Dominion

Chapter Fifty-Three

SARAH HAD BEEN FOR ANOTHER WALK. She had done so much walking these last few days that Brighton, so alien at first, was becoming familiar. This morning, in the winter sunshine, she had gone to Hove, through the grand early-Victorian squares along the seafront. The shops, their Christmas decorations looking oddly out of place at the seaside, were half-empty. All the newspapers carried pictures of crowds in the Chancellery in Berlin, passing Hitler’s open coffin. He lay, eyes closed, his face dead white, whiter than his moustache and hair.

Then, walking back to the hotel, she saw David looking out of the window at her. She felt a momentary surge of joy, then anxiety because he looked so thin, so much older, his cheeks sunken. Then anger filled her. She looked away from him as she mounted the steps to the hotel, slowly, though her heart was pounding.

Jane was sitting at the reception desk. She looked relieved to see Sarah. She leaned forward with a smile and whispered, ‘They’ve arrived. Your husband, he’s in the lounge.’ Her expression changed to puzzlement when Sarah didn’t smile in return, only said curtly, ‘I’ll go in.’

David was standing in the middle of the room. He looked at Sarah for a long moment, then walked quickly over and put his arms round her. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t let you know we were coming, we only knew ourselves yesterday—’

She didn’t respond, just stood like a statue, so full of conflicting emotions she felt that if she relaxed she might fall in pieces to the floor. David stepped back a pace, still holding her by the shoulders. He said, ‘Are you – are you all right? What’s happened to your hair?’

She shrugged off his hands and said, her voice so cold it surprised her, ‘Well, I was taken prisoner by the Germans, who told me you were a Resistance spy, and interrogated at Senate House.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Then I was sent home, abducted by your people, one of whom killed a policeman in our house, by the way, then dumped here to wait for you and some strangers so we could all be sent to God knows where. They cut and dyed my hair because the Special Branch and the Germans will be looking for me.’ Her voice rose in rage. ‘And I’ll never see my family again. Apart from that I’m fine. Who the hell are these other people, by the way?’

David said, ‘There’s a man and woman from the Resistance, and Frank Muncaster, my old friend from university. You remember, I’ve told you about him. What’s this about the Germans – you mean they arrested you? Our people didn’t tell me, just that you were safe.’ He looked at her, his blue eyes wide with fear. ‘What happened there, did they—’

‘Hurt me? No, they didn’t, because I didn’t know anything. I still bloody don’t.’ She shrugged off his grip. Her voice rose again. ‘Answer my bloody question! What’s going on? What are Frank Muncaster and these other people doing here?’

David raised his hands in a calming gesture. ‘Frank’s a scientist. Something terrible happened to him; he ended up in a mental hospital in Birmingham. The Americans want him, very badly. Because of something he knows. So we – we lifted him. We brought him to London and now we’ve managed to get him down here. Sarah.’ He spoke with sudden eagerness. ‘Tonight we’ll all be on a submarine to America.’

She stared at him blankly. ‘A submarine?’

‘Yes. I’m sorry all this happened, Sarah, but they chose me for this mission because I knew Frank, because he trusted me.’

‘And does he really? Trust you?’ Her voice was sharp with sarcasm now.

‘Yes. Yes, he does.’

She stared at him. ‘And he’s a mental case. Well, he’d have to be to trust you, wouldn’t he?’ She was still surprised by her own biting fury but she had had enough, more than any wife could take.

‘Sarah – I came back for you – they found out I’d been a spy, but I tried to get home for you . . .’

Sarah took a long, deep breath. ‘This man in London, Jackson, he told me you’d been spying for the Resistance, giving them information from the Dominions Office. You involved that poor woman, Carol Bennett! Is that why you made friends with her? The day before I was arrested I went to Highgate and confronted her because I thought you were having an affair. The poor silly woman’s in love with you, did you know that? I should think she’s been arrested by now, like I was.’

David looked on the verge of tears. He said, ‘Geoff’s dead.’

She started, shocked. ‘Dead? How?’

‘We were hiding in a house up in London. Geoff was part of our team; he came with us to get Frank from the hospital. The house was raided, the couple sheltering us were killed and Geoff was too.’

‘Oh, Jesus Christ.’ Sarah collapsed into one of the armchairs.

David knelt beside her. ‘It’s so important we get Frank to America. It’s a big thing, Sarah, really big. He’s got information – I can’t tell you what – but it could help the Germans. The Gestapo are after it, it’ll help the SS if there’s a power struggle now Hitler’s dead.’

‘How long were you and Geoff doing this? Spying?’

‘Geoff joined the Resistance before me. He recruited me two years ago.’

‘After Charlie died.’

‘Not long after, yes . . .’

Her tone changed, sadness replacing the anger. ‘And you kept it all from me. I knew there was something, you’d been moving away from me ever since Charlie died. So what was I, just cover, the little wife at home?’

He shook his head vigorously. ‘No, no. You mustn’t think that. When I started they said it was better you knew nothing, in case things ever went wrong and you were questioned.’ He looked at her, pleadingly. ‘And they were right, weren’t they? You didn’t know anything and that protected you.’

She said, with a quiet, angry passion, ‘Didn’t it ever occur to you that if I knew I might want to help you?’

‘I didn’t think you’d agree with what I was doing. You were always criticizing the Resistance for violence. Because people get killed in the struggle.’

‘Well, maybe you could have changed my mind, if you’d ever bothered to try. I’ve changed it on my own, anyway. I know now you’ve got to fight.’ Her eyes were full of sorrow. ‘Even though I know the violence will corrupt you all, because it always does.’

‘It’s been hard—’

Her voice rose angrily again. ‘You decided to keep me out of it, as you’ve kept me out of everything since Charlie died.’

He said, ‘I never realized – what it must have been like for you, in the house, alone. I’m sorry—’

‘Don’t pretend it was for my sake you didn’t tell me, don’t pretend it wasn’t the easier thing for you to do. I’ve been blind for years,’ she added, bleakly. ‘Because I loved you so much.’ She stared into his miserable face. Her voice rose again. ‘Was that why you started working for them, because Charlie was dead and I wasn’t enough? Because you needed something else?’

He shouted back, ‘No! It was because the persecutions had started and I’m Jewish!’

‘What do you mean?’ She stared at him blankly. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

He came closer, gripping Sarah’s wrists. ‘My mother’s family came to Ireland from Eastern Europe. Long before she met Dad. I didn’t know until she died, Mum and Dad kept it secret so I wouldn’t experience prejudice. Dad persuaded me to go on keeping it secret.’ He looked at her levelly. ‘He was right. If they’d known who she was then later I’d’ve been kicked out of the Civil Service, I’d be in one of those detention camps now. You know the rules; half a Jew is still a Jew.’

She pushed his hands away, stood up, and began walking up and down the room. She felt stunned. ‘You’re a Jew. You’ve known that since before you met me and you kept it secret.’ She broke off. ‘You’re not circumcised—’

‘Mum wasn’t a believer. Nor was Dad. I’m not a Jew and I’m not a Catholic – according to any reasonable interpretation anyway. But where’s reason these days?’

She stopped, looked at him. ‘All this time I’ve been married to a Jew. And you didn’t tell me.’

He asked, ‘Would it have mattered to you?’

She looked taken aback. ‘I’d have been surprised. Of course I would. But – you know me, you know I’ve always hated anti-Semitism.’

‘But even before 1940, we were all brought up with prejudice,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s always there, anti-Semitism sometimes comes out when you least expect it—’

She shouted, ‘Not with me! Have you forgotten how my mum and dad brought me up?’

‘But Irene—’

‘Irene married a bigoted fool! You know what I think of him! But you didn’t trust me. All these secrets. You never trusted me with any of it. Never.’

He stood up, stepped towards her again. ‘I’m sorry. I was just so used to nobody knowing. Sometimes for a while I’d forget it myself until the persecutions started. And everything else, it was all to protect you.’

‘The support I could have given you, the help, the love,’ she said despairingly. ‘None of that mattered, did it?’

‘I thought it was for the best.’

Sarah thought it a miserable answer, nothing of love in it. She stood for a long moment facing her husband. Part of her wanted to reach out and stroke his face, soothe his desperate unhappiness; another part wanted to hit him. She closed her eyes for a moment. Then she turned practical; it was the only way she could cope at the moment and God knew there were enough questions about practicalities, too. She took a deep breath. ‘What’s going to happen tonight?’

David took a deep breath. ‘A boat will be waiting to pick us all up a few miles from here at half past midnight. It’ll take us to an American submarine in the Channel. You, me, Frank and the two others I’m with. They’re all upstairs now.’

‘Frank was in a lunatic asylum. Is he fit to go? Does he want to go?’

‘Yes. He’s better than he was.’

‘Who are these other two?’

‘Ben, he was a nurse at his hospital, and – and Natalia, she’s the one in charge of our group.’ His voice faltered for a moment, and he took a deep breath. ‘Part of our cover is that Natalia and I are supposed to be husband and wife, and Ben and Frank my cousins; we’re all supposed to have come down here for an old aunt’s funeral. You and I are not supposed to know each other, by the way, we have to pretend.’

‘Pretend?’ Sarah laughed bitterly.

He said, quietly, ‘I’m so sorry, Sarah. For everything. I . . .’

Just then there was a knock at the door. Jane came in. She looked scared. She said, ‘I’m sorry, but please, please keep your voices down. You can be heard upstairs, and in the hotel next door, these walls are thin.’ She looked at David, her eyes wide with fear. ‘What you shouted out earlier—’

‘About being Jewish?’ David nodded fiercely. ‘Yes, that’s dangerous, isn’t it?’

‘It’s all right,’ Sarah said. ‘I’ll go up to my room.’ She looked at David. ‘Don’t come after me.’

Jane followed her out, and said, ‘Please don’t think I’m interfering, only – you’ve got to be ready to go off tonight. You can’t be arguing and fighting, not tonight.’

Sarah realized just how frightened Jane was. Her life was at stake here, too.

In her room Sarah closed the door, sat on the bed and put her head in her hands. It had been as bad as she had feared, worse. She recognized that inside she had been hoping against hope for some explanation from David that would somehow make everything all right again. But he had lived in a world of deception and lies, not just since becoming a spy, but long before she’d met him. She had a feeling that even now he hadn’t told her everything. How could she ever believe him again?