Chapter 50
One week after the escape, Cora and Gladdie were heading home from the late shift. The rain had turned the street to gloss. Gladdie tucked her arm in Cora’s as the moonlight was breaking through the clouds.
‘You’ll be all right, Cora,’ Gladdie said. ‘You’ll get over him.’
‘Yes, I know.’
Cora caught a movement by the hydrangeas at the front of her house, a shadow sliding against the wall, and she saw the way the shadow’s cap sat on his shadow head.
Her heart soared in disbelief and then crashed in alarm. ‘Good night then, Gladdie,’ she said, keeping her voice steady. ‘See you in the morning.’
‘Good night, Cora. Sleep tight.’
The side of the house threw its darkness over her and she bumped right into Frank.
‘It’s you! Hello!’ Solid, he was, and real, and wet.
Trying to see each other in the dark, she was astonished he was here.
It was a miracle, was all she could think.
She ran her fingers over his face to see if he was real.
‘Cora,’ he said softly, resting his hands on her shoulders.
He was so cold.
He pressed his face against hers, and feeling the damp chill of him, she was thinking wildly about their options, where she could hide him, tugging him towards the coal shed. Not the coal shed! Because Dio might want to fetch a couple more lumps for the fire.
The greenhouse, then, at the bottom of the garden.
She led him down there and the night smelled of springtime; damp and mossy.
She nudged the brick from the door and took him into the dark fragrance of peat and tomato leaves, her heart thumping.
She upturned a pail for him to sit on and knelt in front of him, patched up by moonlight.
‘Are you all right?’ she whispered, her voice hoarse with fear and excitement. ‘What are you doing here? I thought you were long gone. Why did you come back?’
‘Cora,’ he whispered back, and took her hand and pressed it against his face, rough with stubble. ‘I had to see you.’
‘I’m glad you did.’ And I’m so frightened, she thought.
She could feel his hard cheekbones under her fingertips and the muscle clenched in his jaw. She put her arms around him, to warm him. He was very thin.
‘What are we going to do?’ she asked him desperately. She was responsible for him now, this man, this German, this enemy, who had escaped to freedom and now come back to her.
Suddenly she thought of Idwal and his sandwich board that day outside the station. Here was a test for him!
Idwal would give him something to eat, to fulfil the promise he’d made to God, and Megan would be nice to him, because Megan was always nice. ‘Listen, Frank, I’m going to take you to see friends of mine. The girl with the yellow hair?’
His eyes held hers in the dark.
They walked back furtively along the garden path from the greenhouse and Cora’s heart had taken on a racing, cantering beat that throbbed through her head.
She froze in fear as the back door opened, leaking a wedge of dim light.
Jane looked out and saw her. ‘Oh! There you are! You’re late!
Where have you been?’ She paused as she saw Frank. ‘And who’s this?’ she asked sharply.
‘Frank,’ the German said and offered his hand to her.
Jane shook it and tried to see him in the dark. ‘Dew, look at the state of you!’ she said, opening the door wider. Just then she saw him properly for the first time and saw his greatcoat, and realised what it meant, and she let out a wail of furious anguish.
‘Hush, Mam, please,’ Cora pleaded, shielding Frank from her, ‘we’re just going.’
‘No, madam!’ Jane snapped. ‘You’re not going anywhere. Get in the house. Now!’
Frank glanced at Cora and took his cap off his head, holding himself soldier straight and his muscles quivered with the effort.
As soon as he stepped inside the kitchen he saw the shotgun leaning on the dresser, barrels pointing to the ceiling. He looked nervously from the gun to Jane.
‘Don’t move, boy,’ she said, picking up the shotgun. ‘Let me have a good look at you.’
‘Mam, please—’
Her mother lowered the gun as the kettle started whistling and her father came in to take it off the boil, startled to see the three of them standing by the door, and even more startled as he understood what he was seeing: a German, a gun, and Jane.
But that wasn’t all that he saw.
Cora was looking at him, pleading for him to understand and he saw a young man come to the end of his hope.
Her father’s gaze lingered on Frank for a moment and he pulled out a chair and said in his normal, everyday voice, ‘What’s your name?’
He swallowed. ‘Frank.’
‘Come here, lad.’
Her father ran his hand thoughtfully over his white hair. ‘There’s nothing to be done, Cora. We’ll have to hand him over, you know, I’m sorry about that. But there’s no need to rush it, is there? Let him get warm first.’ He said to Frank, ‘Sit down and have something to eat.’
Frank did as he was told, and sat down.
Her mother stared at her father for a moment, narrow-eyed, and left the kitchen, taking the shotgun with her. She closed the door behind her.
He turned his quizzical, black-rimmed gaze on Cora. As her father, he put together the hope he could see in her face with the rumours he’d heard about her. ‘I’d been told about you waving at someone behind the fence. A guard, was it?’
Cora flushed. ‘Not a guard, no.’
‘They play football, don’t they, guards against prisoners.
There’s a lot of tackling, so I’ve heard.
More like rugby, tell you the truth.’ He looked at Frank, and then he looked at Cora again.
‘I’ve never had to worry about you,’ he said.
‘At least, not in the deep, unsettling way I worried about Owen.’ His gaze softened.
‘There’s stew in the pan,’ he said. ‘We’ve been keeping it hot for when you got home. There’s enough for two.’
Cora filled the bowl and put it in front of Frank and fetched him a spoon. She paused as he raised his grateful, tired eyes to meet hers. He had a lovely, open, fresh face, she thought, a face of bland perfection even now, as if he had transcended the tragedy of his situation.
He ate politely and quickly, mindful he was a guest, closing his eyes now and then as if he was savouring a dream.
As he was eating, Dio went upstairs, leaving the two of them alone. Cora could hear him moving about overhead. She wondered nervously where her mother had gone.
She didn’t have to wonder for long because moments later, to her dismay, Jane came back into the kitchen, holding Owen’s photograph in her hands. Her chair squealed on the tiled floor and she sat down at the table next to Frank.
Cora’s heart sank.
‘See this boy?’ Jane said loudly to Frank. ‘He’s my son. Killed by one of your torpedoes.’ She took off her spectacles and studied the photograph intently. Her hard face softened with longing for Owen. She turned to Frank. ‘Do you understand what I’m saying?’
Frank looked at the photograph and then nodded at Jane, wordless.
‘Aye,’ she said quietly to herself. Her eyes filled with tears.
After a few moments she turned to the enemy, face to face, her eyes seeking his.
Looking at him, her face was full of the tragedy of war and the agony of love.
‘And if he had lived long enough to be called up to fight,’ she said, ‘I would have hoped with all my heart that some German mother might treat him kindly.’
Dio came back downstairs, glanced into the kitchen and saw that Jane was holding Owen’s photograph in her hand and that Frank’s bowl was empty.
‘Finished? Come with me, lad,’ he said, jerking his head.
Frank stood up uncertainly, glanced at Cora and followed Dio into the front room.
Cora cleared the table, hearing them talking but she couldn’t make out the words.
When they returned to the kitchen, Frank was wearing her father’s suit and Dio was carrying the visitor’s damp clothes in his arms.
Cora made to take them from him. ‘I’ll put them by the fire to dry.’
‘No, you’re all right, I’ll do it,’ Dio said. ‘You two go for a stroll. The rain’s stopped but take my umbrella, just in case. You’ve got a lot to catch up on, I expect.’
That night, Frank and Cora walked along Island Farm Avenue to the woods under the sheltering canopy of the umbrella. They could see the camp in the distance. Guards with Alsatian dogs patrolled the perimeter and Frank stared at the dimly lit huts from the shelter of the trees.
‘I wish you didn’t have to go back in there,’ she said.
‘Yes.’ Frank closed the umbrella and hooked it on a branch. He put his arms around her tightly, knotting his fingers over her shoulder blades, holding her close to him.
She breathed in the mysterious, familiar scent of him, like coming home after a long journey apart. Sliding her hands under his borrowed jacket, sharing her solid warmth with him, heartbeat to heartbeat.
She could feel the thud of his heart in her own heart like an echo and she rested her head in the warm, soft crook of his neck, feeling the blood beat in his veins.
The weight of terror and trepidation had slipped from her without her realising it, her longing for him taking its place.
She sighed with bliss, at the same time knowing how awfully brief this time would be.
Frank’s arms loosened around her and he took a box of matches out of his pocket and lit one.
The flame flared and reflected in his grey eyes and she saw in them an intense belief in a future together.
The match burned out and as if he knew what she was thinking, he took her face in his hands and held back her green hair from her face.
‘It will be all right,’ he promised.
She nodded, believing him with all her heart. ‘We’ll make it all right.’
He kissed her forehead, her eyelids, her mouth. There was a lot to say but the important things were the here and now, being close, the rightness of it, the relief of being together after the long and impossible journey.
Drips of rain from leaves ticked the minutes away and they swayed in each other’s arms.
Reluctantly they knew their brief time together was over. They left the woods and walked home and Frank put on his old clothes again and her father took his suit back.
It was the worst feeling in the world. He was their guest, and then they had to hand him over.
‘It won’t be long now,’ Dio said to Frank apropos of nothing as they walked through the rain-whipped empty streets to the police station.
Cora was silenced by the agony of the distance between them.
It was true, she thought, it didn’t take long.
The distance had never felt shorter. They seemed to be flying there, every second taking them closer to the moment of separation and Cora had a sick feeling deep inside her, praying for time to slow down.
At the station, Dio explained to the duty sergeant at the desk that Frank had returned willingly of his own volition.
The sergeant thought about it and looked towards the window where the branches were fighting against the wind. He turned to Frank. ‘Aye, I don’t blame you. It’s cold out there.’ He picked up his pen. ‘Your pals will be glad to see you back, I expect.’
Frank raised his head for the first time and asked curiously, ‘Did any of them make it?’
The sergeant glanced at Dio and then at Frank again. He rubbed his jaw. ‘Well, son,’ he said, ‘it’s early days.’
Cora didn’t want to take her eyes off Frank, the straight line of his dark eyebrows, the pouches under his eyes, the shadow of his unshaven cheeks, his solemn mouth that had kissed hers. She was memorising him so that she could keep him in her mind always and her heart was breaking.
They said goodbye and left him there. The silent going home was slow and miserable, like walking in mud.
‘Sorry,’ Jane said abruptly when they turned into the street, without saying what she was sorry about, or who to, and neither of them asked.