The English Girl (19 page)

‘So, Miss Whittaker. Or may I call you Stella?’

‘Yes, of course.’

His accent is much more upper-class than mine. I try to place him. Public school; Oxford, maybe. I once visited Oxford with my mother. I picture his college – a quad with a lawn of striped velvet; a secret garden entered through a low arched door in a wall.

‘You should call me Frank,’ he says.

‘All right. Well, Frank … I see you didn’t dress up…’

‘Actually, you’re wrong there, Stella.’ A slight ironic smile. ‘I came as an English gentleman.’

‘Well – your outfit is quite persuasive…’

We both laugh a little.

‘Marthe tells me you’re living here?’ he says.

In spite of his shaggy, disorganised air, his glance is keen, missing nothing.

‘Yes.’

‘And you’re studying at the Academy?’

‘Yes. I study piano.’

‘You must be very talented,’ he says.

I shrug self-deprecatingly: I never know how to respond when people say that.

‘And I must say, Stella,’ he goes on, ‘I have to congratulate you on your German. I overheard you talking – I hope you’ll forgive the intrusion – and to be honest I’d have taken you for a German speaker. For a native of Vienna, in fact.’

‘Thank you.’

I feel myself flush with pleasure: I’m proud of my fluency in German. Then I feel a little unnerved; because Frank Reece must have been listening in on my conversation with Karl.

‘Though you have a very English look. You’re the picture of innocence in that outfit. A true English rose. Like one of the girls in
Country Life
,’ he says.

I think of the photographic portraits at the front of the magazine – it’s always some girl who’s engaged to be married, looking at once demure and entitled, with glossy waved hair and pearls at her ears and her throat. She’ll usually be a baronet’s daughter or something. I can’t help feeling flattered.

‘I suppose I’m lucky,’ I say. ‘Languages come easily to me. I’ve always enjoyed learning languages.’

‘It goes with the music, perhaps? Having a very good ear?’

‘Yes. That could be it.’

‘So – why German?’ A slight puzzled frown. ‘Isn’t it French that girls usually study in our English schools?’

His gaze is disconcerting – his keen eyes never leaving my face. Usually people glance away in the course of a conversation. This man doesn’t do that. I think of a kestrel, hovering, vigilant; alert to the slightest frightened flickering in the grass below.

I turn a little away from him – looking out to the balcony, where the marigold light falls across the wrought-iron rail. Beyond that, darkness.

‘My mother always wanted me to learn German,’ I tell him.

‘For any particular reason?’

No one’s asked me that before. I realise that she never really explained.

‘Well, she’d been a musician too. And I suppose it’s a useful language for a musician. For singing Bach and so on. The Germans, of course, are such a musical race.’

‘Absolutely. And that’s nowhere quite as apparent as here in Vienna,’ he says.

I realise that Frank has said almost nothing about himself, and I feel guilty – that I haven’t been quite polite. My mother always taught me to ask about the other person.

‘So, Frank – you work here in the city?’

He nods.

‘At the British Embassy,’ he says. ‘I’m a cultural attaché.’

That’s the sort of work that’s quite mysterious to me. I can’t think of any intelligent question to ask.

‘Goodness. That must be fascinating.’

I sound so girlish.

‘Of course, with the international situation as it is, we have our work cut out here…’

‘Yes, I’m sure you do,’ I say heartily.

But I can’t imagine what that work involves. What do they
do
exactly, at the British Embassy?

‘The developments in Germany are rather alarming,’ he says.

Then he stops, waits, requiring something of me. It comes to me that he’s not just making conversation – that it’s important to him to know what I think. That this
matters
to him. I feel rather unreal and dream-like, and plagued by that troubling feeling that can come to you in dreams – that the meaning of things is hidden from you. Perhaps that you’re playing a game of deadly import, but nobody’s told you the rules. I must have drunk more than I realised.

‘Well, yes, it’s awful, of course.’ But I remember what Harri’s grandfather said – that Hitler wouldn’t last long, that the generals would oust him. ‘Though people seem to think the Germans will come to their senses soon…’

‘And what about you, Stella? Do you think that?’

‘Well – it all seems very feverish.’ I think of the newsreels I’ve seen, of Hitler’s rallies. ‘All those ranting speeches, whipping up the crowd. I don’t see how it can carry on. They’ll get rid of him, won’t they?’

‘I’m not so sure we can count on that,’ he says drily. ‘Though unfortunately the British government seems to be taking that line.’

‘But … I mean, no one wants another war. It’s unthinkable.’

His kestrel eyes are on me.

‘Is it?’ he says.

I don’t say anything. I sip my champagne, rather nervously.

‘You see, Stella, I think they underestimate Herr Hitler,’ he tells me. ‘Mr Chamberlain and the government.’

‘Oh. Do they? In what way?’

‘The British look at Herr Hitler, and see a peasant, a clown. As you say – ranting. Poorly educated. A man who once lived as a tramp…’

‘He lived as a tramp?’ I’m amazed.

Frank nods.

‘Here in Vienna, as it happens,’ he says. ‘And so they don’t take him quite seriously. It’s the great British flaw – to look at everything through the prism of class. They don’t see that he’s a master politician. Brilliant. Cunning. Stirring up the darkness in people. Playing on people’s fears.’

‘Oh. Really?’

This sounds like rather histrionic language to me.

He frowns slightly. His eyes are fixed on my face.

‘I’m
afraid
, Stella.’

At first, I think I must have misheard. It’s such a bald statement – and surprising to hear from this assured Englishman, who seems so at ease in the world.

‘Afraid?’ I say.

‘Afraid for Vienna. Afraid for England as well.’

‘For England? But you surely don’t
really
think it will come to that? To war?’

Frank makes a slight eloquent gesture, opening out his hand – a gesture that says that anything could happen. He doesn’t answer my question.

Then he shrugs, smiles.

‘Sorry, Stella. I’m getting a bit lugubrious.’

‘Not at all…’ I smile. ‘Well, yes, you are, I suppose. But it’s interesting,’ I add politely.

‘Anyway – to change the subject to cheerier matters…’ And he hesitates, his eyes on me.

There’s something calculating in his gaze. The cool night air through the open windows chills the sweat on my skin, and I shiver.

‘There was something I wanted to ask you, Stella, if I may.’

‘Yes. Of course.’

But I feel a little pulse of fear, and wonder what this means. He must have alarmed me more than I realised, with his pessimistic outlook.

‘It’s a family matter. One of my daughters is quite a promising musician,’ he says.

I feel myself breathe out. This seems like safer ground.

‘Oh. How lovely,’ I say.

So he’s married; he has a family here. Or perhaps at boarding school in England. I imagine his daughters, imagine their life in England. Freckled girls with pigtails, in boaters and pink gingham frocks. Skipping ropes, Girl Guides, gymkhanas.

‘I wondered if I could maybe pick your brains one day – about the Academy, and careers in music, and so on?’

‘Yes, of course. I’d love to help. Your daughter – what does she play?’

There’s the slightest pause – just a tiny hairline crack in the surface of things.

‘She also plays the piano,’ he says then.

‘Well, I’ll do what I can, though I really don’t know how much I can help you.’

‘You’re being too modest, Stella. I’m sure you can help me a lot.’

He says this with a touch too much emphasis.

The thought sneaks into my mind that this is all a pretext: that he’s using this daughter as a pretext to see me again. That he’s letting me
know
that this is just an excuse. I’m unnerved. Is he flirting? Yet I don’t feel the slightest shred of attraction between us. He’s perfectly attentive, but I don’t feel he admires me at all. The scent of the freesias licks at us like the tongue of an animal.

‘So perhaps I could invite you out for a coffee one day?’ he says smoothly. ‘Pick your brains a little? I’d be extremely grateful.’

Why not? What could be the harm?

‘Yes, of course. I’d be happy to help.’

‘I was wondering – do you have a pigeonhole at the Academy?’ he asks me.

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll write to you there then, Stella. Make some arrangements,’ he says.

I think, but don’t ask:
Why not write to me here at the flat?
Then I tell myself I’ve drunk too much: I’m seeing significance where there’s none, and misinterpreting things.

‘Do you have an afternoon when you’re free?’ he asks me.

‘Well – Mondays sometimes.’

‘Right then,’ he says.

Our conversation is over, and I feel a rush of relief. I wonder if he will ask me to dance, but he doesn’t.

‘Now, I think I see that young man of yours coming this way,’ he tells me.

I laugh.

‘Karl isn’t my
young man
,’ I tell him. ‘We met for the first time tonight.’

‘Oh. I’d imagined a young lady as lovely as you would have someone she sees.’

His face is a question. He always goes, I think, just a little too far – one step further than is quite polite.

‘Well – I do have a friend, but he couldn’t come, he was working.’

‘Let me rephrase that then … The young man you were dancing with is coming over,’ he goes on, fluidly. ‘Such a pleasure to have met you, Stella. Enjoy the party.’

He shakes my hand, moves away.

I’m so relieved to see Karl. He talks in far too much detail about an epic hike he went on, but I don’t mind now. I’m grateful for his straightforwardness, his transparency: for the way there’s nothing hidden under his words.

It’s getting colder, the weather rushing towards winter. When I draw back my curtains in the mornings there’s a white scrawl of frost on the glass.

The next time I go to Harri’s, I find Lotte flushed with excitement.

‘Stella. I’ve got a new puppet theatre. You have to see it,’ she says.

The puppet theatre is splendid: it has a curtain of carmine silk, and is stencilled with roses and thorns.

‘You have to sit
there
.’ She gives me a little push onto the sofa.

‘Lotte – don’t
manhandle
Stella like that,’ says Harri.

‘But I’m going to do a play for her.’

She holds up a piece of paper that says
Scene I
in red wax crayon. Then she takes up two of the marionettes, the princess and the queen.

The play tells the story of a princess who wants to go and play in the woods. She has hair of crimped black wool, a frock of lemon brocade, and a determined expression. The princess argues with the queen because she won’t let her play where she wants. The queen scolds her.

‘That’s quite enough of your backchat. You do what I tell you, or else you’ll feel the back of my hand.’

Eva, coming in to clear the table, smiles ruefully.

Lotte holds up the sign that says
Scene II
. The princess is in the forest and happily picking flowers, but a wolf is waiting, lurking under the trees at the side of the stage. I recognise the wolf puppet – he’s the one Eva sells in the shop. He’s magnificent, with dangerous claws and a vicious, slavering mouth.

‘Look behind you!’ I call to the princess. ‘He’s
there
! Look behind you!’

But she’s obtuse; she doesn’t see him.

I remember the Christmas pantomimes of childhood. How there was always a scene like this one: how the girl never saw what was creeping up behind her. People would yell their warnings at her, but she always looked the wrong way.

The wolf chases the princess around, with a lot of bumping and squealing.

‘The wolf has caught her,’ says Lotte. ‘He’s tying her to a tree…’

‘Poor princess.’

‘But she’s clever, she’s escaping. Look, she’s running away…’

Lotte seats the princess up on the proscenium arch. Her wooden legs dangle and clatter.

‘She’s up in her tower,’ Lotte tells me. ‘She’s going to drop a really big stone on the wolf.’

‘Good for her,’ I say.

The wolf finally dies, after some very vocal death-throes.

‘That’s the end,’ says Lotte.

I applaud the feisty princess vigorously.

Lotte puts down the puppets and grins. She’s flushed, and pleased with herself.

‘It’s time for the music now,’ she says. ‘There’s always music at a play. You can do the music, Stella.’ She’s imperious.

‘Oh. What do you want me to do?’

‘Sing me an English song,’ she tells me.

So I sing her my favourite nursery rhyme.

Harri stands in the kitchen doorway, listening.

‘The girl in the song – she’s like your princess,’ I say to Lotte. ‘Nothing could catch her.’

Later, when Harri and I leave the flat, we step out into thick fog. The whole city is drowned in it. It makes me think of the lost city of Atlantis, or one of those villages in Suffolk, in the flat lands of East Anglia, where the sea long ago swept in and covered the land, and they say at low tide you can hear the desolate ringing of church bells. My hair against my face is lank and drenched, like drowned hair.

We talk about Lotte’s puppet play.

‘Why are fairytales the way they are – so many kings and queens? I’ve often wondered.’ I think for a moment. ‘I bet Dr Freud has some kind of explanation for that.’