The House by the Fjord (4 page)

Anna smiled to herself. The pilots always seemed to get hold of open-topped sports cars in the war. Johan's had been ancient, but he had been vastly proud of it.

It was not long before they reached the outskirts of the airfield, which was flanked on one side by a thick forest. They drove past a little shop, which Molly said was the only local store. Logs for sale were piled along the wall at the side of the shop and some were in sacks, which, with a sense of shock, Anna saw were stamped with large swastikas. Immediately, Molly noticed her reaction.

‘I know the sight of those swastikas makes your blood run cold,' she said, ‘but the sacks are being used simply because there are no new ones available yet. So many things left by the Nazis are filling gaps in the meantime.' Then she nodded in the direction of a parked truckload of soldiers in greyish uniforms that they were passing. ‘You'll have to get used to seeing them too.'

Anna gasped, twisting around in her seat to look at them again through the rear window. ‘They're German soldiers!'

‘Yes, they and others of them are awaiting repatriation. In the meantime they work on the airfield.'

‘But surely they should have been sent back to their homeland by now!' she queried.

Molly spoke patiently. ‘Don't forget that Hitler had fifty-seven thousand men under arms in Norway when the war in Europe ended, all because he thought the Allies would invade here. Once, he had five hundred thousand men here until so many more troops were needed on the Russian front. It is taking time to get those here home again.'

Anna thought how gloomy the prisoners looked, packed together in the back of the truck, but it was natural that they should be yearning for their homeland and to see their loved ones. She despaired again at the futility of war, although this time there had been no choice but to take up the fight for freedom against a horrific regime.

Olav drew up outside one of the cabins located near the gates of the airfield. Molly jumped out and led the way indoors.

‘It's small and the furniture is what the Germans left behind, but it is home for the time being.' She was standing in the middle of the little sitting room with her arms outflung. ‘Do you like my décor? I queued for over three hours to buy this cretonne in an Oslo shop. It was the first stock that had arrived in months.'

‘Yes, I like it,' Anna answered honestly. The material was bright and cheerful with a design of multicoloured flowers that showed up well against the white-painted panelled walls. There was just rather a lot of it, for Molly had covered cushions, chair seats and a sofa, as well making it into curtains.

Viewing the cabin took only a matter of minutes. There was a tiny kitchen, and the two bedrooms were narrow and cramped. Anna's room had a single bed and a wall cupboard where once a German uniform would have been housed. There were two single beds pushed together in Molly and Olav's room with the same standard wall cupboard and a stack of boxes that were obviously crammed with their possessions. Anna realized immediately that Molly and Olav would have used her room for storage and that, however welcome she was as their guest, she was causing them great inconvenience. At the first chance she would suggest to Molly that it would be best if she could rent accommodation nearby. She knew her friend well enough to know that common sense would prevail and Molly would not take offence at her suggestion.

By sheer chance, the opportunity to raise the subject came that evening when Molly spoke apologetically again of their quarters being so cramped.

‘What was space aplenty for two German officers mostly on duty is not enough for us!' she declared. ‘We would apply for an apartment in one of the old houses along the lane, where the rooms are large and there's plenty of space, but that's all very old property. There's no indoor plumbing, except a cold-water tap in some of them, and the loo is always in an outhouse.'

‘But would it be possible for me to rent somewhere if I should decide to stay on for a few months?' Anna asked casually. She knew that only the possibility of her extending her visit would sway her friend into allowing her to move elsewhere.

Molly frowned at her. ‘I would agree to that only if I knew you were serious about staying on.'

‘I'll take Christina's words to heart,' Anna answered, ‘which means allowing plenty of time to make up my mind.'

‘That calls for a drink of celebration!' Molly declared happily and prodded Olav, who was reading a newspaper and had not been listening. ‘Get out that bottle of champagne that we've been saving for a special occasion! Anna is going to give Norway a good try!'

The evening ended merrily. Olav and Molly knew there would be difficulty in getting a place for Anna, for there was a waiting list for all the accommodation. Yet, as a war widow whose husband had flown with all the surviving pilots in the squadron, more than one owing his life to Johan Vartdal's leadership, there was every chance that somewhere would be found for her.

The next day Molly took Anna to meet the other British war brides. She explained that there were a number of Norwegian wives living on the far side of the airfield, and although they were friendly and sociable, they had formed their own friendship circles just as Molly's own group had done, and to whom Anna would soon be introduced. She would be meeting them in an apartment in one of the old houses that had the large, well-proportioned rooms, but almost no indoor plumbing. These properties all faced the forest on the opposite side of the long lane. As Anna walked along with Molly on their way there, she thought the houses charming, with their filigreed porches and ornamented windows, even though most were in need of paint. All were well spaced and Molly paused once to point out through a gap between them a nearby airfield building beyond the bordering hedge.

‘There's the shower unit for the wives and children of the air force. It is a wonderful facility for the war brides living in old properties without civilized plumbing. There's another unit on the far side of the airfield kept for wives and families there. Sally and two or three others with apartments along here go through the dividing hedge to get to this one. It saves going all the way to the main gate to reach it.'

They walked on and soon saw ahead the house they were to visit, for a Union Jack was draped over the balcony's balustrade.

They had been sighted. A young woman, sleek and beautiful with a swirl of shoulder-length fair hair, suddenly appeared on the balcony and called down to them.

‘Hi, Molly! Welcome, Anna! Just walk in and come up.'

‘Thanks, Sally!' Molly paused in the porch and spoke quietly to Anna, although there was no one to overhear. ‘They all know you're a widow and so there will be no thoughtless remarks.'

Then Molly opened the front door and Anna followed her in. There was a buzz of voices upstairs where the wives had gathered. It was easy to see that the house must have known grander days, for there was a wide staircase in the large hall, which was presently cluttered with stacks of packing cases and three prams with a sleeping baby in one of them.

‘This is Terry,' Molly whispered as they both peeped in at the pink-cheeked baby. ‘His mother is a fellow English war bride, Vanessa Holmsen. She nearly died of homesickness before he was born.'

‘Whatever do you mean?'

Molly put her hand on the baluster rail as they began to mount the stairs and again she lowered her voice. ‘She literally began to pine away. In fact, she took to her bed and turned her face to the wall, wanting to die. All of us British wives did our best to coax her back to some interest in life, but she would not speak or look at us. Gunnar, her husband, was at loss to know what to do. He was afraid to let her take a trip back to England in case she never returned.'

‘Did a doctor see her?'

‘She refused to see the first one who came, but then in desperation Gunnar called in the medical officer, whom Vanessa knew well. He told her brusquely that she was pregnant, but even that might not have jolted her out of her lethargy if a few days later she hadn't felt the baby give a flutter of movement or imagined that she did.' Molly gave a laugh. ‘That did the trick. She left her bed and ate three scrambled eggs with four pieces of toast!'

‘How is she now?'

‘Still thin as a rake and not really settled, but she is not likely to leave Gunnar or die, as he had begun to fear. They have the ground floor of this house as their apartment.' She paused on the stairs again to impart some more information. ‘Sally Brand, whom you've just seen, is Canadian and financially the most well-off of all of us, because her father is a very successful businessman and sends her a generous allowance every three months. She can afford to have almost anything she wants and is the only one of us with a part-time nursemaid. Sometimes she even takes a shopping trip over the border into Sweden where – not having been occupied by the Nazis – the shops do have more goods to sell. She is generous and usually buys us all a gift – sometimes a lipstick or chocolates, and once we all had a bracelet, each one different. You should see her wardrobe! She has some lovely clothes that she brought with her from Canada.'

Molly had spoken without envy, simply setting the scene for Anna. They had reached the open door on the landing and a hush fell as they entered to face a circle of eight smiling young women, all of them curious to meet the newcomer arriving in their midst. One of the two toddlers playing on the floor turned quickly to his mother in shyness.

‘This is Anna Vartdal!' Molly announced. ‘My friend through thick and thin and more air raids than I care to remember!'

They laughed and greeted Anna while Sally poured coffee into a fresh cup. ‘Do you like milk or cream in your coffee, Anna?' she asked. ‘We buy our dairy products from local farmers. They are not supposed to sell off ration cards, but they do and charge us a little extra for it.'

‘Cream will be a great treat,' Anna replied. ‘I cannot remember the last time I had it.'

‘Have one of Jane's sugared cookies with your coffee. She is the best cook among us.'

Jane, dark-haired and tall, gave Anna a welcoming grin and offered the plate of cookies. ‘It's good to have you aboard.'

‘You sound as if you were in the Navy,' Anna replied.

‘Yes, I was a Wren, stationed at Portsmouth for most of my time.'

Anna had found the cookie to be crisp and delicious. ‘Did you bake these for the sailors, Jane?' she said jokingly.

‘I did once for a sailor who was special to me,' Jane answered on a quiet note, ‘but he was lost on convoy duty when his ship was torpedoed.'

‘Oh, I'm so sorry,' Anna said, distressed that she herself should have been the one to make a thoughtless remark.

Jane waved a forgiving hand. ‘That was about two years before I met Per on a train. We started talking and that was it. I thought I could never love a second time, but he showed me that it was possible and I'm grateful to him for it.'

Anna thought to herself that Jane was unaware of being a little tactless herself in advocating second love to a widow, but she put it from her mind as she was introduced to Vanessa, who was still pale and very slim from the time homesickness had made her ill. Her appearance was not helped by her thin pointed features and her pale golden hair, which gave her an ethereal look. Anna hoped that she was eating more now than scrambled eggs and toast.

‘We'll do our best to make you happy here,' Vanessa said quite shyly. ‘I've found everyone in our group to be very supportive.'

‘That's very kind,' Anna answered sincerely. ‘Thank you.'

She had been waved to a chair and sat down while the next introduction was to Helen Jensen, who had curly brown hair, bright hazel eyes and a very practical look about her.

‘We all want to know how you and your husband met. That's why we are telling you how we all matched up. I'm a Scottish lass and married to Kristian. We met in an Aberdeen pub. It was a case of one glance across a crowded room, because as soon as I walked in he said to Wendy's husband, who was with him, that he had seen the girl he was going to marry.'

‘That was very romantic,' Pat said approvingly. ‘But what a pity it was in a pub! You should have been on an exotic beach somewhere with Bing Crosby singing about love and moonlight in the background.'

Helen laughed. ‘Better in a pub than not all!' Then she turned to Anna. ‘You are very welcome, Anna. As Vanessa has just told you, we do our best for one another. I've been teaching Highland dancing to our friends here. It's excellent exercise and they are all getting quite good at it.'

‘Could I learn?' Anna asked. ‘I've always thought the reels look such fun to dance.'

‘Yes, they are.' Then Helen addressed the rest of the company. ‘Did you hear that? I have a new pupil!' There was applause and some vocal encouragement for Anna.

The war bride sitting near Anna leaned forward, having been waiting for a chance to speak to her. She had abundantly beautiful hair, a rich red-brown, which Anna thought was just like film star Rita Hayworth's shoulder-length hair, a style that so many had copied in the war years as being the epitome of glamour.

‘Welcome to Norway, Anna,' she said. ‘I'm Rosemary Strom, married to Henrik. I was in the WAF and we were stationed on the same airfield. That's how we met.'

Again Sally offered some information, ‘Rosemary is a marvellous needlewoman. She made that gorgeous blouse she is wearing.'

The next introduction was to Pat Andersen, an Irish girl with a naturally happy face, her figure plump and round-hipped and her eyes full of fun.

‘I met my husband in hospital where I was a nurse. Where did you meet yours, Anna?'