Dominion

Chapter Thirty-Five

DAVID AND GEOFF HAD SPENT two nights in a flat above a grocer’s shop in Brixton. Natalia had left them there, saying she would come and fetch them on Sunday, when they would drive to Birmingham. Sunday the thirtieth, David thought, the last day of November. It seemed a long time since the demonstration on Remembrance Sunday.

The grocer, Mr Tate, was a middle-aged man with sandy hair and a brusque, cheerful manner. He warned them to keep quiet during the hours the shop was open and David and Geoff spent much of their time in the bedroom assigned to them, reading and playing cards. The room was cold with a sharp smell, a mixture of cheese and bacon, wafting up from below. The grocer brought them food. On the second day he told them how his son had been killed fighting nationalist guerrillas in Burma, and his wife had died from a stroke shortly after. He had joined the Resistance then. ‘We have to stop it, all the killing,’ he said. ‘Make some sort of settlement with those people out East. You can’t even always get good Indian tea any more, because of the strikes on the plantations.’ David asked if there were any news of Sarah but there was nothing yet.

On the first evening, when the shop was shut, David and Geoff sat and talked quietly. Geoff spoke about the woman he had known in Kenya. ‘Her husband was a doctor. He’d come out to work for charity, do good work among the natives. He was a decent enough chap, except he took his work too seriously, he didn’t really consider Elaine. She was left – well – adrift. Local white society looked down on her as a do-gooder’s wife. The irony was she hated the blacks, was really frightened of them, she’d been brought up to that like most people. I think I educated her a bit on that one. A bit.’ He smiled crookedly. ‘I suppose we were drawn to each other because neither of us quite fitted in. I asked Elaine to come back to England with me, divorce her husband. But she wouldn’t; she was a Catholic, she didn’t believe in divorce.’ He sighed. ‘So we agreed to chuck it, and I applied for a transfer home. You know what the strange thing was? After we broke up, heaven knows why, she told her husband about us. Why do it then, when it was finished?’ Geoff shook his head wearily. ‘It was all over the town, during my last weeks.’

‘Didn’t she ever tell you why?’

‘I never spoke to either of them again. They avoided coming into town after the news got out. I think Ron – the husband – must have told his colleagues. I saw Elaine, once. I was at one end of the street and she was at the other. She saw me and turned and went into a shop. I thought, well, that’s that.’ He laughed sardonically again. ‘Still, coming home with a broken heart made good cover for me when I started spying for the Resistance.’

‘Have you got over her?’ David asked.

Geoff shook his head. ‘You know, I never believed in that romantic stuff about everyone having just one person specially for them—’

‘I don’t either—’

‘But I haven’t met anyone else since.’ He frowned, his face suddenly severe. ‘I suppose it’s made me bitter. I think that’s why I was ready to join the Resistance.’

David said, ‘I was angry after Charlie died. That was part of it for me.’ He looked at Geoff. ‘Did you see it, back then? How angry I was?’

‘I saw you getting slowly angrier after the 1950 election. Talking more about politics. I didn’t connect it to Charlie. Do you regret it?’ he asked. ‘What we’ve done?’

‘I regret deceiving Sarah. And now where is she? God knows what will happen to her.’

Geoff leaned forward and touched his friend’s arm. ‘They’ll find her. They’re good at that.’

‘And Carol, you know what I did to her. Strung her along. Yet she saved me in the end.’

‘There’s loyalty for you.’

David looked at his friend. ‘Maybe she feels for me what you felt with Elaine. It can be a bit frightening sometimes, I tell you.’

‘Yes,’ Geoff said slowly. ‘I suppose it can. So, what about Natalia?’

David shifted uncomfortably. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I’ve just wondered – if there’s something there? Between you two?’

David said sharply. ‘This is hardly the time for something, is it?’

‘No. No, it isn’t.’

On their second day, Sunday, the shop was closed. It was raining, hard, steady rain. David watched as an elderly couple in their best clothes walked up the street, huddled under their umbrellas. They looked as though they were going to church. David thought, it’s just a week since the Jews were taken.

The grocer, Mr Tate, came in with some lunch. There was still no news about Sarah. Mr Tate seemed a little more relaxed now the shop was closed. He said, ‘The Chinese have launched a new offensive against the Japs. Place called Zhijang. The news says the Japanese are rallying for a counter-offensive but it’s like the Germans in Russia, in a lot of areas they only hold the towns and the roads between them. It’s getting like that in parts of India, too, from what I hear. Like the strands and knots in a net. Break enough strands and the whole thing falls apart. The German army knows that, that’s why they’ll make peace with Russia if Hitler dies.’

‘Any more word from America, about what Adlai Stevenson will do when he takes over as President?’ Geoff asked.

Mr Tate shook his head. ‘No. Not on the BBC, anyway. They’ve been very quiet about the Jews, as well. I think they’re hoping we’ll all forget about them.’

David thought, in time, if the government encourages us, perhaps everyone will.

Natalia arrived shortly after three that afternoon. She had brought a change of clothes for Geoff and David: cheap suits, trilby hats and dark overcoats. David was still wearing his dark jacket and pinstripe trousers from the office, a little creased and crumpled now.

She was in a brisk, businesslike mood, telling them they needed a shave, they must look respectable. Geoff went to the bathroom first. Left alone with David, Natalia said, ‘I’m sorry, there’s still no news of your wife. But one of our radios is down, it’s very possible she is safe, that whoever has her can’t get through.’ She gave him a quick, uncertain smile. ‘Quite likely, in fact.’

‘So much for modern technology.’

‘We will get her to safety. We’ll get you all to America.’

David said, ‘I don’t think she’ll want to be with me. Why should she, now? She always thought I was safe, stable, honest. She didn’t know about all these layers of deceit.’

Natalia looked him straight in the eye. ‘From what you have told me of her, she will understand what you have done.’ She smiled, sadly. ‘I know it’s been hard for you to do the things you have. It’s easier for me. In an odd way, I’m free. Where I come from people never had the sort of secure identity you British middle classes have. My part of the world was always mixed, people shifting their roots. Perhaps that makes things easier for those of us who have got out. We’re not so tied down.’

‘Easier? Despite everyone you’ve lost?’

‘Yes. Even so. Easier than for you with your ties,’ she said, with sudden tenderness. ‘When we get you away you will have the chance to rebuild those again.’ She hesitated, then asked, ‘Do you want that chance?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You should try.’

He looked at her. ‘And you?’

‘I go where the struggle takes me. That is my life now.’ She looked at him tenderly again. ‘You must understand that. And now, get ready. We have an important job to do.’