned him such respect. “It's the end of a working day for some of you, and the start for others, so I won't keep you long. First, I want to thank everyone for putting your backs into the essential war production we have delivered with such success so far, in what are difficult times for all of us, both personally and professionally.” He paused, smiling around as if we were all his children.

“I've called this meeting so that everyone who works for Verner and Sons can be reassured that there are no—I repeat NO—problems whatsoever with the production of parachute silk in this mill. You have my word. Every roll is rigorously tested, and we sample-test again to double check. Every single one has come well within the ministry's specifications and we have absolutely no complaints from our major clients, Cameron Ltd.”

He paused again, scanning the crowd, and his voice became louder and more deliberate. “I would like to add that anyone spreading rumors suggesting otherwise will be severely disciplined. Any suggestion that would reduce confidence in our products could seriously affect our contribution to the war effort and the viability of our business, not to mention the jobs of everyone who works here.”

“And finally,” he raised his voice further still, “I would like to remind you, as if you needed reminding, that careless talk can cost lives—and that means the lives of any one of us or our families.” He looked around again at the silent faces.

“Well, that's all for now. For the day shift, it's time to go home for a well-earned rest, or back to work for the rest of you. Thank you and good evening.”

There was a short burst of applause as he climbed down from the chair. He shook dozens of hands as people offered thanks and support, saying a few friendly words to each one. I looked back toward where the boys had been standing, but they'd disappeared.