Somewhere Over England (50 page)

He dug out slates from the nearby ruins, knocking and tearing his hands, seeing his blood in German dust, sifting where others had been before but always finding more as the days wore on, until at last there was a shape to the roof and that night he did not dream nor the next nor the next until he no longer dreaded the end of the day.

Helen drove round, taking photographs, asking questions about Claus’s family. She took Wilhelm and Chris with her and together they worried and urged the authorities and saw the poverty all around, the children without shoes and little flesh. The meagre rations which were dependent on employment.

In the third week the old man took Chris to the end of the garden and asked him to dig three feet down, and there in an oilskin was the camera that they had brought through the border just before the war. He gave it to Chris and there was
still film left and so Heine’s son asked his mother to drive him to the beet fields and stood where his father had been, and took the same photographs.

In bed, two nights before they left the village, Ed held Helen and they talked about America and whether the dreams would come again when they were back where people could not understand.

‘I guess not,’ Ed said. ‘I’ve got too much to do. I’m thirty-six, Helen, and Wilhelm said that we were the ones who have time. We do. I don’t want to go back and just farm. I want a plane. I want to start an airline and Little Fork is as good a place as any.’ His voice was eager and he pulled himself up on his elbow and looked down at her. ‘There’s more business setting up there all the time and the train’s so goddamn slow. That war taught me too much and I reckon I’m going to take something out of it other than dreams that keep us both from our beauty sleep. We both need that too much.’ He grinned. ‘You want to learn to fly a plane or are you going to play around with your camera like I kind of think you are?’

Helen lay back in his arms, looking at his face which was so beautiful even though the lines remained and the scars from the crash were there beneath his hair. ‘Why can’t I do both? And while you’re about it, you can teach Chris too.’ She kissed him, feeling that now there was the hope that he would push the images to one side if they returned; when they returned.

The curtains were wide open because there had been too many years with the light blacked out, too many years of restrictions. She lit the candle by the bed, then carried it to the window, leaving it on the sill wanting to see its frail light seeping out into the sky.

The next night she did the same, and Ed laughed and kissed her as they watched the flame flickering in the draught.

Helen said, ‘You can’t just let your parents down, Ed,’ because the thought had played in and out of her mind all day as she scrubbed the floors, washed windows, beat rugs. ‘They have the ranch and farm to run and expect you to share in it.’

He sat up, taking a cigarette from the pack by the bed, lighting up, blowing the smoke up to the ceiling. ‘I don’t intend to leave them stone cold. It’ll take a while to get set up, won’t it? We’ll be living in the house and we can amalgamate the ranch and the airline. It’ll all work out, honey.’

And now, tonight, Helen began to believe that it would, and felt the darkness released from deep inside at last. And later, while Ed slept, she finally allowed herself to listen to the sounds of the house which had been Heine’s home and grieved gently for the plans he would never make, the dreams he would never dream, and said goodbye.

As night became day and Ed woke they talked gently, deeply, about what could be done over here in the village, and Ed said they would send goods – food and clothing – and come back and finish the house. It was something that he owed these people.

Wilhelm and Oma did not want them to go; it was in their eyes as they stood on the doorstep with the scent of spring all around and the tips of bulbs green against the earth, and as Oma held Helen’s hands they promised to go on searching for Claus’s parents; it was something they wished to do, they said.

Helen asked if they would try and locate others that Claus knew and they nodded, knowing that she knew it would give them peace. She left the cigarettes for them to use as currency for information and she would bring more when she came again, she said. They would all come. She kissed them both then walked down the steps from the front door. The sky was deep blue today and at last there were violets in the shelter of the garden wall.

She waited while Chris stood before his grandfather.

‘I shall see you again soon, Grandfather. Will you come to us too? There’s someone I would like you to meet. He’s my coach.’

Helen turned then and walked towards the car where Ed waited, smelling the violets, feeling the sun on her skin. When they came in the summer they would bring lime trees.

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Copyright © Margaret Graham 1990

Margaret Graham has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

This novel is a work of fiction. Apart from references to actual figures and places, all other names and characters are a product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

First published in Great Britain in 1990 by
William Heinemann Ltd as
A Fragment of Time

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ISBN 9780099585824