Matt stuck his head round the studio door. ‘Hodges let me in. He said I’d find you up here. Hope you don’t mind, Lizzie. I can see you’re at work.’
She put down her brush. ‘I’m only messing about.’
He came into the room, grinning at her. ‘Just been to the dentist. No fillings to do and time to spare, so I thought I’d pop by and see if you and Anna were around.’
‘Anna’s not back from the Academy yet. She’s practising for some concert. Playing the violin in one of their orchestras.’
She hadn’t seen him for more than six months, not since last summer when she and Anna had gone to Tideways again. He’d changed a lot. He was taller and broader and his features had altered subtly. But the grin was just the same. ‘How are you, Lizzie? How’s art college?’
‘Fine, thanks. How about you? How are you getting on at St Thomas’s?’
‘Nose to the grindstone for the next six years. Still, it’ll be worth it.’
‘I remember you telling me ages ago that you wanted to be a doctor.’
‘Did I?’
‘It was when I first came to stay on my own. We’d been out sailing – in the Bean Goose – and I’d got an awful crack on the head from the boom. We were walking back to the house and you said you wanted to be a doctor one day. You were very kind about my lump on the head and put ice all over it.’
‘I remember that bit. There was a huge egg on your forehead and you were very brave. You wouldn’t let us see that you were crying.’
‘I thought then that you’d make an awfully good doctor. You had healing hands.’
He held up his left arm. ‘Hand, actually.’ The tweed jacket concealed his deformed right arm completely. She had noticed how he always kept it out of sight now. ‘Mother always used to tell me the same. I could cure her headaches just by touching her. Or so she said. I even got rid of Mrs Woodgate’s neuralgia once and that was no mean feat. Still, they haven’t let us loose on real people yet. It’s all books and labs so far. But I think I might make a reasonable GP if I don’t frighten my patients to death.’ He moved forward and admired the painting that she was working on. ‘I say, that’s terrific.’
She didn’t think it was at all. To her, the fruit looked as though it was made of wax. She couldn’t get the bloom on the grapes, or the texture of the orange skin or the subtle colours in the pear. At college she was discovering what a lot she had to learn.
Matt wandered about the studio, looking at things. ‘How’s Anna?’
‘Frantic about her parents. They’re still in Vienna, waiting for their emigration papers.’
He frowned. ‘That’s bad news. Especially now Hitler’s grabbed Austria. We might have to go to war with Germany and they’ll get stuck there.’
‘Do you think it’s going to come to that?’
‘It could do, easily.’
‘I thought the last war was supposed to end all wars.’
‘It was. But they didn’t reckon on Hitler.’ Matt stood looking out of the attic window, his back to her. ‘Anyway, I hope to God they’ll let me fight in it. Guy’s OK, lucky blighter. He’ll go straight into the RAF and fly fighters. I won’t be a doctor for years and I bet they’ll count me out for anything else because of my bloody arm.’
She had never heard him speak about it like that before. He sounded full of bitterness and quite wretched. Not a bit like Matt. But in the next moment he shrugged and turned to smile at her. ‘Oh well, I expect there’ll be something I can do.’
‘I have come to say goodbye.’
Guy, lounging sideways across an armchair, looked up from his book. Otto was standing in the doorway, all togged up in a suit and tie. ‘What? Are you off somewhere?’
‘Now? What about the rest of term?’
‘My father has to leave at once and I am to go with him. He insists.’
‘That’s rather bad luck. You’ll miss the Commem.’
‘I know, but unfortunately my father does not consider a college summer ball to be of the first importance.’
‘Couldn’t you twist his arm? It’s always such a good bash.’
‘Yes, last year I enjoyed it very much. This year I’m afraid it’s not possible.’
‘Well, see you next term, then. In October.’
Otto shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. I’m to join the army immediately on my return. A tank regiment.’
There was a short silence. Christ, Guy thought, I know what that’s about. And he knows it too. He put the book down, swung his legs to the ground and stood up slowly. He ran his fingers through his hair. What the blazes was he supposed to say next? They were probably going to be fighting each other, on opposite sides. There was nothing in the etiquette books to cover this particular one. He held out his hand. ‘Well, good luck in the army.’
Otto stepped forward to shake it. ‘I wish you good luck as well. In the Royal Air Force.’
‘Perhaps we’ll meet again.’
‘Yes, perhaps. I very much hope so.’
Guy said drily: ‘Let us know if you’re ever thinking of coming to England.’
A faint smile flickered across Otto’s face. ‘Of course. Goodbye, Guy.’
He sat down and picked up his book again. Ludicrous, he thought – wishing each other good luck. Bloody absurd. He lit a cigarette and smoked it thoughtfully for a moment. Damned shame that there had to be wars.
‘Otto came here while you were out, Anna. He wanted to say goodbye. He’s going back to Germany.’
‘That’s very good news.’
‘He asked me to say goodbye to you for him.’
‘I am glad that he couldn’t say it for himself.’
‘He has to go back to join the German army. He seemed quite upset about it.’
Anna looked at her. ‘I believe that you still feel sorry for him, Lizzie. Don’t you realize that he is going back to get ready to fight against your country? The Germans know that there will be war soon. Everybody knows it. Just now, when I went to see Mademoiselle Gilbert she was packing everything ready to go home to France. She is taking her mother back there as soon as the school term is finished. France will be fighting together with England against Germany and they must go home to look after their apartment in Lille.’
‘It might not happen,’ Lizzie said stubbornly. ‘It might not.’
‘I wish I believed that too. But I don’t. And I have made a plan, Lizzie.’
‘What sort of plan?’
‘Today Mademoiselle Gilbert told me that she has heard of an organization in France which can arrange for Jews to escape from Germany and Austria to Switzerland. They provide papers, passports – everything necessary – and transport them to the Swiss border. There is a man in Lille who is in touch with them and who has helped the daughter of a friend of Mademoiselle to leave Berlin. I am going to go to Lille to see this man myself. And I shall pay whatever is necessary. I don’t care how much it costs. I have my money in the bank here and I can get more, if need be. A whole lot more.’
‘Where from?’
‘I will show you.’ Anna went away and returned with a red velvet box in her hands. She fumbled with the little gold catch and opened the lid. Lizzie blinked. ‘Emeralds and diamonds. It once belonged to a grand duchess in Russia and then to my great-great-grandmother. My grandmother gave it to me. She said I was to sell it if I ever needed some money.’
‘It must be worth a fortune.’
‘I hope so.’ Anna lifted the necklace out of its case and dangled it round her neck. ‘I’m going to wear it just once – because that would have pleased Grandmama. A man that I met at that silly party I went to last week has invited me to a ball at Oxford. I shall wear Grandmama’s necklace in her memory. And then I shall sell it – in France.’
Guy finished tying his white tie and studied his reflection critically in the looking-glass. The tails were hired, but he thought they fitted pretty well. He tweaked at the stiff wing collar, adjusted the silk handkerchief in his breast pocket, gave his white waistcoat a final tug and shot his cuffs. The gold cuff-links had been a twenty-first birthday present from his parents, together with the pearl shirt studs. Aunt Helen and Uncle Richard had given him a silver cigarette case, engraved with his initials, and his godmother had given him a silver lighter. His godfather had stumped up a gold wrist-watch from Aspreys. They all compensated for the hired tails. He filled up his cigarette case and checked his lighter for fuel.
The Commem. promised well. The dinner party first up in the rooms and then dancing down in the marquee in the quad until dawn and breakfast. After a good deal of deliberation between half a dozen possibilities he had settled on inviting Cynthia, a deb he’d taken out once or twice, and two hours earlier he’d met her at the station off the London train and taken her to the Randolph where he’d booked a room. She was rather boring to listen to but very pretty to look at. He planned to take her punting from Magdalen Bridge in the early hours and to persuade her to go further than the last time he’d taken her out, when she’d suddenly refused at the final fence. He strolled into the large room he shared with Lewis where the table was set for ten. Their scout, Baxter, had done an excellent job getting everything organized and the dinner menu was a good one: iced cucumber soup, cold salmon, new potatoes and asparagus, strawberries and cream. Dry martinis to kick off with, followed by some first-class wines – a different one for each course – and champagne with the strawberries.
Lewis was still getting dressed up in his finery; Guy could hear him whistling loudly in his bedroom, next door. Interesting to see who he’d asked. Some girl he’d met in London: foreign, apparently, and a knockout, according to Lewis who prided himself on his high standards and had the lucre and a Lagonda to support them. Guy, on a strict allowance from his father and only a bicycle, found it stuck in his craw at times, but Lewis was a decent chap and good company. They’d worked out a pretty fair system for clearing out when the other was entertaining a girl, with an unwritten, sacred rule never to poach. He’d added a couple more to the history don’s wife and with any luck he’d increase his tally with Cynthia tonight.’
He cranked up Lewis’s gramophone and picked a record from the tottering pile. Essential aids to seduction, Lewis termed them, and invested heavily in any he thought conducive to that subtle art. This one had been worn thin: ‘Blue Moon’. Guy lit a cigarette and listened to the familiar tune while he looked out of the open window at the quadrangle. A big marquee had been erected in the centre and the ancient brick and stonework of the surrounding college buildings were bathed in the golden light of a summer’s evening. He admired the scene. It’d been a fantastic term – marvellous weather, not too much work and plenty of cricket and tennis and rowing and parties. Maybe he’d do a spot of travelling on the Continent in the long vac before the war put a stop to it. France most probably. He’d like to see Paris. Spend a bit of time there. It seemed most unlikely that he’d be able to finish his three years up at Oxford. The general consensus was that war was bound to break out by the end of the year. In one way it was a damned nuisance but in another he couldn’t wait for it to start because it would mean getting to fly a fighter. Trundling about in a Moth was all very well, but he was itching to get his hands on something a lot faster. He hadn’t thought much about killing some other chap, but the idea didn’t worry him especially. Fighter combat seemed a pretty civilized form of individual warfare. You either killed or were killed. A duel in the skies. Good, clean stuff and nothing like the gruesome carnage in the trenches that Simpkins had always harped on about. The needle had reached the end of the record and he stopped it.
Lewis came out of his room, sporting an outsize red rose in his buttonhole, topaz studs glinting down his boiled shirt, curly hair watered under control. He rubbed his hands, beaming. ‘All set for a bloody good evening, old boy? Wait till you see my eye-popper.’
He might have known that it would be Anna.
All heads turned at her entrance and all conversation stopped. She put every other woman present into the shade, including Cynthia. Her long white evening gown was devoid of frills or fuss and she’d pinned her hair up on her head. She looked sensational. Round her neck she wore an extraordinary necklace that might have been something belonging to the Crown Jewels. Guy, pouring martinis, watched in amusement as Lewis made the introductions. The men’s eyes duly popped and the women’s snapped.
‘This is Guy Ransome. We share rooms.’
‘We’ve already met,’ he said. ‘Hallo, Anna.’
‘I didn’t know this was your college.’
He handed her a martini. ‘And I didn’t know you were coming this evening. How on earth did you come across a scoundrel like Lewis?’
‘A cocktail party in London. I scarcely know him. But I was curious to see Oxford. Have you a cigarette, please?’
He offered his new case and she fitted the cigarette into a long holder. He flicked his lighter into life and as she bent towards the flame the jewels round her neck flashed green fire. ‘Where on earth did you get that incredible necklace?’
‘From my grandmother. She gave it to me.’
‘It must be worth a king’s ransom.’
‘I am hoping so. But not for a king. Isn’t that one of the Grey Heron brothers over there?’
‘Tom Chilver? Yes, he’s in a different college but he’s a pretty good friend of Lewis’s, so we asked him. He’s got almost as much money as Lewis, you know. In case you’re interested.’
He smiled. ‘How did you get here?’
‘Lewis has a car. He drove me in it from London today. Very fast.’
‘Are you staying at the Randolph?’
‘I believe that was the name.’
‘You want to watch out for Lewis, by the way.’
‘I can take care of myself, thank you, Guy.’
Lewis swooped and removed her with a hissed aside: ‘Hands off, old boy.’
‘Do you know that girl?’ Cynthia pouted up at him.
‘I’ve known her for years. She lives with my aunt and uncle.’
‘Is she French?’
He lit a cigarette. ‘No, she’s Austrian. She comes from Vienna.’
‘Oh. Is she a sort of refugee, or something?’
‘I suppose you could say that.’
‘How odd. Well, she certainly looks awfully foreign.’
At dinner, Anna was seated at the other end of the table, but diagonally so that he could see her easily. From time to time he glanced across, but she never looked his way. Cynthia, beside him, prattled on about a cookery course that she was doing. He half-listened to her talking but his eyes kept returning to Anna. He thought about the first time he’d seen her, playing the piano in the drawing-room at Wimpole Street; she would have been about fourteen and he’d been pretty much bowled over. Poleaxed, actually. She’d made it clear from the start, though, how little she thought of him and how much she preferred Matt. He’d long since given up trying to impress her.
‘… the meringues turned out to be a complete disaster. They’d gone all flat, just like cow-pats.’ Cynthia giggled. ‘It was an absolute scream.’ She giggled again. He was beginning to regret having asked her; the giggling got on his nerves. Her cheeks were very flushed and she was getting squiffy which might have been to his advantage except that he had a feeling it was only going to be an infernal nuisance. She’d probably throw up by the end of the evening. He glanced across at Anna again and this time he managed to catch her eye. She smiled.
‘Where have you been all my life, Anna?’
‘In Vienna and in London, Lewis.’ She brushed his hand off her knee for the twentieth time. He was quite drunk already, which was going to be very tiresome. Sober, he was rather amusing; drunk he would be a bore. She might need Guy to rescue her eventually. It had been a big mistake to accept the invitation. She could hear a dance orchestra playing somewhere and she was not in the mood for dancing. How could she dance when Mama and Papa were in such trouble? How could she sit with all these people stuffing themselves with food, drinking and joking and laughing, as though everything in the world were perfectly all right? It was a travesty. She looked at the faces around her. Had they no idea what was going on? Were they aware of the monster spreading its hideous tentacles over the Continent? Of course, the English didn’t care. If they cared they would have tried to stop it; to slay it before it could grow and grow. If they were not very careful the tentacles would reach out as far as their own smug little island. She picked up her glass and drank more wine.
It was late in the evening by the time they went down to dance in a stiflingly hot marquee. She had drunk far more than she had ever done in her life and the kaleidoscope of couples on the dance floor made her feel nauseated. Lewis tried to hold her too close and she had to keep pushing him away. She danced next with Tom Chilver who was not so drunk but still a nuisance.
‘I bet you don’t remember me.’
‘I remember you very well. You are the one who lost the sailing race.’
He laughed. ‘I’m still jolly miffed about that. We would have beaten that old tub of Guy’s easily if we hadn’t had that bit of bad luck.’
‘It was not bad luck, it was bad steering; you got stuck in the mud.’
‘It can happen to anybody in those waters. Very tricky, you know.’ He spun her round in a dizzy-making turn. ‘I say, you look absolutely stunning tonight. An absolute knockout. Best-looking girl here.’ Another whirling turn, the other way. ‘Tell me, where are you living now?’
‘I am still with Lizzie’s family.’
‘Wimpole Street, isn’t it? I come to London quite a bit, as a matter of fact. We’ve got a place in Knightsbridge. I’ll give you a buzz when I’m next in town. Maybe we could have dinner?’
After that she danced with another man who also wanted to take her out to dinner. He trod on her toes while asking for her telephone number which she gave, putting the numbers in the wrong order. Then it was Lewis again, who had become even drunker and grasped her with sweaty hands. She escaped to powder her nose and spent a long time redoing her hair at the mirror and wishing that the evening would end. The necklace winked at her in sympathy. When she returned to the table Guy stood up and asked her to dance.
‘You don’t look very happy.’
‘I’m not. Lewis is drunk, and so am I. Or nearly. I have had much too much wine and champagne. My head is spinning round and round. Please dance very slowly.’ She leaned against him. The band was playing something smooth and quiet; after a while she closed her eyes. When the music stopped, Guy took her outside into blessed fresh air. They walked away from the marquee along a piece of lawn and she could feel the dew seeping through the thin soles of her evening shoes. She took a deep breath. ‘I feel better now.’
‘Sure?’
‘Yes. Thank you. Can we sit down somewhere?’
They sat on a stone step in the darkness. The dance music still reached them. ‘Cigarette?’ Guy offered his case, but she shook her head. ‘I’m not yet that much better.’ Guy was lighting his cigarette. ‘Lewis will be searching high and low for you.’
‘No. He will be very happy drinking even more champagne. But the girl you were with …’
‘Cynthia.’
‘She will wonder where you are.’
‘She’s fairly smashed, too.’
‘Then perhaps they can both drink together. And they will not miss us at all.’
‘The only snag is she’s not really Lewis’s type.’
‘What is his type?’
‘Someone like you. Exceptionally beautiful.’
‘Are you drunk, too, Guy?’
‘No.’
‘Well, you’ve never told me any compliment before.’
‘Paid. You pay compliments. You should know that by now.’
‘You have never paid me one, then.’
‘Well, you’ve never exactly encouraged me to, have you, Anna?’
‘Perhaps not.’
‘You know damn well you haven’t. Why – that’s what I’d like to know? What have you got against me?’
She shivered, rubbing her arms. ‘It’s cold out here. We should go back inside the tent. But then I will have to dance with Lewis again.’
‘We could go up to my rooms,’ he said. ‘It’ll be quiet there.’
Baxter had cleared away the debris from the dinner party but left the bottles and glasses. Guy picked up a half-empty one of champagne. ‘Want some?’
‘No, thank you.’ She looked round. ‘I like this room. You share it with Lewis?’
‘This one, yes. We each have a bedroom that leads off it. Lewis’s is through there, mine’s this door.’ He wondered whether there was any remote chance of getting Anna through it. He poured some champagne and sipped it, watching her as she moved about looking at books in the crammed bookcase, at Lewis’s nude French bather on the wall, at his own framed print of Gloster Gladiators flying in close formation at the Hendon Pageant against a stormy sky.
‘Do you still make models of aeroplanes, Guy?’
‘Not lately. Not enough time. Too much else to do here. There’s a hell of a lot going on at Oxford.’
She nodded. ‘And if a war starts, I suppose you will have to leave all this?’
‘I imagine so. But I’ll be able to come back when it’s over. I shouldn’t think it will take long. The French will be on our side and they’re supposed to have a first-class army.’
‘The Germans may have one even better.’
‘I wouldn’t put it past them. Otto’s gone off to join up, you know.’
‘Yes, Lizzie told me. He came to the house to say goodbye. Fortunately I was out.’ She turned to look at him. ‘The Germans have tanks and planes and guns and many, many men, Guy. Everything that they need. What does England have?’
‘We’ll manage all right – if we have to.’
The dance-band music reached them clearly through the open window: ‘Blue Moon’. Something of a coincidence. He reached across to switch off a lamp, leaving only one on – the low-wattage one. Another of the essential aids. ‘Anyway, don’t let’s talk any more about that tonight. Dance?’
‘If you like.’ She moved into his arms. He didn’t make the mistake of trying to hold her too near at first. Instead he engineered it very gradually, by degrees. She was wearing some kind of marvellous perfume and her hair felt like silk against his cheek.
The door crashed open, the overhead light snapped on and glared down. Lewis stood there, swaying belligerently. ‘So there you two are. What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?’
‘You’ve missed your breakfast, Mr Ransome. I’m sorry but I can’t serve it after eight and it’s nearly eleven. I left you to sleep, seeing as it’s a Sunday.’
Matt’s landlady was standing at the bottom of the stairs. She had taken out her curlers and was wearing what he knew to be her best: a plum-coloured silk dress and a matching hat decorated at the side with a very large black feather – origin uncertain. Crow? Rook? He had often wondered. A black cloth coat would go over the dress for church. ‘It was a nice kipper, too.’
‘Sorry, Mrs Honeywell.’
‘Won’t be quite so nice tomorrow.’
The kippers were never nice, whatever day they were served. They were desiccated, jaundiced creatures with papery skins and a thousand little bones. Even so, the one he had missed would have been something to eat, as opposed to nothing, and he was starving. He’d been swotting up anatomy until late. This term it would be his turn for a leg. Last term it had been an arm. He was looking forward to dissecting the foot. Like the hand, the foot was an amazingly beautiful piece of mechanism. Brilliantly designed. The organ of locomotion of invertebrates. The knee was another wondrous thing, too, of course. Without knees locomotion would be pretty tricky. Come to that, the whole human body was nothing less than a miracle. Mrs Honeywell was still at the bottom of the stairs. Funny she hadn’t yet left for church.
‘If you want to listen in the front room, Mr Ransome, you’re quite welcome.’
‘Listen?’
‘To Mr Chamberlain speaking on the wireless. Quarter-past eleven. He’s going to tell us if there’s going to be a war. They made a special announcement early this morning. I shan’t be going to church today. If Mr Hitler doesn’t promise by eleven o’clock to get out of Poland, then it means there’s going to be one.’
By eleven o’clock! Nobody would expect them to, of course. The Germans hadn’t invaded Poland and dropped bombs all over the place just to turn round and go tamely home again because Mr Chamberlain had told them to. Mrs Honeywell’s long-case clock started clunking and whirring in its dark corner of the hall. Matt and his landlady stayed glued to where they were, one at the top of the stairs, the other at the bottom, listening for the first strike. They waited until the eleventh one had died away and went on standing in an uncertain silence for a few more moments. ‘Well that’s that, then,’ Mrs Honeywell said emphatically, as though she had been expecting a personal telephone call from Hitler. ‘We’d better switch on the wireless.’
He followed her into her front room. It was the first time he had been invited to cross the threshold. The door was always kept shut and, previously, he had only had brief glimpses when Mrs Honeywell entered or exited. It was a gloomy room: mottled wallpaper, brown armchairs, dark red patterned carpet, aspidistras in pots and fading sepia photographs of the late Mr Honeywell who had been gassed in the last war. Mrs Honeywell’s large tabby cat was curled up on the most comfortable-looking of the armchairs and opened one malevolent green eye at him.
‘You can sit down if you like, Mr Ransome.’ She had switched on the wireless. ‘We’ll just let it warm up. Then I’ll find the Home Service.’ He perched on the edge of an armchair, waiting while she twirled the knob and the wireless crackled and gabbled. Father was away somewhere at sea but Mother would be listening at Tideways. Guy was in Paris, having some fun before the balloon went up – as he’d put it. He might not know a thing about it. Mrs Honeywell had tuned in successfully and lowered herself onto one of the other chairs. She sat bolt upright, hands clasped in her lap; he realized that she was wearing her hat in recognition of the solemnity of the occasion. Due to some oversight, she was also wearing her bedroom slippers.
Presently Mr Chamberlain’s dry, metallic voice began. ‘I am speaking to you from the Cabinet Room at ten Downing Street. This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German government a final note stating that unless we heard from them by eleven o’clock that they are prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.’ Mrs Honeywell got up to switch off the wireless. ‘It’s happening all over again,’ she said heavily. ‘All over again. All you young men’ll be going off to war, just like before. Just like my Cedric.’
The sudden noise of a siren made them both jump. It wailed and shrieked, rising and falling. Mrs Honeywell seized hold of the cat who struggled indignantly. ‘That’s the air-raid warning. We must go to the Anderson at once, Mr Ransome. The Germans are coming to bomb us.’ She hurried out of the room with the cat clawing and spitting in her arms.
Matt went out into the street and stood listening to the siren’s howl and looking up at the sky. There was no sign of any enemy planes. People ran past him on their way to the nearest public shelter: a mother pushing a pram, dragging a small child who was howling with fright; an old woman being hustled along by a young one. ‘Come on, Gran, for God’s sake. We’ve got to get a move on.’ A white-faced couple – the wife with a tiny baby wrapped in a shawl in her arms. A policeman called out as he hurried by. ‘Get to a shelter, sir. Quick as you can.’
All you young men’ll be going off to war. He touched his right sleeve. What bloody use was he going to be?
‘I know how he felt,’ the old man says. ‘Felt just the same myself. What use am I going to be? I remember that day like yesterday. The whole country’d been waiting for it to happen for months. We’d been digging trenches and building shelters and filling sandbags … I’d already put an Anderson shelter at the bottom of the garden that summer and they’d given out the gas masks long before. Most of us’d not been too sorry about what happened at Munich – what were the Czechs to us? We didn’t know a thing about them. But then I reckon we started to feel a bit ashamed of selling them out, so when we finally did something, it was a relief. Mind you, it wasn’t so much fighting for the Czechs or the Poles, but that we were fighting against Hitler, at last. Molly and me sat and listened to the wireless together and when Mr Chamberlain had finished she says to me, “You needn’t think you’re going to go off and join up and get yourself killed, because they won’t have you.” She was right, of course.’ He sighs. ‘I remember you couldn’t get blinds for the blackout for love nor money, or drawing-pins or brown paper. We made do somehow with old curtains and cardboard and I put that sticky tape criss-cross across the shop windows. It was pitch black after dark. Nearly broke my neck the first night, falling down some steps.’
‘And then nothing happened. Not for a long while.’
He nods. ‘That’s right. No bombs, no enemy planes, nothing. Our forces went off to France and Belgium and sat around waiting for Jerry to do something. The Phoney War, we called it. The Bore War. Some people thought it’d be over before it’d begun. Different at sea, though. The U-boats were already after our merchant ships – and they got the Royal Oak, didn’t they? Sneaked into Scapa Flow and sank her at anchor. But then we got the Graf Spee, so we were even. I don’t know what the RAF were doing. Dropping propaganda leaflets, I think, that’s all. What happened to Guy? Did he get into the RAF?’
‘He’d received his call-up papers within two weeks of the outbreak of war and when he reported to the Aircrew Receiving Centre at Oxford they took him in the Volunteer Reserve. He did initial training and then got a commission almost at once because of his time in the University Air Squadron. He was sent to another training centre for a fortnight for drill and lectures and then, finally, he was posted up to a flying training school on the north-east coast of Scotland where he learned to fly Harvards. After that, he was sent to an Operational Training Unit near Wales to train on Hurricanes.’
Mr Potter sighs again. ‘He was lucky. I’d like to have done something like that. Not just the ARP. How about the girl, Anna? Did she have any luck getting her parents out in time?’
‘She went to stay with Mademoiselle Gilbert and her mother in Lille and made contact with the organization, but when war broke out she still hadn’t had any news of them.’
He shakes his head. ‘They went and left it too late.’