Dominion

Chapter Fifty-Six

THAT AFTERNOON, FOLLOWING the meeting with Bert, David went downstairs, back to the empty lounge. Jane, sitting at her desk in the hall, gave him an anxious smile as he passed.

He sat in an armchair and looked out of the window. What was he going to do? Sense and decency and old, bone-deep affection told him he belonged with Sarah. But would she have him now? And it was Natalia who offered him excitement, the chance of something new. More than that, she was someone who understood his past, his true origins.

After a while he went back upstairs, to the room he shared with her. He turned the handle, but the door was locked. He had a feeling Natalia was in there, but there was no sound, no answer to his knock. Then Sarah’s door opened and she stood there, looking at him.

‘Sarah.’

She turned and went back into her room, but left the door open. He followed her in. She sat on the bed, looking at him bleakly. ‘Please don’t say you’re sorry again. I don’t think I could stand that.’

He closed the door and stood with his back to it. ‘What else can I say?’

‘Nothing.’ She shook her head. ‘Nothing.’

‘About my being Jewish. I had to keep it quiet after 1940. All the more after Charlie came along—’

‘You should have told me, David. It would have been a shock, a surprise, I’m not pretending otherwise, but it wouldn’t have made any difference. And I could have supported you.’ She looked at him. ‘But that was just the start of the lies.’ Her eyes bore into his. ‘Whatever love you felt for me ended when Charlie died, didn’t it?’

‘No. But somehow his dying just – pulled us apart. I don’t know why. And then, when I joined the Resistance – I felt guilty for lying to you again, and that just made it all worse.’ He put two fingers to the bridge of his nose, squeezed hard. ‘I was a spoiled child and I’m a selfish man.’

She answered quietly, ‘You believe in duty, self-sacrifice. I always admired you for that. But I don’t want you to stay with me out of duty. And I don’t know if I could ever trust you again.’

He thought of his other secret, the last one. Natalia. She hadn’t guessed about that. Poor Sarah, even now she didn’t see it all. He took a deep breath. ‘You haven’t said if you still love me.’

‘I don’t think that’s enough any more.’

He closed his eyes. She sighed, then stood up. ‘David, we mustn’t discuss this now. That’s what I wanted to say. Jane’s worried. Whatever happens afterwards, now we have to concentrate on getting through tonight. We owe it to the others.’

‘Duty.’ David smiled, a sad twitch of the mouth.

‘Yes, duty. And now I think you should go.’

He left the room. Natalia’s door was still locked. So he went back down to the lounge and sat once more staring out at the empty street. It struck him then that for the first time in their relationship Sarah was in charge.

At eight o’clock Jane called them down for dinner. Sarah had been lying on her bed, reading an Agatha Christie novel to try to keep her mind off everything. She took a deep breath and steeled herself to go downstairs. The other four – David, Frank, the Scotsman and the woman with the Slavic accent – were already sitting round one of the tables. Bert was with them, reading a copy of the Daily Express. As Sarah approached Ben said jokingly that their next meal would be American food, on the sub.

Jane had made a beef stew, with potatoes and Brussels sprouts, tasteless like all the food Sarah had eaten in the hotel but hot and filling. Bert looked up from his paper. ‘It says here Goebbels is calling a conference of all the senior army officers. Himmler and Heydrich aren’t invited. Looks like divisions among the Nazis are really starting.’

‘And they’re reportin’ that in the Express?’ Ben said, surprised. ‘Beaverbrook’s paper. Normally they cannae tell us enough about how strong and united our German allies are.’

‘Well, this government wants Goebbels to stop the Russian war. Even Mosley knows it’s unwinnable.’

‘Do you think that could actually happen? Some sort of civil war in Germany?’ Frank asked.

David had been quiet, but now he looked up. ‘Yes. Hitler held all the reins of power himself. There was always the risk everything would fall apart when he died. He said the Third Reich would last a thousand years and people believed him, but what Empire has ever lasted that long? Even the Roman Empire didn’t. A few hundred years, that’s the most any Empires have, and many a lot less.’

‘Like the British Empire,’ Ben said quietly.

‘Yes.’ There was sadness in David’s answer, even now.

Ben asked Bert, ‘I suppose there’s still nothing in the paper about the Jews?’

‘No. But the word I’ve heard is that plans to deport them to the Isle of Wight and then on to Germany are cancelled indefinitely now.’

‘But Goebbels and Himmler both hate the Jews, as much as Hitler did. That’s the one thing those bastards are united about.’

‘The British government are waiting to see what happens,’ Natalia said. ‘If Germany breaks down, and Britain wants to move closer to the Americans, better to have the Jews alive. A bargaining counter. Pawns. The fog was an excuse to cancel the transports, it came at the right time.’

Sarah looked at her. She didn’t like Natalia, she thought her hard and cold. So she was surprised when she went on to say, with feeling, ‘For now they’re abandoned in those detention camps. They must be so cold in this weather, so cold.’

Jane had come in with a tray, heavy with large bowls of steamed pudding and custard. As she served them she said, ‘They’re not the same as us, they don’t have the same loyalty to England.’

Bert glared at his wife. ‘I thought you’d got that nonsense out of your head years ago, woman. When have the Jews ever been disloyal to this country? And saying they’re not the same as us – you mean they haven’t got pure English blood?’

‘No. I’m sorry, I just . . .’ Jane’s words tailed off.

‘I’ve nae English blood,’ Ben said, stressing his Glasgow accent, trying to lighten the tone.

Bert said, ‘Sorry, I should have said British, not English—’

‘Dinna worry,’ Ben laughed. ‘I don’t lose sleep over what mix of blood I’ve got. Though a Scot Nat would’ve been at you fast enough for saying English not British. Worrying about blood and ancestry, that’s what’s got Europe intae all this shit.’ He looked pointedly at Jane.

‘I’m sorry. I’m glad they’re not being deported. That’s bad.’ Jane looked at Natalia. ‘And you’re right, the poor beggars must be cold out in those barracks or wherever they’re being held. It’s just – I was brought up disliking Jews.’

Natalia said, ‘It’s colder still where they get sent to, in the East. Though they’re not cold for long.’

Frank looked at her. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I believe the rumours they kill them in extermination camps are true.’ Natalia looked at David. A look passed between them. He met her eye. And then Sarah knew, she knew that David had told Natalia he was Jewish and she saw in their faces exactly what lay between them. She looked down quickly at her plate but she couldn’t pick up a spoon, couldn’t eat. She stood abruptly. ‘I don’t feel very well. I’m going upstairs.’

David said, ‘What’s wrong?’

‘I feel sick. I think it’s just nerves, giving me a bit of a gippy tummy. I’ll be all right if I lie down for a bit.’

The last secret. The end. Sarah wished she could have run out of the hotel, back to London, back to Irene and her mother and father. She thought of her empty house, had a sudden horrible vision of Charlie there as a tiny, lonely ghost, wandering lost through the empty rooms. She cried and cried, but silently so that the others wouldn’t hear.

To her surprise, perhaps because she was so exhausted, Sarah fell asleep. When Ben knocked on her door it was dark. He told her they were to go downstairs for a last briefing. It was almost ten o’clock. They gathered in the office behind the counter. David gave Sarah a smile, but she couldn’t return it. Frank and Ben, noticing, exchanged glances. Natalia was watching David and Sarah carefully, her face expressionless. Sarah thought, she’s worried there’ll be some sort of outburst between us. But there mustn’t be, I have to hold on.

Bert and Jane reported that everything was still quiet in Rottingdean, the rendezvous was still on. The weather forecast said it would be clear and cold. Then Bert went to a safe on the wall and brought out two pistols. Sarah shuddered at the sight of them. They made her think of her father, the pistol he would have carried in the Great War. Bert handed one to Ben. Natalia said, ‘You know I have one already?’

‘Yes.’ Bert looked at David. ‘You can handle a gun?’

‘I was in the Norway campaign, remember?’ He picked up the pistol and examined it. ‘I can use this.’ Then he grasped it firmly and put it in his pocket.

Bert turned to Sarah. He said quietly, ‘What about you, Mrs Fitzgerald?’

She shook her head. ‘I couldn’t. Anyway, I wouldn’t know how.’ She took a deep breath, then reached into her pocket and pulled out the pellet David had handed her earlier. She held it out. ‘But I’ll use this, if I have to.’

‘We all must,’ Ben said quietly.

‘Is there anything else we need to discuss before we leave?’ Natalia asked. She looked round them all, her gaze lingering on Sarah. ‘Because from now on we have to be completely focused on our escape, on getting away.’

Sarah nodded. ‘I know.’ She drew a deep breath. ‘I’m ready.’

They left the hotel at half past ten, in the car. They drove out of Brighton, past the Pavilion, its domes outlined against the starry sky. Natalia was the driver, Ben beside her. David sat in the back, Frank between him and Sarah.

They drove north out of Brighton, into the empty, frosty countryside. For a while there was silence. Then Ben said, ‘The news says the fog’s gone in London. But the casualty departments are full of people with asthma and bronchitis, animals died at the Smithfield cattle show. There was more about that than what’s happening in Germany. They just say Goebbels is in charge. There’s windy weather coming in tomorrow apparently, there’s going to be heavy snow in Scotland.’

‘I went to school there,’ Frank said quietly.

Sarah turned to him. He looked very pale and frightened. But he was calm, not really like a lunatic at all though there was something odd, off-key, about him. She spoke to him gently. ‘And after that you went to Oxford, met David?’ She could imagine David looking after Frank, protecting him.

‘Yes. I’m sorry I’ve got you both in this mess.’

‘You got caught up in this by chance,’ David said. ‘Though it’s just an extension of the madness the whole country, the whole world, has ended up in, isn’t it?’

Frank turned and looked at David. ‘You’re the best friend I ever had in my life,’ he said, suddenly.

‘Come on, Frank,’ David said jokingly. ‘You’re embarrassing me.’

Frank turned back to Sarah, his eyes glinting in the dark interior of the car. ‘No, it’s true, and this may be my last chance to say it. Your husband is a good man. He looks after people, protects them. There’s not one in a hundred like him.’

Silence descended again. After a while they turned south, heading back towards the sea.