Octavia's War (27 page)

They were hideous thoughts to take to bed and they kept Octavia awake for far too many hours, wondering how many Jews would be killed in the gas chambers before the Allies could save them and whether there was anything else she could do to help, apart from sending the letter on to Mrs Henderson. I'll talk to Tommy about it on Wednesday, she thought.

But the next morning he phoned just as she was leaving for work to tell her that he wouldn't be able to get down to see her for several days. ‘Something's come up,' he said.

‘Serious?' she said, reading the tone of his voice.

‘'Fraid so. We've had some alarming reports from our sources in Germany.'

‘About the concentration camps?'

‘Ah! You've heard too.'

‘Mr Mannheim told me. I was going to show you his letter.'

He sighed. ‘So you see how it is. There's a conference being planned. We're all going to be hard at it. I'll be down as soon as I can get away. Give my love to Lizzie.' And he was gone.

Octavia sighed too as she hung up the receiver. Mr Mannheim is right, she thought. We live in evil times.

Lizzie travelled to Oxford in her most recalcitrant mood, planning rebellion all the way, determined not to like the town or the college. I shan't fit in there, she brooded, as the winter fields drifted ethereally past her criss-crossed window. It'll be hateful. I know it will. I'm doing this as a favour to Smithie, that's all, and to please Pa, of course, and it's just plain stupid. I don't want to go one bit. I want to marry Ben and live in our own home, not be stuck in some academic backwater.

By the time she pulled in at the station, she was ready to turn straight round and go back again. But as the next train wasn't for an hour and there was a crowd streaming out of the station and heading off towards the town, she decided to follow where they led. She might as well take a look now she was here. It was a long way to come just to do nothing and it wouldn't make the slightest difference to the way she felt. So having sorted it all out in her head, she walked into the High Street – and was bewitched.

She ambled the length of the street, walking slowly because she had plenty of time, stopping to succumb to the tempting windows of a bookshop, or to admire the Gothic stonework of a church, or to peer through an opened
doorway into a grassy courtyard where black-gowned figures were walking and talking. Despite herself she was calmed by the grace of the town, charmed by the honeyed colour of its ancient stones, jollied along by a jingle of cycle bells as young men and women swept past her, black gowns billowing. It was quite a different place from the sombre monochrome of the photographs she'd seen. They'd looked stuffy and antiquated. This town was full of young people enjoying themselves. By the time she'd crossed Magdalene Bridge and reached the gates of St Hilda's she felt thoroughly at home.

And St Hilda's had the welcome mat out for her. There was a uniformed porter standing in his lodge who addressed her as Miss Meriton, told her that her interview would be ‘in Hall' and came out to show her the way; the grounds were like a well laid out park, bordering the river where she could see a line of brown punts waiting for custom; there was a magnificent pine tree to give shade to the house in summer and a low brick wall to mark the border between the lawn and the river bank; and the house was everything she could have wanted. It stood four-square to the river bank, secluded and secure in elegant grounds, an imposing Edwardian building with high gables and high arched windows. She liked it at once and knew she would be privileged to be living there, and when she was met at the door by a middle-aged woman in a suit that was so like the sort of thing Smithie wore, what was left of her preconceptions simply melted away. From that moment on she was pleased by everything she saw, the tiled hall, the two interconnecting common rooms with their imposing fireplaces and their expensive carpets – what style they have here! – the panelled dining room, the splendid oak staircase which reminded her of a lesser Downview, the quietly
understated elegance of the principal's study to which she was finally escorted for her interview with Miss Mann.

After Smithie's untidiness and open exuberance, she found Miss Mann neat and contained and distant and was perplexed by how little she said, although her questions seemed shrewd. It wasn't until she offered that it would be possible for some of next year's students to take their degrees in two years instead of the usual three that Lizzie gave her full attention to what was being said. Two years instead of three sounded like very good sense, if it could be done. It would mean that she and Ben could marry in two years' time, always providing Pa gave his consent once she'd graduated, and he'd have to do that, surely?

‘How would you feel about such an eventuality?' Miss Mann was asking.

‘I would consider it a challenge and hope to rise to it,' Lizzie said.

Octavia was pleased to hear how well the interview had gone and felt sure that Lizzie would be accepted, which, after a few busy days, she duly was.

‘It's a feather in our Lizzie's cap,' she told the school at that morning's assembly, ‘and an honour for our school.'

The cheers were so rapturous they made Lizzie blush. It was a lovely warming moment and, as she stood smiling at her admirers, she thought that if she could get Ben to understand what a good thing this was, she would never ask for anything else in her whole life ever again.

The letter of acceptance had arrived at just the right time for Tommy too, because he was coming down to visit at last. It had been an exhausting fortnight with far too much work for
him to do so it was pleasant to sit round Octavia's table and enjoy the company and drink a toast to Lizzie's success. It had to be in beer because wine couldn't be had for love nor money, but it was a toast just the same and they all said ‘cheers' and meant it. After the meal he talked about Oxford and what an ideal place it was if you were a student. Then he told them he had another bit of good news.

‘Had a letter from Mark this morning,' he said. ‘Apparently he's going to get married.'

‘How lovely!' Edith said.

But Octavia asked, ‘Who to?', thinking of Ben and Lizzie.

‘Girl called Joan, apparently. Another Joan, Edith. She's a WAAF, which is how he met her.'

‘What's she like?' Emmeline asked.

‘No idea,' Tommy admitted. ‘Haven't met her yet. She's bound to be all right though. I mean, Mark's got his head screwed on. He wouldn't pick anyone who wasn't. At any rate, it's all set.'

‘And when's it going to be?' Octavia asked.

‘The Saturday after Easter.'

Emmeline and Octavia exchanged glances, both thinking the same thing.

‘Bit of a rush,' Tommy admitted, ‘but there's a reason for it. All hush-hush, so you mustn't breathe a word. Bomber Command has got an offensive planned. Munitions factories, air bases, goods yards, that sort of thing. It's to cripple the German war effort and soften them up before the Second Front. Anyway, my two will be involved in it, providing fighter cover, so Mark wants to get married before it starts. Understandable given the circumstances.'

They agreed that it was and Edith said they were being very sensible, ‘because you never know what's going to happen' and
Emmeline smiled and nodded and wondered whether they would invite Tavy to the wedding, thinking, I bet Tommy will arrange it if he can. Octavia was still anguishing about the concentration camps and she was wondering whether Bomber Command intended to bomb them too and what would happen to the inmates if they did. It was obvious that Tommy wasn't going to mention them at the moment so she would have to ask him later.

It was past midnight before she got the chance and then he was reluctant to tell her what he knew.

‘It's an evil business,' he said. ‘Do you really want to talk about it now?'

‘Yes,' she said firmly. ‘We owe it to those poor devils to check our facts and find out everything we can.'

He gave a resigned shrug. ‘Well then,' he said, ‘there are at least six camps up and running to our certain knowledge and we think there are more planned. They're killing people by the thousand. We estimate that there must be hundreds every day. And it's not just Jews, although they form the bulk of the killings. They're persecuting other groups too, gypsies, communists, homosexuals. It's all quite hideous.'

‘Then they'll have to speed up the Second Front, won't they,' Octavia said.

‘Can't be done,' he told her. ‘A full scale invasion will be an enormous undertaking. The logistics are formidable. It's being planned now but the military don't reckon they can have it ready until late next year at the earliest. Winnie wants to get the Eyeties out of the war first. Clear the decks, sort of thing.'

‘And in the meantime people are being slaughtered.'

‘'Fraid so.'

She got out of bed and went to stand at the window
so that she could look down at the garden, where it was peaceful and moon-washed and nobody was being gassed to death. She was very near tears. They couldn't just ignore this awful thing. They had to do something about it. After a while she remembered the bombing campaign.

‘Are we going to bomb the camps?' she asked. ‘Is that what this new offensive is about?'

‘Good God, no,' he said. ‘That would be doing their dirty work for them. We don't want that.'

She supposed not. ‘But something should be done, Tommy. We can't just stand by and let them kill people in their thousands. It's inhuman.' She was crying now at the enormity of it. ‘They must do something.'

He got up and came to stand behind her, wrapping his arms round her as if he was protecting her. ‘Don't cry, Tikki-Tavy,' he said. ‘It's not your fault.'

‘Something should be done,' she wept. ‘It's just too dreadful to think of all those people being killed and our useless leaders sitting on their hands doing nothing. Can't they see how abominable it is?'

He held her close and let her rant until she'd cried the worst of her anger away. ‘I hate this war,' she said, blowing her nose.

He tried to soothe her. ‘I know, my darling, I know.'

‘It's an abomination, Tommy. A total and utter abomination. It diminishes us. It makes us less than human. We sit back and let these dreadful things happen and we should be doing everything and anything to make them stop. I can't bear it. It strips away our basic human instincts. We're capable of such good and we allow these obscene people to get their own way and rule our lives.'

‘We'll defeat them in the end, Tavy,' he said. ‘It's just a matter of time.'

It was probably true but it didn't comfort her. ‘But how many victims will have to die before we do?' she said.

He turned her in his arms and smoothed her damp hair out of her eyes, very gently and tenderly. ‘If I could change the world for you, I would,' he said.

‘I know,' she relented. ‘You're a dear man.'

‘Then come back to bed,' he said. ‘Your hands are like ice and I don't want you catching pneumonia on top of everything else. What would your pupils do without you?'

She was returning to her senses. ‘They would cope,' she told him, shivering back to the bed. ‘They're trained to be resilient.'

They had a lot of practice at being resilient that winter. It was extremely cold and the rations were smaller than they'd ever been. Cook did her best with what little there was, producing roly-poly puddings and spotted dick and stews, which were mostly vegetable but were at least filling, and she made sure that every girl had a pot of jam or marmalade once a month and her own individual ration of butter and sugar, doled out once a week, all carefully marked with their names, but she knew their diet was meagre and dull and often complained to Octavia about it. ‘Not that there's much you can do to help us, Miss Smith,' she said. ‘I do know that. But it helps to get it off my chest.'

Lizzie never complained. Food was the least of her worries that January. What was troubling her was the war in North Africa. The Germans had been pushing the Eighth Army further and further back towards Egypt. They'd reached a place called Benghazi already and Ben said the closer they got to Cairo the sooner his brigade would be sent out as reinforcements. He'd taken her news without much comment,
beyond saying ‘Lucky you!' and, although it was upsetting, his attitude was understandable. The thought of him being sent to Africa filled her with such foreboding that an education at St Hilda's seemed unimportant by comparison. She agonised until his daily letter arrived and followed the news every day, pouring over the papers for the least little detail. When the invitation to Mark's wedding turned up she barely noticed it and didn't answer it for more than four days, which was rude of her and rather silly, because putting it aside meant she missed how important it was. When she finally got around to writing a reply and read it for the second time she realised that it was a godsend. If Pa can agree to Mark getting married, she thought, and he obviously has, then he can't very well say no when I ask him if I can get married too. Sauce for the goose, sort of thing. I'll wear my pretty frock and that nice hat he likes and I'll catch him at the right moment and ask him sweetly, like Ma used to do. Easy-peasy.

Thank you for your invitation,
she wrote to her brother.
I shall be there with bells on.

Octavia wasn't at all sure whether she ought to be there at all. She was spending that weekend in Wimbledon, back in her own neglected home, with a pale sunlight making patterns on her dusty kitchen table and revealing how extremely dirty the windows were, and the sight of it was making her feel unsettled. Of course, there wasn't time to do any housework and very little point because it would all get dusty again as soon as she turned her back on it, and it certainly wasn't like her to be houseproud, but she felt guilty to be neglecting the place and aware that Tommy's house would all be in apple-pie order.

‘About this wedding,' she said, pouring a second cup of tea and thinking that at least the tea cups were clean.

‘Buy a new hat,' he said, stirring his tea.

‘Never mind a hat,' she said sternly. ‘I don't think I ought to be there.'

‘Can't see why not.'

‘Because a wedding is a family affair and I'm not family.'

‘But you will be,' he said, giving her his most devilish grin. ‘Time to give 'em a foretaste, don't you think.'

‘You might give them a shock,' she said. ‘Have you thought of that?'

‘You worry too much,' he said. ‘They'll love you. And anyway, it's a wedding. There'll be far too much going on for anyone to be shocked. Trust me. Just buy a pretty hat. That's all you need to do.'

She bought the hat – although with serious misgivings. It was all very well for Tommy to tell her not to worry. He took things so easily – or at least he did when it came to family matters. It was different when he was at the Foreign Office. He obviously planned everything down to the last little detail when he was there but when it came to his children, at the very time when he should have been thinking everything through most carefully, he didn't think at all. There were times when she found him really quite hard to understand.