Chapter 55 #2
‘During the war it wasn’t the worst of things.’ Cora tried to remember what she’d said to Gladdie not that long ago about them being good times, and Gladdie reminding her about Owen. The thing was, whatever happened, you just had to keep moving forward.
‘Anyway, the Germans have got fewer hangups about nakedness than we have,’ Cora added. ‘Everyone knows that. They invented nudity.’
‘Maybe they could paint a swimsuit on you,’ Lottie suggested.
‘Or give you a Brazilian,’ Gladdie said with a smirk.
‘To be fair,’ Megan added generously, ‘you’ve always had a good figure, Cora. She has, hasn’t she, Glad?’
Gladdie turned to look at Cora. ‘Aye. Fair play.’
Cora grinned. ‘I know.’ That was the best thing about growing old, the experiences of the past layered themselves on her protectively, insulating her like a good coat.
‘There’s a sort of periscope outside where we can look down into the tunnel,’ Gwyn said in his loud, carrying voice as he came to find them.
The women turned to look at him.
‘Let’s go and have a look at the tunnel, shall we, Gwyn?’
They filed back out into the sweet open air.
The afternoon sky was a deeper blue now, grass soft underfoot and littered with daisies, the dark, sweet smell of hawthorn, and a handful of uniformed soldiers, British and German, saluting, mingling, chatting.
Cora scrutinised their faces, looking for Frank, and finding him safe in her heart.
Behind the hut a corporal was standing next to the large periscope dug into the grass. ‘Have you come for the tunnel?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Here we go.’ He lifted the lid and through the hatch they could see down in. ‘See? This is as close as you can get to it, health and safety. For some reason they don’t think the public can be trusted to crawl into dark, muddy spaces.’
‘Not very trusting of them, is it? Here we go,’ Cora repeated.
Shrugging away helping hands, she got onto her hands and knees and put her head inside the hatch.
She breathed in deeply so that she could smell the clay, see the redness of it, imagine Frank digging naked, and escaping to freedom, and after that, coming back home to find her.
‘Your white frock is suffering something awful,’ Gladdie observed. ‘Oh dear, you’ve got grass stains on it now as well. Mind your mother doesn’t see.’
Cora laughed, knowing that her two friends felt the same as she did about being here – that time didn’t really move on at all, that it was static, a vast hangar you could move around in and stand in different spots, experiencing different ages the same way you’d lived them, and the space kept expanding miraculously the older you lived.
‘Help me up.’ She got to her feet again, brushing herself down, marvelling.
‘Heck of a job, digging their way through that,’ she said.
‘Aye,’ the corporal agreed. ‘It’s not easy, digging through clay, as I know from gardening. It’s a devil. Hold your hand out.’
Cora held her hand out and the corporal handed her a ball of orange clay from the windowsill of the hut. She thought of Frank’s lump of clay, and realised what it meant to him, it was his souvenir of effort, toil, sweat and dreams.
‘Feel it! Heavy, isn’t it? Imagine how much clay they had to move,’ the man said, looking into the hole. ‘But they did it though, and fair play to them, I say. You know what I think? They must have started the construction as soon as they got here. Animal instinct, isn’t it? To want to go home.’
Cora agreed that it was. She handed him the clay back and walked across to the green, sun-warmed railings separating the camp from the field beyond it and put her face against them.
The barbed wire had long gone and out there was the grass shimmering in the breeze, leaves fluttering in the trees, open countryside and blue sky, with the fading blue Glamorgan hills beyond.
For a moment she put herself in Frank’s shoes, a captive in enemy territory, looking out at the land he was not part of and waiting for something to happen: mail from home, news of the progress of the war, German cigarettes, a glimpse of the four of them – Cora, Gladdie, Meg and Enid – as they passed the camp on their way to and from work.
‘What are you looking at?’ Elisavet had come to stand next to her and Cora caught the scent of her perfume, light and floral.
‘Freedom,’ she said without turning. ‘That’s what they saw through the wire, wasn’t it?’
‘Freedom,’ Elisavet echoed softly.
Lottie came to join them, leaning on Cora with an easy familiarity and looping her arm around her shoulder. ‘Enjoying your birthday present?’ she asked.
‘I am!’ Cora suddenly remembered the question that Lottie had asked her. ‘How do you recognise love, that’s what you asked me, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes. But please don’t tell me you just do.’
Cora thought about it. ‘It’s the truth, though. You know when you love, or don’t love, and you know when you’re loved or not loved. If you don’t recognise it, it’s because it’s not there.’
Elisavet looked at her sharply. ‘Oh!’ she said, her lips parted in understanding, her dark hair whipping around her face in the breeze.