The Death of the Fronsac_A Novel Page 6

  If I still couldn’t grasp what I felt about Helen, I had even less idea of what Helen felt about me. It frightened me to be so attached to somebody so unreadable. I wondered occasionally about other men.

  Then, one night, she came home from Kincaid’s with red eyes. ‘That’s my job gone!’ she said to me. She wouldn’t say more; she didn’t come to me that night. So I went to her, very early, before Mrs M was up to light the gas, before the first horse-drays rumbled down Union Street, and sat on her bed.

  ‘That bastard down at the yard. The one I telt ye about, offering to give me a wee bit after Johnston was killed. Okay, him. He’s still on at me. He got me in his office yesterday, hands going every place, tries to lock the door. He says: “C’mon, just be nice. I’ll be nice, nobody will know, anyone can see you’re ganting for it.” I had this stuff from him before, but this time he backs off and grabs to get the key in the lock. So I knock his hand away, and he takes a skelp at my face and I’m starting a skreich when he sticks a hankie in my mouth – imagine that! All strict movie stuff, Mike. I remember thinking: now’s the moment I get the tiny pearl-handled gat out ma reticule, push it in his waistcoat and blam.’

  She sobbed, blew her nose, pushed me away when I tried to hold her. ‘I get the hankie offa ma face and I say: “This is gonnae get to your wife, ya piece of shite”, and he suddenly says in a very loud, different voice: “My mind is made up, Mrs Melville, and blackmail will only make more trouble for you. There is no place at Kincaid’s for your sort. Now for the very last time I am telling you to away and get your jotters and off these premises, or do I have to call out the yard wardens from the main gate?”

  ‘So then I notice all these shapes keeking through the frosted glass; these management types must have heard the row I was making. Shapes is right; they were just doubled up with glee. I did one last thing, Mike. I grabbed his tie and wiped my lipstick all over his big white collar. And then I went home.’

  Now she began to cry loudly. I heard Mrs M walk past the door, stop, listen and then move on down the stair.

  ‘Did I say “home” then? This is no my home. I’ve nae job and nae place o ma ain. Mabel hates the sight of me, Jackie doesnae want me as a mother, I get shamed out of ma life every time I see her. And I do miss Johnston, whatever you think; things between us were no sae great, but there were whiles he took my part, stood up for me against the auld bitch. Who do I have now? Okay, Mike, you, or maybe it’s you have me. You’re a great fellow, somebody’s ideal man, so you are.’

  I held her hand. Finally, she said: ‘Get me out of here, Mike. Outta this dreich old house, outta Johnston’s family, outta this town. They say it’s never too late to start again. That’s a better saying than wishing I’d never been born, when I’m just twenty-eight years old. Get me born again, Mike. In a fine big country with a future.’

  We studied one another. Her room didn’t look out over the Firth, but we heard the deep grunt and echo of a siren, a passenger ship moving down river.

  ‘I mean it, Mike.’

  ‘Jackie will miss you. If you go, she will think she made you go because you think she is horrible girl, a daughter who is so wicked she blew her own father up.’

  ‘She’ll steady down. She’ll be better off without me, whatever.’

  ‘Helen, don’t go. What about your rent – I mean, war widow pension? What about me? Yes, me. Who do I laugh with? Who do I take to dance, which we never did actually, but I promise we will? Won’t you miss your wee Polish count?’

  Helen seemed not to be listening. ‘The war that’s on, and all the foreign people going on and off the boats in the town and the Port. It’s see the world for free, and get paid for it. I know some RAF boys who are off to train in Canada. And the Germans and Austrians and the Eye-talians they rounded up – they’re being shipped off too. The Capocci family we used to get fish suppers from: I saw Billy Capocci a few days back. He’s in the army now, but his father and uncles are interned. Billy says the word is they are getting sent to Canada any day.’

  ‘Don’t go. They are sinking those ships. I know things you don’t know.’

  ‘If the Capoccis can go, and them Italian, then I can go. Mike, we have family there too, my own father’s brother is married in Halifax. Not just sae close, though. There’s no been a word or a parcel outta that bunch for years. Nevertheless...’

  ‘Don’t go. They will say you run away, you are afraid.’

  ‘I’m no feared of the Jerries and the torpedoes. I’m feared of being trapped in this dump, under the guddle I’ve made of my life. There’s a chance for me yet, if I can get out. And who’s talking? Himself, the big Mister Polish runaway.’

  I got up off the bed. So did Helen. I thought about slapping her face. ‘Don’t take the huff with me now. I never meant runaway like that. I’m sorry.’

  She came and hugged me. ‘Be my friend, Mike. You know people. Help me do this.’

  And after another angry, vain day of dissuading, I did. It was easier than I thought. A week later, she was signed up as a children’s nurse in a crew pool being gathered by Blue Star, for their ships carrying internees to Canada. They were in a hurry and asked for no job references. I filled in an emergency passport form and signed it as ‘Major and Staff Officer, Allied Forces’.

  On a rainy morning at the end of June, we – Helen, myself, Mabel and Jackie – stood on the platform at Greenock waiting for the train which would take her south to the Liverpool docks. Mrs M kept one hand for her umbrella and the other on Jackie’s wrist. Helen was wearing a new blue jacket and skirt, made of some thick stuff; the perky high shoulders looked wrong on her. In her bag was a shoebox of buttered scones with honey and a wedge of jellied veal, a wartime rarity which Mrs M had contributed for Helen’s journey. I had slipped three packs of American cigarettes into the bag, and a half-bottle of whisky from the French mess.

  Nobody said anything while we waited. The rain smeared Helen’s yellow hair across her forehead. When the whistle blew, she pulled Jackie to her and kissed her cheek and her little ears, and said: ‘Be a good girl with your grannie, I’ll be back for ye.’ As she straightened up and lifted her suitcase, she and Mrs M caught each other’s eye. Mrs M nodded slowly. She seemed calm and even satisfied.

  Helen didn’t kiss me, but as she leaned out of the train window to wave I thought she sent me a wink. I couldn’t be sure. The wind was blowing steam and rain everywhere, and I wasn’t seeing properly. A Scottish wartime farewell which might well be for ever: three silent, dry-eyed females and one foreigner in uniform sniffing into a khaki handkerchief. Walking down the hill from the station, Mabel and Jackie kept an embarrassed distance from this man crying. I found myself thinking a Helen thought: ‘Get me out of this country!’

  *

  My life was changing in other ways. At Fort Matilda, the base building was almost empty. After France had surrendered, most of the French naval staff and the crews of their few warships in the Clyde assumed their war was over, and they had chosen to be repatriated to their home country. A ship took them from Britain to neutral Lisbon on their long way back to France. But meanwhile a certain General de Gaulle had escaped to London and raised the banner of a ‘Free France’ to carry on the war against Germany. At Fort Matilda, where nobody had ever heard of this stork-like army officer, there were arguments.

  ‘Hello, Shoosky!’ Commandant le Gallois was still in his office. ‘Yes, I am here, last to leave this poor old sinking ship.’ There was nobody to make his coffee. The stewards had all opted for Lisbon, and the base’s supply of real coffee from France had dried up. We went down to the Bay Hotel and drank in the lounge bar, where there was still whisky for customers in uniform.

  ‘Shoosky, I think I am going to be a traitor. My government has surrendered, and I think I will enjoy disobeying orders. Those individuals in France, who are not any longer my France, sent a telegram that I am dismissed and must return at once. I tore it up. Captain Guennec – you remember him, the handsome one who was
interested in your girlfriend? Guennec was shocked. He said: “The government is ignoble and ignorable, but the State remains, and patriotism now, in this hour, is to obey and defend that State.”

  ‘I replied: “Dear Jean-Marie, the only State which incarnates France is the Republic, and Marshal Pétain is about to abolish the Republic.”

  ‘Next day, this charming Jean-Marie, who I thought was my good comrade, did another of his disappearing tricks without saying goodbye. They tell me he is already back in Paris.’

  He sighed. ‘I will stay at war – but by getting wet on a handful of Gaullist warships or simply by joining the British navy? I don’t know. I am lucky; my family is already here in Scotland. At least I know that the British will respect my choice and protect those who choose to be Free French.’

  Things became less simple even for me. Later that day, I received a cable ordering me to call a London telephone number. It was almost a shock to hear a Polish voice again, after months of silence. The voice informed me that in view of the Franco-German Armistice of 22 June, my posting with the French navy was cancelled with immediate effect. I was to report at once to the Supreme Commander’s office for reassignment.

  ‘Where is the office?’

  ‘In London, naturally. Where are you?’

  ‘In Scotland. But you knew that.’

  ‘Scotland? I thought you were in Plymouth. One moment, please... Listen, stay where you are. Don’t come to London. Off the record, Polish army formations evacuated to Britain are to be regrouped in Scotland. When the Germans invade Scotland, you will be needed there.’

  ‘What do I do now?’

  ‘There is a town called Angus or Fife or something. Proceed there immediately, and establish an advance liaison office with the civil authorities. Identify and list all the Scottish generals who speak Polish.’ He hung up.

  *

  Less than a week later, I found my way into the base blocked. British marines in full battle gear were standing behind a roll of barbed wire across the street. A Royal Marine officer, speaking fluent French, demanded to see my papers. As I tried to explain who I was, de Gallois came down the steps between two sergeants in steel helmets, one of them gripping his arm.

  ‘What the hell is going on?’

  He tried to smile. ‘Did I say that the British would defend those who choose to be Free French? Everyone has gone mad. The British have bombarded our fleet at Mers-el-Kébir. They have boarded all our ships here, all the vessels in British ports, and arrested the crews. So now we Free French traitors are also British traitors.’

  They thrust him into the back of a blue navy lorry. I ran down to the destroyer base at Gourock, pushed my way into the officers’ mess and found the agreeable lieutenant commander from the torpedo factory, the friend I had been going to lunch with on the day of the explosion. I shouted at him, so that the senior officers at the bar could hear: ‘In the name of the Polish government-in-exile, I protest against this scandalous act of force against an Allied navy!’ That was how I began. As I went on, and as I found how nicely my English was flowing, my voice grew louder.

  Admirals and captains put down their glasses. They looked away from this indecency. My poor friend’s expression suggested that he had bitten a lemon. He steered me into a corner where his own voice couldn’t be heard, and muttered: ‘Bit of a dog’s breakfast, if you ask me. Wasn’t involved myself, but, believe me, nobody liked doing this. Whitehall orders. But, old man, it’s just a precautionary measure. Your friends will get their ships back in a day or two.’

  Le Gallois came back late that afternoon, driven this time in a shiny admiral’s staff car. He sat carefully back in his chair, opened and closed several drawers. I noticed, as clearly as he did, that somebody had removed all the papers from the desk and its drawers while he was out of the office.

  ‘It seems that brave Mr Churchill has killed two thousand French sailors in Algeria. He is very grieved about it. Well, that simplifies my choice. I do not think I will join a navy which sinks my battleships while they are trapped in port and murders thousands of poor boys who only wanted to see their country again. No, if anyone else wants to remain “Free French” after this, it’s with them that I’ll stand.’

  He put a cigarette in his mouth, reached for the lighter on his desk and found it was missing. I struck a match for him.

  ‘Shoosky, once you said to me that you knew what the Germans were really like and that one day we would find out too. Now it is us, the French, who know what the English are really like. And you Poles, one day, will find out too.’

  *

  Two days later I was summoned to Edinburgh. A Polish advance party – two elderly colonels – had set up their office in a hotel room. In their French uniforms I did not at first realise who they were. But they recognised who I was; they were enchanted, even amazed, by my appearance. ‘Those riding boots! How did you manage to hang on to them? And you still have the whole pre-war outfit: the cape, the lanyards, the rogatywka square cap – perfect!’

  The senior officer patted my sleeve, appreciating the cloth. Then he recalled himself.

  ‘Obviously you have had it extremely easy, while others were fighting. But there is a war on even for loungers, Major Szczucki, and tomorrow the war begins for you. Report here in the morning with your kit, to act as our interpreter. Later, you will be redeployed to a regular unit. Understood?’

  I controlled myself. ‘Beg to ask, sir, do either of you speak English?’

  ‘French is sufficient. But here in Scotland, the common people often speak only their own language. We shall need your help.’

  I saluted and left. When I reached Greenock that night after a slow train journey, Mrs Melville was waiting for me in the kitchen. There was a newspaper spread out on the table. As I entered, she rose and came up to me and – an act which took me utterly by surprise – reached out both arms to unfasten my cape, a gesture like an embrace. She was very pale.

  I took the paper and read that the liner Selangor Star, carrying prisoners and interned aliens, had been torpedoed in the Atlantic. There were some survivors. The paper went on to proclaim that the passengers were Nazi thugs and fanatical Italian fascists, who had trampled women and children as the ship went down. Mrs M watched me as I read.

  ‘That’ll be Helen’s ship, Major.’

  ‘Maybe. Yes, it was a Blue Star boat she was on.’

  She began to walk up and down the kitchen. She shook her fists in the air, then pressed them to her eyes.

  ‘Oh, this war, this war. What’ll I say to Jackie? Oh, those poor, poor folk – just refugees, the most of them, and the Italians we all knew. Oh, Helen...’ She started to shudder and then to weep. I took her in my arms, feeling her body, so thick and hard, shake like a tree in the wind. For many minutes we clung to one another in that kitchen with its blacked-out windows, its sad smell of gas.

  *

  When I reached the Edinburgh hotel next morning there was no sign of the two Polish officers. ‘Ach, you mean the Rooshians! Or whatever they were. They wouldnae pay the advance, we couldnae make head nor tail of them. Anyhow, they’re away. No, they left no message.’

  I went back to Greenock and set about telephoning. When we got the first list of survivors, there was no Helen Melville on it. Mrs M spent that day and the next waiting in a crowd of sobbing Italian mothers and children at the Blue Star offices. It was a week until the firm issued a new, longer list. More lifeboats had been found by a Canadian corvette. Their surviving passengers were being taken to Halifax in Nova Scotia.

  We read down the column of names. No Melville. I looked for a Houston, Helen’s father’s name, but there was no Houston.

  ‘Here, see this!’ said Mrs M suddenly. She picked up a pencil and carefully underlined a name. Then she took off her spectacles, and leaned back in the kitchen chair. I bent over to read what she was pointing at: ‘Miss H. S. MacPhail, Greenock’.

  ‘That was her mother’s name. That’s her. She’s saved.’


  ‘Why give that name, then?’

  ‘I have no idea, none at all.’ Mrs M was angry in her relief. ‘Maybe her parents weren’t rightly married. Her father is some sort of a Communist, I believe.’

  I thought: Helen is escaping from us again, yet another stride away into some new life beyond the curve of the earth. More days passed, but we heard nothing from her. A telegram to MacPhail, care of the Canadian Red Cross in Halifax, brought no answer.

  That Sunday, Mrs M put on her brown slacks and set to work in the kitchen preparing sandwiches. Once again, she and Jackie were cycling to Gourock and then across the Clyde with the ferry to Dunoon. I had tried before to talk to her about how we should break the news about Helen to Jackie. Now I tried again.

  ‘We could say that she nearly became an orphan, but her mother thought she mustn’t die and leave her alone.’

  Mabel glanced up at me quickly, and then went back to buttering bread. ‘Just don’t mention her father to her at all. Not a word, d’you understand? It would set her off again. Orphan, my God. She’ll never be that.’

  I helped to wheel the cycles out of the yard into Union Street. Mrs M’s rucksack was heavy with tins stuffed into the side pockets.

  ‘You’ll never eat all that on a picnic, the two of you.’

  ‘Grannie has a poor old friend across there, up the hill. She takes her things to eat and medicines for her cough. She lets me watch the cycles and play on the shore while she goes up.’

  ‘In wartime, it’s up to us to see the less fortunate don’t get left out,’ said Mrs M, bending down to lace up her boot.

  When the two of them were ready to mount, Mrs M leaned on her handlebars and told Jackie that her mother had been through a big adventure. The Germans had sunk her ship, but she was rescued in a tiny wee boat, safe and sound, and taken to Canada. Jackie smiled warily. I had expected her to ask a rush of questions. But she only watched our faces and said nothing. ‘No need to worry yourself for her,’ Mrs M added. Still nothing. As they rode off, I thought: like mother, like daughter.