Sukie told us what had happened to Dad. Once or twice, I almost asked her to stop, but I had to know – we all had to know – how he died. Otherwise, we’d be stuck wondering for ever.
Dad had been flying back to England, not far from the French coast, when his plane got hit by enemy gunfire. It tore a huge hole in the tail of his plane, killing his gunner and two other crew members outright.
Rapidly losing height, the damaged aircraft was heading straight for the town of Tollevast. Monsieur Bonet, who Sukie said was an old man who kept chickens, saw it happen before his very eyes: how Dad managed to keep the plane up as it flew over the houses, before coming down with a thump in Monsieur Bonet’s orchard.
The most heartbreaking part was that Dad walked away from the crash. He surrendered himself to Monsieur Bonet, who’d gone running down the orchard to help him, not arrest him.
But there were injuries inside Dad that weren’t obvious straight away. He made it as far as the kitchen of the farmhouse. He even started to drink a cup of brandy, and was telling Monsieur Bonet in his schoolboy French about his family, back at home. For good luck, Dad always carried a photo of us in his shirt pocket when he flew, and he got it out to show Monsieur Bonet. It was taken a couple of years ago when we’d gone to Brighton on a day trip, and me and Cliff are eating ice creams and Mum’s got her eyes shut. Sukie’s the only one of us who looks normal. Putting down his cup, Dad said he had a headache. He died right there in the chair.
Not wanting the Nazis to take Dad’s body, Monsieur Bonet buried him in a quiet spot in his orchard. He reported the crashed plane to the authorities and said that all on board were killed, even handing over Dad’s identity tags to cover himself. The photo he kept, in the hope that one day he’d be able to trace the pilot’s family.
When, a few months later, he heard rumours of an English woman helping Jews escape across the Channel, Monsieur Bonet tracked Sukie down to carry a message back to England. He recognised her as soon as he saw her. Hearing his story and seeing the photo, Sukie knew without doubt who the pilot was buried in this old man’s orchard, in a sunny spot under an apple tree.
After Sukie had finished talking, I sat staring into space, not crying but aware of an ache deep inside my chest. I thought to myself: this pain is my heart breaking.
I don’t know how long I sat there, but at some point the pain began to ease. I was able to feel something else – a sort of gladness, I suppose – that Dad died gently and quietly in a kind old man’s kitchen. And in a way we were with him at the end; at least our photo was.
It was late morning by now. Word of Sukie’s arrival had reached Queenie and Miss Carter, who were in the kitchen with Mrs Henderson, the sounds and smells of breakfast drifting down the hall.
Outside, the sun was shining. It was shaping up to be a beautiful March day. One wall of Mrs Henderson’s sitting room was almost entirely made up of windows that looked out over fields where her goats grazed. It made a pleasant change from gazing out to sea.
‘Look!’ Cliff said, pointing to a clump of trees that grew close to the house. ‘They’ve got buds on. That means spring’s coming, doesn’t it?’
‘Ephraim says spring always comes early in Devon,’ I replied. At the mention of his name, I could’ve sworn I saw Sukie blush.
‘Monsieur Bonet says we’re welcome to visit Dad’s grave when it’s safe to do so,’ she said, taking Mum’s hand. ‘Honestly Mum, it’s a gorgeous spot. I think you’ll love it.’
Mum frowned at their entwined fingers like she was about to disagree. Maybe it was all this talk of buds and daffodils, but when she looked up, she was smiling. ‘I’d like that, darling. I think we all would.’
*
We ate the sort of breakfast fit for soldiers after battle. There was porridge with cream and honey, eggs, toast, bacon for those who wanted it. On finally seeing Sukie in daylight, Miss Carter was at first too embarrassed to eat.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she kept saying, going pink. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking. It was unforgivable.’
‘You need new spectacles,’ Mrs Henderson said helpfully. ‘Getting the message wrong was one thing, but look – the girl’s half her mother’s age – no offence meant.’
Sukie and Mum both laughed. Even with their different hair, they did look confusingly similar. It was Sukie whose smile dazzled, though. And I could see Miss Carter gazing at her, thinking her completely marvellous. I just hoped Ephraim, when he finally met Sukie in person, would think the same.
Queenie, meanwhile, was already arranging to bring in another refugee boat from France. She wouldn’t be put off by the threat Mr Spratt posed.
‘That silly little man’s the least of our worries.’ She shovelled food into her mouth as she talked. ‘My sense is that Hitler’s plans for the Jews are only just beginning. These next few months we’re going to be busy.’
‘Whatever you decide, count me in,’ Sukie said.
There was a chorus of agreement around the table. And it really did help, feeling part of those plans. It reminded me there was a future, and we’d all be involved in it. We weren’t going to be beaten by hate.
*
Though it wasn’t quite that straightforward. When things had quietened down, Mr Spratt sent the police back to Budmouth Point. Of everyone, only Queenie was charged – for forgery of documents – then given a suspended sentence, which meant she didn’t have to go to prison. This was especially good news because now Esther had got all her clocks working, they had to be wound every Sunday on the dot. Only Queenie herself could be trusted with this important job.
Mum, looking stronger by the day, went back to London. She said she’d be all right with Gloria for company, and anyway thought it time she returned to work. We didn’t ask if she’d gone back to the office in Shoreditch – that sort of thing was secret – there was a war on, after all.
Ephraim was a harder nut to crack. Seeing Sukie in the flesh, he was convinced she was too good for him and retreated, hermit-like, further into his shell.
‘Crikey,’ Cliff said, fancying himself an expert on romance suddenly. ‘Why don’t they just kiss and get it over with?’
‘It’s not like in the movies,’ I told him.
Though actually, in the end, it sort of was. Knowing Ephraim’s weakness for dogs and messages in writing, Sukie trained Pixie to carry a note to Ephraim, inviting him to the cinema on a date. And so they went to see a new film called Gone with the Wind or something equally slushy, and came home so lovey-dovey I hardly knew where to look.
*
After Queenie’s arrest, the remaining refugees decided, amongst themselves, to do things properly. As Dr Wirth reminded us, they’d never planned to stay in Budmouth Point for ever. They handed themselves in to the authorities and were taken to an ‘internment camp’ at Croyde on the north Devon coast. Someone said it’d once been a holiday camp, and weren’t they lucky, though I don’t think they saw it that way. Esther didn’t go with her father – as a Kindertransport child her papers were valid – and she stayed on at Queenie’s so she could continue with school.
One day in the Easter holidays, Esther and I caught the bus to visit Croyde. We carried with us bottles of goats’ milk from Mrs Henderson, who’d insisted we take something nice for our Jewish friends. It was a warm day, and the journey took for ever, the roads twisting up over Dartmoor and plunging down the other side again. All the while, the goats’ milk got lumpier and smellier.
‘It’ll be cheese by the time we get there,’ Esther moaned.
The camp certainly didn’t look like a place you’d visit on holiday. Our friends weren’t the only refugees there, either. In total there were eighty or more who’d fled Hitler. Though it was on a clifftop overlooking the sea, it was dusty and rundown and surrounded by a barbed-wire fence.
‘But only a low barbed-wire fence,’ Dr Wirth pointed out. ‘We’re no security risk to the English; we hate Hitler as much as you do.’
In fact, he told us, some of the refugees were joining what was called the Pioneer Corps, where they’d be doing special war duties for the British against the enemy.
Seeing how overjoyed Esther was to be with her father brought tears to my eyes. It was wonderful to see the others too, who hugged us and said hadn’t we grown and made us eat apple cake and thanked us for the lumpy milk.
Inside the camp were rows of wooden huts where everyone lived. They’d hung scarves at the windows and spread bright blankets on their beds in an attempt to make things more homely. Mr Schoenman had set up a bread oven to bake special loaves every Friday for Sabbath. Fräulein Weber was teaching Hebrew, the newspaper writers running a newsletter of sorts. Mimi Schoenman and her sisters Anna and Rosa had made the most amazing tree house in a hollowed-out ash tree.
‘It could be worse,’ Frau Berliner said, forcing a smile.
It wasn’t their home, though. It felt unfair to see these people we’d tried so hard to help still living in a way they didn’t deserve.
*
Later, on the bus back to Budmouth Point, Esther said the news from Austria wasn’t good.
‘Father believes they got away just in time. There are Nazi camps now that people don’t come back from. They’re being rounded up and sent away by train – not just a few people, Olive, but thousands at a time. He doesn’t think we’ll return to Vienna. When the war’s over we’re going to live in America.’ She didn’t seem in the least excited at the prospect: she sounded exhausted.
We were quiet for the rest of the journey. As the bus turned off the main road for the coast, I sat up a little taller in my seat.
‘Look at the lighthouse.’ I nudged Esther. ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’
Today, in full sunlight, you could see its red and white stripes beginning to show through the peeling grey paint. Mr Spratt had wanted it repainted, but this time no one volunteered.
‘A beacon to guide the lost to safety,’ Miss Carter once said about the lighthouse.
Sitting here with Esther Wirth I felt as if I’d found safety. One of us, at least, had her dad back. I, meanwhile, had Sukie, Mum, Cliff; the rest of Budmouth Point I was just beginning to get to know. As our bus made its lazy way down the hill I felt a pang of love for this funny little village by the sea that I now called home.
*
That night after supper, I was too tired to even open my book.
‘Go to bed,’ Sukie ordered. ‘I’ll do the washing-up.’
Thinking what she really wanted was some time alone with Ephraim, I dutifully went downstairs to our room, where Cliff was already fast asleep, Pixie at his feet.
Getting into bed I wasn’t expecting to fall asleep. As I lay there, I spotted my seashell on the windowsill, and thought how I didn’t really listen to it these days, not when I could hear the real sea sighing and swooshing over the rocks below. It never sounded like that inside the shell.
To my great surprise, my eyelids soon felt heavy. Quite quickly, I grew sleepier, my mind flitting between Esther, the yellow stars, Ephraim’s log book, Mum – all that had happened since we’d come to Budmouth Point. I still didn’t understand everything. People, it seemed to me, were much harder to crack than codes. Yet it didn’t matter where we came from, our language, our nationality, or our religion. As long as we all looked to the light.
‘Goodnight, Dad,’ I mumbled into my pillow.
The sounds of the sea grew distant. I think I fell asleep then, picturing Dad at the bottom of my bed, elbows leaning on the frame. Or maybe I was still awake. All I know is what I heard, the sound of his voice, so clear he might’ve really been here: ‘Nighty night, old girl, sleep tight.’