Wartime Brides (12 page)

‘But how will I go shopping?’ she blurted.

‘You can telephone. That’s what it’s there for. You can have it delivered.’

‘But what about clothes shopping, things for the house …’ She was almost screaming, an entirely different Charlotte from the one everyone was used to. Any excuse! Anything to stop him doing this.

‘You can do it at the weekend. I’ll take you and the children whenever any of you need anything.’

‘That means depending on you every time I go out of this house,’ said Charlotte.

The newspaper slapped down loudly on the table. His fingers dug into her arm. ‘I am the master in this house, Charlotte. Please understand that, my dear. My word is law!’

She hardly saw the road ahead as she drove the children to their individual schools. Stark trees grew at regular intervals on either side of the road. They seemed to shiver as if they were trying to run away. It might have been the wind. It might just as easily have been her shivering.

Both schools were good. Both took boarders as well as day pupils, she thought, with a sudden flash of hope. But she knew deep down that David wouldn’t countenance that. In some odd way since coming back from the war, he wanted to make them all suffer. Either that or he wanted to control their lives, utterly and completely.

The children were as subdued and silent as she was. Geoffrey’s school was first. He looked glum as he climbed out of the back seat.

‘Be a good boy,’ Charlotte said, making an effort to sound as genuinely cheerful as she always did.

‘Yes, mother.’

Although she offered her cheek for the usual kiss, he ignored it and, like Shakespeare’s schoolboy, crawled like a snail towards the school gates.

‘Will we really have to go away to boarding school?’ asked Janet once they’d arrived at her school.

Charlotte managed a smile before turning round. ‘Nothing’s settled, darling. You may not have to go at all.’

Janet scowled as she tugged her satchel out after her. ‘I
wish
he’d never come back from the war. I wish he’d died!’

‘Janet!’

The door slammed behind Janet, who did not look round. Charlotte sighed and gripped the steering wheel. It was hard to accept what was happening to her family. One thing she did know was that it had started on the day David had come home from the war. He was redefining his role in their world, redefining their role in his.

So far he had accepted that the work she was doing for the Red Cross and the Marriage Advisory Centres was still important, what with all the displaced persons and disordered family lives. But soon he would put a stop to it. She would be forced to relinquish this separate life she had so enjoyed while he’d been away. She understood what Janet was feeling because she felt a little of it herself.

But it was no use dwelling on it. Today she was off to the POW camp out at Pucklechurch, a village on the edge of the city. The Red Cross was doing its best to repatriate German prisoners. There were papers to be filled in and collated, relatives to trace and permissions to gather. Europe was in turmoil, its cities flattened and millions dead. A shifting population drifted across each country searching for those they had once known.

The guard who scrutinised Charlotte’s pass card was American. ‘Carry on, ma’am. Adjutant’s office is on the left-hand side.’ He saluted her smartly as she pulled away and drove past the raised barrier.

The office was housed in a brick Nissen hut with a curving green tin roof that vaguely reminded her of the
protective
tunnels they used down in Cheddar to protect growing strawberries. Much smaller of course, but the same shape.

She and the family had spent a week’s holiday in Cheddar before the war. She smiled when she thought of it: such a happy time for all of them.

‘Delighted to meet you,’ said the adjutant, an English officer who politely removed his cap and dusted off the chair he pulled out from beneath the desk. ‘Hope this will do for you. Best we can offer, I’m afraid.’

‘It’s fine.’

‘Tea?’ he asked raising his eyebrows.

‘Love one. Milk and one sugar.’

‘Well, I’ll go off and get you your cuppa while you see your first appointment, if that’s all right with you.’

She smiled, said her thanks, set her brown leather briefcase down on the desk and took out the papers she needed. There were six prisoners of war to see.

‘Morning, ma’am,’ said the American corporal who escorted the first prisoner in. She was surprised at his being black, the only black man she’d seen in the whole camp. Throughout the war the American army had been noticeably segregated, the ‘Jim Crows’ being mostly used for supply, transport, and entirely black infantry battalions.

The prisoner, a thin man with a five o’clock shadow and heavy eyebrows, looked her up and down. She avoided his eyes and, for the umpteenth time that day, wondered if the navy blue suit with the peplum waist had been the right choice. After all, it wasn’t as though these
men
had been cut off from women altogether. It had been explained to her before being assigned that these men were used to mixing in the community, helping on local farms and repairing local roads. Since VE Day they’d even been allowed to go to the pub.

‘Do you have to stay, corporal?’ she asked with a smile.

‘That, ma’am, depends on your German.’

What a fool! She stopped herself from blushing but could have bitten off her tongue. Why had she presumed him to be merely a prison guard?

‘I’m sorry. Most interpreters have been officers.’

‘I almost used to be.’

She wondered at his reply and sensed the bitterness in his voice. None of your business, Charlotte, she told herself. You’re here to do a job. She turned to the prisoner.

‘Then let’s continue, shall we? Now,’ she said, smiling across at the prisoner. ‘Your name, please?’

As promised, the tea came in at the same time as the next prisoner. The adjutant brought in both.

‘You’ve met Corporal Grant, I see,’ he said as he set the cup and saucer down. ‘Everything all right, is it?’

She sensed what he was really asking her was did she mind working with a black man.

She smiled broadly. ‘The corporal has been of immense assistance. Thank you.’

‘Then I’ll leave you to it.’ He nodded at them both, tilted his cap then exited. The corporal glared after him before instructing the prisoner to sit down. For the first time she noticed that the flesh around one of the corporal’s eyes was
slightly
darker than the other. There was also a graze on his right cheek. Had he been in a fight?

After the second prisoner had exited there was a gap before the third prisoner made his entrance.

‘Tea, Corporal Grant?’ She found a tin mug in the drawer of the desk. He nodded.

‘Do you take sugar?’ she asked.

‘Everything, ma’am.’

She glanced up at him. ‘Mrs Hennessey-White will do. I’m only a Red Cross worker, not a queen.’

He laughed and she managed to smile more broadly than she had all day. David was someone she’d left at home that morning and would return to later this evening. In the period in between she felt lighter, more alive and in charge of her own life.

‘How do you feel about helping our ex-enemies get home?’ she asked.

Corporal Aaron Grant swallowed his tea and shrugged. ‘I don’t feel aggrieved with them if that’s what you mean. A few are real Nazi types but most are just ordinary men, dragged from their ordinary lives and told to go out, kill and get killed. All most of them want to do is get back to their homes, their factories and their farms.’

‘So you don’t hate them.’

‘No.’

Charlotte sat back in her chair and folded her arms. ‘They were pretty brutal towards the Jews.’

A serious expression came to Aaron’s face. ‘Moral victories can be used to jog consciences and there sure are a lot of them need jogging back home.’

Feeling suddenly uncomfortable she looked down into her tea. ‘I hope you’re right. You sound as if you’re going to be a lawyer when you get back home.’

He shook his head and his face softened. ‘A musician. I want to be a musician.’

‘Have you a family back home?’

‘If you mean am I married, then no. But I do have parents and two sisters. And before you ask, there’s no lonely girl back there waiting for me. If there had been, thanks to Uncle Sam and Adolf Hitler and the length of this war, she’d probably have given up by now.’

‘Lonely for you too, so far from home. Have you met anyone here?’

His whole face tensed. ‘What’s the point?’

He has met someone, she decided. No one could sound so bitterly frustrated unless something like that had happened.

She checked the details of the next prisoner: Josef Schumann, place of birth, Hamburg, date of birth, 12 March, 1910. She heard him enter.

‘Are you the woman from the Red Cross?’ His English had only a slight accent. Charlotte looked up in surprise. He had broad shoulders, a lean frame. Blue eyes looked boldly into hers and he held himself ramrod straight, the epitome of what a German officer was supposed to be. His service record stated that he used to be a U-boat commander.

Aaron got to his feet. ‘This is Mrs Hennessey-White,’ he said to the German. He turned back to Charlotte. ‘You won’t be needing my services with Joe, so if you don’t
mind
…’ He held up a pack of Lucky Strikes. Charlotte nodded and, as the door closed behind him, the tall German with the lantern jaw and the dark blond hair sat down. His smile was sardonic. As if we’re all fools, thought Charlotte. She decided not to like him.

‘Our corporal gets a bad time,’ said Josef before she had asked him her first question.

‘He’s a well-educated man.’ She knew she sounded defensive.

‘I have watched them. They give him a bad time.’ He tapped at his eye and cheekbone. ‘If you know what I mean.’

She knew what he meant all right. But his attitude intrigued her. Was he merely playing a game or was he genuinely concerned at the way Corporal Grant was being treated?

A laconic grin seemed to drift over Schumann’s lips. It was as though he had seen most of what the world had to offer and didn’t think much of it. He didn’t stare, but she got the impression he missed nothing.

She asked him to confirm his name, date of birth and his address.

‘If it’s still there,’ he added with a shrug of his shoulders. ‘I hear not much is left of Hamburg.’

Charlotte willed herself not to show any remorse for what her country had done to his. ‘Nor Coventry.’ It was out before she could stop it.

He seemed to ignore her comment. ‘My parents used to have a bakery. I remember the smell of the bread drifting up into my bedroom around five o’clock in the morning
and
the bustling and banging from down below. I doubt if it’s still there now.’

‘Are you married?’ she asked quickly, in an effort to quell the guilt she felt at his loss.

‘I was. She’s dead.’ He stated it in a matter-of-fact manner as if no emotion was attached to the event.

‘I’m sorry.’ She stopped herself from asking how she died. It was irrelevant. All she was supposed to do for the Red Cross was to collect particulars and fill in the forms. They would do the rest over in Germany. But he made her feel uncomfortable. His eyes seemed to look straight through her.

‘Before the war. Typhoid. And you?’

‘Me?’ His sudden question surprised her.

‘Did your husband come home?’

She looked down at the forms as she nodded, pen in hand. ‘Yes. Yes, he did.’

‘He’s not the same, is he? He never will be, you know. None of us ever will.’

Suddenly she felt an angry flush spread over her face. What right did he have to pry into her private life?

She gripped her pen with both hands and got to her feet. ‘We’re here to deal with your life, not mine!’

He was slower getting to his feet and when he did he towered over her by at least five inches. ‘Have some more tea.’ He nodded at the pot. ‘Tea cures everything, doesn’t it?’

He was mocking her. She felt her cheeks reddening and clasped them with both hands. Angry tears pricked her eyes. Her problems with David, especially when she was
alone
with him at night, suddenly seemed too much to bear. She took a handkerchief from her handbag and dabbed at her eyes. As she raised her arms the silk scarf she wore around her neck dislodged and slid to the floor. Josef picked it up.

He said nothing as he handed it to her but his gaze dropped to the latest bruise on her neck. The hostility left his face. Her eyes met his. Her voice was low, as official as she could make it. ‘I have all the information I need. You can go now.’

He hesitated. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

This was just too embarrassing. She was here to help him! He was the one with problems, not her. At least, that was what she told herself.

She felt sure he would have lingered if it hadn’t been for the return of Corporal Grant.

Josef left. Grant was perceptive. ‘Are you all right, Mrs Hennessey-White?’

‘Of course.’ She swiftly retied the scarf around her neck. ‘Let’s get on, shall we?’

It was getting dark when she left, far later than she’d meant to. Luckily, she’d arranged a taxi for the children and Mrs Grey had promised to put in an appearance. But she had to get home before David.

Shadows fell across the uneven concrete surface where she’d left her car. The trees stirred slightly, their few remaining leaves floating like dislodged wings into dark puddles. One particular shadow seemed to be following her. She quickened her footsteps then told herself she was a fool to be frightened by childish terrors.

Her heels tapped a light constant beat. A heavier tread echoed her footfall. Boots! A man was following her.

‘I am sorry about what I said earlier.’

She recognised the slight accent and spun round.

‘I had no business upsetting you like that. Please accept my apologies.’

He came close to her. For a moment she was afraid, but in the chill glow of a nearby light she saw the sincerity in his face.

He shook his head, looked around him, up at the sky, down at the ground. ‘All I want is to go home. We have all been injured by this war – all of us.’