INDIFFERENT HEROES Read online

  Superimposed on the scene beyond the window, he saw the Shepherd’s Bush Empire, and Katia pushing her way to the front of the queue to see Margaret Sullavan in Little Man, You’ve Had a Busy Day. He had not been able to bring her face to mind until this unguarded moment; but now he saw all too clearly her desperate urgency for experience. Anita had often rebuked her, ‘You’ll be grown up soon enough, and then you will wish you hadn’t been in such a hurry.’

  ‘That’s one thing about foreigners,’ the landlady said later to her husband. ‘They don’t mind expressing their feelings. You wouldn’t find an Englishman knocked all of a heap over The Mortal Storm.’

  ‘No,’ her husband said, ‘and I hope you never will.’

  While Jacov was in Sussex with the film unit the first daylight raids took place. People watched the dog fights, and cheered as the German bombers came down in flames. Sometimes they made mistakes, and cheered as their own fighters came blazing down.

  There were ominous signs, though. After a bad raid on Croydon, Judith and Stanley persuaded Claire to join the school party in Dorset for her last year. Although, on her departure, she hugged them as if she never expected to see them again, she was not sorry to go. The house seemed strange without Alice at home. It was not nearly so satisfying to play the piano whenever she chose without anyone to compete with for its use. She looked forward to joining Heather in Dorset. Under Heather’s influence, she had questioned many cherished beliefs. Lately, she had found herself left with the questions, without the delight of Heather’s company.

  For days after Claire left. Rumpus stood on the chair by the window, front paws on the sill, listening to the footsteps coming along the road. Occasionally, when he pricked his ears, Judith would say, ‘It’s no use, old boy. The children have all gone.’

  Chapter Four

  September 1940-April 1941

  Saturday, September 7th was a beautiful day. The blue of the sky was softened by the faintest haze of autumn. There were only a few feathered wisps of cloud. Angus Drummond, waiting in Knights- bridge for Irene, experienced that heightened awareness which now seemed to touch all things with magic. He was early, deliberately so. The sight of Irene on the way to meet him, but as yet unaware of his presence, was precious. He wanted to remember her as she was now, to be able to close his eyes and see her walking unconcernedly in the street. In fact, he rather preferred her at a distance. Although he got a sensual satisfaction from looking at her, he had no very strong urge to go to bed with her. He had not been tempted in this way since his final encounter with Katia Vaseyelin.

  Irene came into view, wearing a blue linen dress with a primrose scarf round her shoulders. She had that verve which is sometimes the gift of diminutive people, in whom all energy is concentrated in a small frame. Her combination of quick liveliness and inner repose excited him; it seemed as if she had the secret of life, while his own reserve was but a mask behind which was concealed terror and confusion.

  Now, she was looking in a dress shop window. He sensed that she, too, was enjoying the moment before meeting, prolonging the agonizing thrill of expectation. When she saw him, she would greet him with a gaiety of spirit which had no need of excitable hands and babbling tongue.

  They had tea in an expensive restaurant where it was still possible to get delicacies if you were prepared to pay. ‘Do you enjoy looking forward to meeting me more than actually being with me?’ he asked.

  She looked startled. It was seldom he made a remark which might lead to intimacy between them. A slight flush coloured her cheeks. Then, her image seemed to tremble in front of him; he had a sense of such volatility, her very substance might be changing and another woman emerging. He regretted the question and said hastily, ‘I only meant generally speaking. Travelling hopefully and all that . . .’

  She said, ‘I hadn’t thought about it.’ She felt he had excited her only to snub her. Aware of her distress, it occurred to Angus that she might be falling in love with him. He did not want his love – or whatever it was he felt for her – to be requited. To break the silence, he said:

  ‘I saw Alice in Hertford the other day. She seems to be enjoying herself.’

  ‘Yes. She is much better now.’

  ‘I never knew what was wrong with her.’

  ‘She had some sort of breakdown – all to do with Katia Vaseyelin. Nightmares and things.’

  He was not surprised at the turn of the conversation, nor did he regard it as coincidence but as something he had himself invited. He said, ‘Nightmares?’

  ‘Katia being hounded down, men running after her with evil intent, calling her a dirty little Jewess. That kind of thing.’

  ‘Yes, I can imagine that.’ It was, after all, exactly what he himself had done.

  ‘I don’t think I can,’ Irene said.

  As they went into the street, the air raid siren began to wail. He put a hand on her elbow and she looked up at him, lively again, ‘Think of it! We are all involved in one thing at this moment - everyone in this city!’ She did not think how separated they might be soon, when some drew in their breath of relief as others gave out their last.

  They heard the drone of oncoming planes, a relentless throbbing which seemed to spread across the whole sky. No preliminary skirmish! ‘This is an air raid!’ Angus exclaimed, as if the warning had betokened something other. He urged her forward. ‘We’ll make for the tube station.’

  ‘Must we?’ She was unconcerned. ‘I’d like to watch.’

  ‘They mean business this time.’ He steered her in the direction of the tube station. As they walked, something shifted subterraneously, once, twice.

  ‘Were those bombs?’ Irene asked a warden.

  ‘Yes, but not very near, or you’d have heard them come down.’

  The tube station was crowded with late shoppers and early revellers. Hours passed. It became dark. A few people sang ‘There’ll always be an England’. Irene worked her way to the steps and looking up saw something like a silver bird held in the crossed beams of searchlights. ‘How sinister!’ she exclaimed, and felt a primitive fear of this thing which would rain destruction. She did not see the young face peering down, and had no feeling that it was he who was the killer; any more than he, as the bomb load was released, saw the women and children who would be obliterated. They were creatures in a dance and the dance had taken them over. There was nothing personal about it.

  ‘How strange it all is,’ she said when she returned to Angus. ‘I’m rather enjoying it, aren’t you?’

  He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Someone is getting a packet.’ He was neither in nor out of the experience. It had never been so clear to him before that he existed in a kind of limbo. The only reality was Katia Vaseyelin. He could not rid himself of his guilt because she was not here to forgive him, to say, as she might well have done, that he had done little more than make a pass at her. He had held it to himself for so long now that it had assumed proportions too dreadful to speak of. He felt his own complicity in the plight of the Jews, just as he had felt responsible for the miseries of his mother who had stayed with his father ‘because of the children’. These things should have belonged to his past. The darkness was behind him; yet, day by day, he moved towards it, like a person out of time.

  Irene was saying, ‘As far as air raids are concerned, I suppose I haven’t lost my innocence yet.’

  ‘I don’t ever remember being innocent.’

  ‘Oh Angus, really! Aren’t you indulging your melancholy just a little?’

  He winced at her astringency.

  A man near them said, ‘It’s the Palace they’re after.’

  ‘Wellington Barracks, more likely.’

  ‘It’s much further away, the other side of London. Only reason we can hear them is the river. They come up the river, see? Can’t black-out Old Father Thames.’

  ‘Where the bloody hell are our guns?’

  Cigarettes were passed round. People told stories. Gradually, the singing changed character. Half in an
d half out of sleep, Irene heard ‘Roll me over in the clover’ for the first time.

  Early in the morning, the all clear arched over them like a blessing.

  ‘They say it was the East End,’ Irene wrote to Alice. ‘I don’t even know where the East End begins and ends. All I know is Limehouse and Chinamen; and Bethnal Green and Percy Harris. Yet while the raid was going on, I felt we were all part of one tremendous experience! I suppose the Eastenders will feel much the same about us when our turn comes.’

  Alice, who had not experienced a raid, did not like the idea that the turn of West London would come. But all too soon, Irene was writing, ‘It is quite amusing. They hit all the railway lines – they could hardly miss, could they, we have so many! And the next day, the people whose prime concern is usually to get out of work, were fighting like mad to get there somehow. My father’s office was hit and his assistant, who is usually too bored to breathe, actually climbed through a window because the door was blocked by masonry. And all the chars turned up on time! I wonder if anyone has told the Germans what a bloody-minded lot we are!’The train came slowly out of the tunnel as though it knew it had done something wrong and might not be well-received. It travelled very slowly and almost silently towards the platform. Its reluctance was terrible to see. The guard stood ready for it, looking as though he would give it a good thrashing.

  ‘Bomb on the line?’ Ben asked.

  ‘Could be.’ The guard was not prepared to give the train the benefit of the doubt.

  It was packed with service personnel. Ben had to wedge himself in the toilet with two other soldiers. ‘Is your journey really necessary?’ the placard asked. He wondered that himself. The train was over an hour late. Unlikely that Daphne would be waiting for him.

  He had been in the Army for several weeks, and it was some time since he had seen her. She must long ago have assumed that all was over between them. In which case, it was unlikely she had ever intended to meet him tonight. As the train crawled on its way, he told himself he had been granted a reprieve. For one reason or another, she would not be there. He would not be able to tell her that he had finished with her; and his puritan conscience would not allow him to take the coward’s way out and put it in writing. Nor could he simply let her drop out of his life. So, since every ounce of anguish must be extracted from this situation, the parting would have to be deferred until his next twenty-four-hour leave.

  She was waiting beyond the ticket barrier. How typical of her that she spared him no pain!

  ‘I was late, too,’ she told him. ‘There’s a raid on.’

  They walked up Victoria Street towards Westminster Abbey. The guns were sounding off and bits of shrapnel pattered around them – if the enemy didn’t get you, our lads probably would! She seemed unconcerned, but he did not like it very much; he saw no point in being killed for the sake of bravado.

  They had drinks in a pub in Whitehall where there were a lot of naval officers drinking heavily to keep up their courage. No doubt they were brave enough at sea, but on shore they were as breezy a bunch as one could hope to come across.

  ‘What would your father do if he found out about us?’ Ben asked.

  ‘He would kill me.’ She sipped her gin and lime reflectively. ‘Or you. But probably me.’

  For months he had been telling himself that he had misinterpreted Irene’s words, only to find the conviction of their truth growing within him. Yet, even at the last, he had hoped. He said, ‘You can’t be serious. What about marriage?’

  ‘He would accept that. But not being “trifled with”.’ She took a sip of her drink and ran her tongue around her lips. ‘He was very fond of me.’

  It did not strike him then that she spoke of her father as though he was dead. His only concern was to dispel his doubts. This was why he had had to see her again, because he could not go on with that question in his mind. He said, ‘How fond is fond?’

  She spat at him, ‘Not that! Never that!’

  He stared at her, uncomprehending. She turned her head away, shutting that damned door into her private world. She was only five foot three, and small-boned at that. Why had he ever allowed her to make herself so impregnable? She said, ‘I’m sorry – we’re misunderstanding each other. I suppose we always have.’

  She looked down into her drink. For a moment, he thought she would continue, that the conversation would take a totally unexpected turn; then, as if someone had switched on a light in a dark room, there would be order and wholeness again. But whatever was in her mind, she found no words to express it; and while he waited, he lost that sense of urgency which might have enabled him to sweep aside her defences. She put her drink down and said, ‘You can give me a cigarette – and then get on with it.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  She waited while he lit her cigarette. ‘You’re quite different tonight. I sensed it as soon as we met.’

  ‘You wouldn’t lose by being more feminine and less challenging.’

  ‘They go together, do they – femininity and being unchallenging?’

  ‘Constant provocation can be wearing. Just make a note of that.’

  ‘Oh, sick it up, Ben!’

  He picked up his tankard, which was empty, and went to the bar. The building shook and the lights went out, and came on again, almost immediately – but not before the Navy had dived for cover. For a moment, he hoped that something dreadful would happen, throwing them into each other’s arms and smashing down all the barriers. But he knew that beyond the barrier there was limitless disgust. He would not be satisfied until she had given him explicit details, and once she had done this, he would never feel the same about her. He ordered beer for himself and another gin and lime for her. He felt sick and wondered whether he could keep another beer down. He could see her sitting alone; she seemed to burn with a sullen fire and he did not think she would ever be alone long. God, but this was hard! It is one thing to renounce something of which you are already beginning to tire, quite another matter when you still have a strong need of it. But his sense of self-preservation was strong, too, and would carry him through worse moments than this.

  Daphne watched Ben as he stood at the bar. Hitherto in their encounters, there had always been her father casting a shadow over him. Now, as she looked at him, a new person seemed to be coming together, as though he was being formed before her eyes. Not our sort of person, she noticed. That face is so tough and yet unsophisticated. Not much grace of movement, but that is because he is impatient, afraid of being left out. He is like a scrawny dog, tugging at its leash, anxious to get round the next bend, over the brow of the hill. The world is full of smells and sounds that must be explored! What might one learn from such a person, so eager for life? What excitement there could be in exploring together! The things which are fearsome, when part of a solitary pursuit, can be transformed if shared; just as losing one’s way on a moorland walk as the light fails can become high adventure, if one has the right companion. She saw all this clearly, as though a mist had lifted the moment that she knew she had lost him.

  ‘There is no point in going on, is there?’ he said, when he put the glass down in front of her.

  She sat still for a time, and he was surprised to see that the colour had drained from her face. Eventually, she said, ‘Not from your point of view, no.’

  ‘What is that supposed to mean?’

  The Navy had taken refuge in song. ‘ “And if one green bottle, should accidentally fall,” ’ they roared, ‘ “There’ll be six green bottles, hanging on the wall.” ’ What a bloody mess it all was, Ben thought, the whole, noisy human race!

  She was looking self-possessed now, but no longer provocative. ‘I’m sorry, Ben. You’ve had a bad time with me.’ Just as if she had woken from a nightmare, and was acknowledging that she might have disturbed his sleep! ‘It’s not your fault.’

  And that was all. He had wanted her to protest and tell him that she could not live without him. After all, she had used him and so, presumably, she
had needed him. He wanted to be able to tell her that whatever it was she had needed from him, it was no longer available.

  There were two green bottles hanging on the wall when they left the pub. The raid was still on. He insisted on seeing her home and she submitted. As they walked through one of the noisiest barrages London had yet known, she said passionately, ‘Whatever made you join the Army? Don’t you feel you want to be up there?’

  ‘They don’t seem to be much in evidence tonight, our gallant boys in powder blue.’

  ‘Oh, not for the fighting, but the way it must feel to take off, be free . . .’

  ‘They’re not in the least like that when you meet them. Their patter doesn’t compare with a London bus conductor’s.’

  ‘Irene said it would be like driving a bus. Maybe you’re both right. But there must be some new things to do.’

  He sensed how strong was her urge towards the future – already, he was unimportant to her. If they had been in a bedroom, instead of walking in a London street, he would not have been responsible for his actions. How many men kill a woman simply because it seems the only chance of getting through to her? His body ached with the effort of controlling his rage. When they parted, he barely listened when she said, ‘You’ve helped me a lot, Ben. You may not believe it, but it’s true.’

  As he walked away, he said savagely to himself, ‘That’s more than I can say for you!’

  Daphne, watching him go, was aware of a new kind of pain. In the days that followed, she gave way to the pain, explored it, tended it, exulted in it. She lost weight, and looked with interest at her gaunt face in the mirror. But she would only allow a certain time to this grief, a proper period of mourning. Then she would cast aside the drabness, and new life would begin. It was already stirring deep inside her. She nourished the grief because the new life was growing out of it.

  The raids continued, and each morning Alice and many of her companions would hurry to the telephone booths to phone home and reassure themselves. The death of Ted Peterson had distressed Alice. He had been killed before she knew him well enough to know for whom she grieved. His death had opened up the possibility that other deaths might follow, even those of Guy and Ben. What she had not been prepared for was worrying about her parents.