The Sea House (4 page)

7

Max’s frame was finished. He wondered, as he’d often done before, if making up the frame wasn’t his favourite part of the job. The one thing he knew he could do well. But then the very fact of having made a frame, expertly tacking the canvas to its back, forced him to embark on the next part of the journey, the sketching, the first stroke of the paint. He’d kept the measurements of Gertrude’s mantelpiece in mind as he’d sawn the lengths of wood. He knew this was absolutely the wrong way round, that paintings were not furnishings, that Henry would be outraged, but all the same it was Gertrude who was providing his room and board, had helped him to get away from the last dying memories of Kaethe, and he wanted, if he possibly could, to show that he was grateful. He carried the frame carefully inside, and turned it to face the wall.

Gertrude was before him as he straightened up. ‘Max,’ she said, and he noticed only then that the house was heady with the smell of food, the table cleared of sketches, laid with an embroidered cloth. There were napkins fanning out from wooden rings, and on each ring was a white label. Elsa, Max, Gertrude, Klaus.

‘Did you remember the Lehmanns will be here at seven?’ Gertrude asked.

Slowly Max backed out.

‘I’ll find you some flowers,’ he called, and he hurried into the garden and slipped through the side gate.

Max walked fast, taking the road towards the church, dreading the possibility of small talk turning the past into a piece of news. He could feel his feet pounding, batting away the questions they might ask, and he tried to remember what he knew of the Lehmanns, how they’d left, when, and which members of the family got out. Why here, of all places? But then he came across his view. It was a space between two houses, entirely made up of shades of green and blue. He hadn’t noticed it at first, so intently had he been concentrating on buildings, but then one day he’d happened to glance sideways and there it lay, a long thin alleyway of light. Sometimes Max just snatched a look at it, taking a bite, using the colours to chew on along the way. But today he stopped at the mouth of the lane. The ground was muddy, the fields shimmering with rain. Max looked at the soft leather of his shoes and, knowing it was ludicrous, he stepped in. The path was narrow, edged by private land, a sumptuous garden and a tennis court, the wire interwoven, the court swept clean. There were dark shadows from the hedgerows, but always, opening up before him, the overlapping stripes of blue and green.

It was late when he arrived back. ‘I’m so sorry.’ Max stood in the doorway, his trousers sodden, his shoes abandoned in the hall. He looked at the table, his empty place, the other guests already seated round. ‘I became delayed.’

‘It’s quite all right.’ Gertrude was holding a dishcloth, attempting to manoeuvre a casserole on to a tile. ‘This is Klaus Lehmann, his wife, Elsa. This is Max. Max Meyer.’

Klaus Lehmann nodded to him, a small, neat, handsome man, but Elsa rose up to greet him.

‘Hello.’ She took his hand, and then, looking at his trousers, darkened to the knee, ‘Did you enjoy your walk?’

Her hand was light as paper and one strand of hair had curled across her cheek. Max blushed. Her beauty was so dizzying it stopped him where he stood. He stared at her, he couldn’t help it, and for a moment he thought he’d forgotten how to speak. He could feel the others watching him, see Elsa’s lips parting as she smiled, and then a distant cog shifted in his brain.

‘I should change,’ he said, relieved, forming the words as clearly as he could, and, stepping like a wade bird, he made his way to the stairs. Would Gertrude tell them, Max wondered as he peeled off his wet clothes, would she tell them he was… crippled, or would she let them find out for themselves?

Max took his seat at the end of the table. He was opposite Elsa, but lengthways so that, although facing him, she was the furthest away. Even if he stretched his fingers out to her, and she to him, they would never touch. These thoughts were so unfamiliar it took him moments before he realized they must be slapped away.

Gertrude served out the goulash, and, as Max spooned in each mouthful, he attempted to hold Elsa in his view, tried to watch for her lips moving, in case she was addressing anything to him. But just the sight of her, the light in her long eyes, the blue, like irises blooming, made him incapable of speech.

‘So Max, Max…’ Gertrude was talking to him, trying to shift his eyes to her. ‘I was just explaining to Klaus here about the painting, how much thought you’ve put into it, and how…’ – she was urging him to take her on – ‘how you are ready to begin.’

Lehmann smiled understandingly. One artist to another, although of course he must know that Max was not a professional like him.

‘Yes,’ Max nodded finally, over-emphasizing this one word. ‘At least I hope I am.’

But he was saved much further talk by Klaus who began to outline the details of a new library for which he’d just completed plans. If he could gain this contract, he’d have a chance to prove himself again, remake the reputation that he’d left behind.

‘When I first met my husband,’ Elsa told them, ‘he was already well known. A dazzling star, to me certainly.’ She smiled at Klaus. ‘I was, of course, seventeen.’

‘And now, not so?’ Klaus didn’t blink.

‘Still so.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘After twenty-two years.’

Max watched Klaus as he talked, watched the words form on his lips, distorted as he chewed, twisted by his accent, and those missed as Max bent to fork up his own food. By the end of the meal he had pieced together an unlikely image of a swimming-pool, suspended below chandeliers, with tiers of tottering bookshelves revolving in mid-air. It made him smile, just the thought of it, and Gertrude, noticing his usually black eyes, lit up, told herself she should have invited guests before.

After supper they sat by the open window, a fire lit in the grate and watched the midges swarm out of the dark. ‘So, your paths never crossed before?’ Gertrude couldn’t resist trying, although Max had told her already that they’d never met.

‘Yes.’ Elsa leant towards him. ‘I think your family had a summer house not far from ours. You wouldn’t remember me.’ She looked at him, her luminous eyes ringed round with black. ‘But I remember you.’

‘Hiddensee?’ It was almost a whisper. It was Hiddensee that he’d been thinking of on his walk.

‘I was there every summer since the age of three, and I remember you particularly…’ There was a hush as if this were a private conversation and the others were caught up in it against their will. ‘Because you were always alone.’

‘Elsa…’ Klaus tried to interject.

‘And then one summer, you were with a girl, a girl in a green dress, and I saw you…’ Elsa laughed. ‘I saw you kiss her in one of those little booths on the beach.’

‘Elsa…’ Klaus was stretching, standing up. ‘I really think it may be time to go.’

‘It was the first time’ – she looked at her husband – ‘that I was introduced to love.’

‘I don’t know what to say.’ Klaus folded his arms. ‘I’d hoped that the first time had been reserved for me.’

Everyone laughed, but Max felt the coldness behind the other man’s quick look.

‘Yes.’ Max became aware of the formality of their language, speaking in this foreign tongue as if it were a kind of code. ‘It was the summer I became engaged.’

‘And now…’ Elsa was leaning towards him. ‘Your wife? She’s…?’

‘We never married.’ He wanted to add something softer, to hold her disappointment, but there was nothing else to say.

‘I’m sorry.’ Elsa looked at him. ‘You’re not offended?’ she was bending towards his chair, touching his fingers with the soft tips of her own.

‘No.’

Helga. He spoke the word to himself. ‘No. I’m not offended at all.’

Of course a shadow has no shape alone. I don’t mean a cast shadow on a flat surface, but the shadow which explains where a solid object turns from the light
. Max read feverishly. If only, he thought, he could write to Henry now.
Remember
, he had said,
the whole object has a shape to be drawn, not the shadow by itself
.

That night Max wandered through the rooms of Heiderose. He drifted through walls, following the notes of the piano, into the blue room with its oval table, the long windows opening out on to the terrace where his mother liked to sit. Up, he was going up the stairs, past the bathroom with the great juddering boiler which toiled and bleated and woke him in the night, past Kaethe’s room, so neat and tidy, the high bed smoothed, the white sheet tucked tightly in. Light filtered through the window, dappling across her desk, and he took out his sketchbook and held it open to show her what he’d done. Kaethe, he called, and then still in his dream he remembered it was Kaethe who had made him stop. ‘It pains you too much,’ she’d said, and as soon as he’d arrived in England she’d organized a job for him as a book-keeper. He’d been good at figures, his fingers clever on the page, and just as with painting, she’d told him, you didn’t need your ears to multiply and subtract.

8

Lily was woken by the smash and shattering of glass. She lay quite still, her eyes open, her blood pounding, and tried to remember if she’d locked the door. There was silence now. Only her own breathing, and she waited, paralysed, for someone to leap out at her from the corner of the room. She didn’t dare sit up or turn her head, and then, just when the waiting was more than she could bear, there was the scramble of raised voices and a scream rang out. Lily leapt out of bed. She spun around, unsure what to do, and then the thud of something heavy hit the wall.

‘I don’t want to hear it!’ It was the woman’s shrill voice, and underneath it, the man’s, a growl of rage. ‘I’ve told you! I’ve warned you…’

Instinctively Lily shielded her face and, as she did so, there was that scream again, another crash, and then the sickening roll of someone tumbling downstairs. Lily ran down her own steep staircase and stood in the darkened kitchen, where in a flash of white a figure rushed past the window, head bent into the night. The gate clanged open and then shut, and she heard the choking of a car.

Lily stood, her feet slowly freezing, unable to think what she should do. Those little girls were still inside there, and she imagined them lying, eyes wide open, too frightened to speak.

Very slowly Lily opened her own door. The night was radiant with stars, thick dazzling clusters, dripping from the sky. A gust of wind swept by her and then she realized that she was surrounded by sound. From behind the house, across the Green and up and above the sand dunes came the crashing of the sea. Lily forgot what she’d come out for. She opened the side gate and stepped round into the lane. The noise was louder now. Wave after wave of sound. Was this noise always there, and was she simply too busy to notice it during the day? If you didn’t know, you might think it was a motorway, the lorries hurtling by, but as she listened she could imagine the water drawing back to crash on to the shore. Lily glanced back towards her cottage and saw a figure lit up in the window of the house next door. It was the man, leaning against the glass, and then in an instant the light flicked off and he was gone. Shivering, she turned and hurried back inside. She closed the door with an unexpected slam and listened for a moment. No. There was nothing. Silence. No calls or whimpers, and then she wondered if it was possible the children had slept right through the fight.

The next morning she saw him. He was standing in the yard, sawing a length of wood between two chairs. Until now Lily had only seen the children, and once or twice the shoulder of the woman, hanging clothes out on the line. But here was the father standing side on to her, dressed in an old jumper and a woollen hat. She leant forward to see, and, just as she pressed her face to the window, the wood snapped apart and he turned to catch at the short end before it fell. Lily stepped back. She took her tea and went through to the table where she’d laid out her work. She picked up a letter, and began busily to read, turning the words, as she understood them, from German into English, drifting as she did so into a foreign rhythm of speech.

On the cold, dark train
, Klaus wrote to Elsa in 1932,
I began to fear that I haven’t shown you enough love. But what can I do since you became the loving one, and I simply had to open my arms to you and accept? At 1.30 this morning I was still horizontal in my carriage, thinking of you, and attempting to sleep. Weren’t the days at Hiddensee as beautiful as the memories? And how many there are going to be till we grow old?

Lily could still hear the man sawing. If she glanced behind her and out of the kitchen window she could just see his shoulder, working back and forth.

Darling, I am so glad that the small feather that I sent you made you happy. For years it has been my favourite kind of feather, and I took it as a good sign when it simply floated down on to my page. Will you think me ridiculous if I tempt you with another pair of shoes? Black. Rounded, very pretty and well made. In size 37 there is just one pair left. Similar high boots! I can hear you laughing. Is my urge to buy you shoes so funny? But I really do believe we might not be able to get anything so nice for many years to come. My darling, until my return let there be nothing beside you but empty space.

Just then Lily saw the postman walk past her window and, her heart leaping, she jumped up and ran round to the side door. If Nick didn’t write to her soon, she’d have to call him, tell him the phone box had been mended, but still she might last out one more day. The postman hesitated for a moment and then stopped. Lily watched as he drew an envelope out of his bag, but instead of turning towards her he pushed open the gate to the house across the lane. In a flash the door was opened, and Ethel appeared. She took the envelope and, smiling broadly, she sliced it apart with her thumb. Lily stood, watching her face frowning and brightening as she read the words.

‘Morning.’ Ethel had seen her, and blushing, Lily nodded ‘morning’ and slipped back inside.

Lehmann’s next letter was from Dahlem.

I never dared to hope that I’d receive a letter from you even on a Sunday. But there can’t be any doubt about who the loving one is now. And who is planning to give us both a child? While I am here working I hear the sound of the bells ringing out at 7.30 each morning, and in my semi-sleep it sounds like Elle, Elle. Ellie, Elle. So I wake up thinking of you, and longing for you my El.

L, xx

Lily put down her pen and walked outside. She’d started to treat the Green as her front garden, standing in its centre looking up at the sky. She glanced irritably at the phone box, as if it really was broken, and then feeling the warm sun on her face she lay down in the grass. There were five white clouds, fine as carded wool, fraying and stretching, pulling back together in the breeze. Lily pressed herself into the earth, her head, her legs, the heels of her feet, and then she closed her eyes and listened for the sea. It wasn’t roaring now. She could hear it, gently murmuring, smooth and lapping, like the long drone of a bee.

‘Are you all right there?’ Someone was standing over her, casting a cool shadow half across her face. Lily opened her eyes and started. It was the man from next door, looking down at her, the sandy ends of his hair sticking out below his hat. ‘Right,’ he nodded, as Lily scrambled up, ‘just thought I’d check,’ and he was moving away across the Green, followed by a black and white cat. ‘Psst,’ he turned for it, and it hurried after, its tail held high, its footsteps dainty as if it were treading over tar.

Lily turned away, embarrassed, hoping he hadn’t seen the fear in her face, and in the distance, stepping on to the bridge she saw a white-gowned figure heading for the sea. Lily set off after her, relieved to have a purpose. Down the lane, along the river, over the wooden bridge and up the sandbanks, wading, climbing, up to the plain of beach before the sea. And there was Ethel standing by the water, on the treacle line where the wet sand meets the dry. She was slipping off her sandals, placing them neatly out of danger, dropping her white towelling dressing-gown to reveal a bolstered bathing costume, exploding orange petals from hip to hip. Lily walked nearer and sat on the sand. There was a cool breeze that swept over the beach, and the waves, though small, were capped with spray. Ethel stood for a minute with both ankles in the surf, and then she strode out until the water reached her thighs. This was the hardest moment, the point where your body shivered most, begging to be saved from pain, but Ethel lowered herself into the water and swam, ladylike and strong. She swam towards the skyline until she was nothing but a round white ruffled speck, and then, having reached her mark, she turned. She turned around into the sun and waved. Lily sprang up and waved back. And then she stood there watching, as Ethel began to drift back in. The swimming was less purposeful now, as if the hard work had been done. She let the waves billow her about, flecking up and wetting the edges of her hair. Soon she was rising up out of the shallow water. ‘Good morning,’ she called, as sand and shells and pearly drops scattered from her arms.

‘Do you swim every day?’ Lily asked as Ethel tugged on her gown.

‘If I can. I’ve been swimming most days since we moved here. It’s that that keeps me young. Are you going in?’

‘I haven’t got a costume.’ They both looked along the deserted beach and grinned.

‘Well, I’d better get back.’ Ethel turned and, holding her gown around herself, she shambled back up the sand slope of the beach and down the other side.

She would go in, of course she would. She might even slip in without any clothes at all. But as she pulled off her top, she thought of the row of fishermen she’d once seen. Green macs, green wellingtons, a small army of circular tents. What if they appeared over the hill the moment that her back was turned, and then when she was ready to rise naked out of the water, they would be there like a green-tented firing squad to greet her as she came out. Slowly she peeled off her jeans, grateful for her vaguely matching bra and pants, and then, with the tip of one toe, she tested the sea. It was so cold it scalded. She tried the other foot. ‘For God’s sake!’ The water clasped her foot and froze it, stabbing knives into the bone. Quickly she stepped back. If only she could plunge right in, get it over in one go, but the water was too shallow. She would have to walk out half a mile to even submerge her waist. She tried again, testing for pockets of warm sea, and then, knowing there was nothing else for it, she waded in. ‘God, God, God, God, God,’ she mumbled to take her mind off screaming, and she reminded herself that if this arctic water had failed to kill a woman in her eighties, then the chances were she would survive. The water was up to her knees now. She took a deep breath and looked around. There was no one and nothing for as far as she could see. ‘Right.’ And she turned and raced back out. Her legs were alive from the knees down, bright red and tingling. I should have just plunged in, she told herself, as she pulled on her clothes. Tomorrow, she promised, or the day after, and she walked the long way round, past the sea wall, and the one stilted house in a flat deserted scrub of shingle, up the ridge and down past the pub. Ethel would know from just one look at her how cowardly she had been, and she imagined how she would feel if her whole body was lit up like her legs. She walked faster as she approached the corner of the lane and quickly, using the side door, slipped inside.