… Your soft-heartedness will get you into trouble, one of these days …’ I think that perhaps they were right. I’ve been so stupid, so irresponsible, taking this risk for a cat, just because Millie was a bit unhappy.
* * *
I’m making my coffee at breakfast-time when I spill a jug of milk. Anxiety must be making me clumsy. I’m on my knees on the kitchen floor, wiping up the spillage, when there’s a crunch of boots on our gravel and a rapid knock at our door.
It’s one of the men from Les Vinaires, the spare dark man with the hollow face. His uniform, his nearness, make me immediately afraid. And mixed in with the fear, I have a sense of embarrassment, that I’m in my apron, a dishcloth in my hand, that he can see into my kitchen, which is messy with wet washing hung on the rail in front of the stove. I have some inchoate sense that I am letting the side down.
‘Good morning,’ he says. His English is very precise and measured. I can see him noticing my apron, and the pool of milk on the floor. ‘I’m afraid I may have come at an inconvenient time.’
I’m about to say, ‘That’s all right’, the automatic response to his concession. But it isn’t all right—nothing is all right. I bite my tongue to stop myself from speaking.
He puts out his hand. This shocks me. I think how they bombed the harbour when all our soldiers had gone; how they shot at the lorries so the petrol tanks would explode, when the men were sheltering under them; of Frank’s burnt and bleeding body. I shake my head; I push my hands in my pockets. I can’t believe he thought I’d be willing to shake his hand.
He lowers his hand, shrugs slightly.
‘I am Captain Max Richter,’ he says.
A sudden fear grabs at me. He has come here because I went out after the curfew. He saw me. My mouth is dry: my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.
He makes a small imperative gesture, wanting to know my name.
‘I’m Mrs de la Mare,’ I tell him.
He waits, expecting more, looking enquiringly over my shoulder into the house.
‘Four of us live here—me, and my daughters, and my mother-in-law,’ I tell him, in answer to his unspoken question.
From my front door you can see into the living room. I notice him looking in that direction; I turn. Evelyn is in her chair, watching everything. He inclines his head, acknowledging her. She gives him a look as barbed as a fish-hook, then lowers her eyes.
‘And your husband?’ he asks me.
‘My husband is away with the army,’ I say.
He nods.
‘We will be your neighbours now, Mrs de la Mare,’ he says.
‘Yes.’
‘Now—you know the rules, I think.’
There’s a hard set to his face when he says this, his mouth thin as the slash of a razor. I find myself wishing that it had been the other officer who came—the scarred one. Thinking that perhaps he’d be less harsh than this man, and less correct and remote.
‘Yes,’ I say.
‘You know about the curfew.’
‘Yes.’
My heart races off. I see myself being taken away, imprisoned. And my children—what will happen to my children? I still have my hands in my pockets. I dig my nails into my palms, to try and stop myself from trembling.
‘We hope for a quiet life here—all of us,’ he says.
‘We do too. Of course.’ My voice is too high, too eager. I sound naive, like a girl.
‘Don’t put us in a difficult position,’ he says.
‘No, we won’t,’ I say.
His cool, rather cynical gaze is on me. There’s something about his look that tells me he saw me in the lane.
‘I’m glad we understand one another,’ he says.
He lowers his hand towards his belt. Fear has me by the throat: I think he is going to take out his gun. But he pulls something out of his pocket.
‘This must be yours, I think,’ he says. ‘Perhaps it belongs to one of your girls.’
I see what he has in his hand. Relief undoes me, making me shaky and weak. It’s the ball with coloured stripes on, which Millie lost over the hedge. A little mirthless, hysterical laughter bubbles up in my throat: I swallow hard.
‘Oh. Well. Thank you …’
I stare at the ball. I take it. I don’t know what else to say.
‘I also have daughters, Mrs de la Mare,’ he says.
There’s a brief note of yearning in his voice. This startles me.
‘You must miss them,’ I say, immediately. Because he does—I can tell. Then I wonder why I said that, why I was sympathetic like that. I’m cross with myself—I don’t have to make any concessions, don’t have to give him anything. I feel entirely lost: I don’t know the right way to behave.
His gaze flicks back to my face. I know he can read my confusion. Everything’s messy, all mixed up in my head—the fear I feel, the stern set of his face when he talked about the curfew; and now his kindness in bringing back the ball.
‘Well, then. Good morning, Mrs de la Mare. Remember the curfew,’ he says, and turns.
I close the door rapidly. I feel exposed, in some way I couldn’t articulate or define. There are little red crescents in my palms, where I pushed my nails into my skin.
‘Vivienne.’ Evelyn is calling for me.
I go to her.
‘The Hun came in the house,’ she says. ‘You opened the door to the Hun.’
She’s agitated. She puts down her knitting; her crêpey hands flutter like little pale birds.
‘Evelyn—I couldn’t not open the door. The man’s living at Les Vinaires now.’
‘Fraternising is an ugly word. An ugly word for an ugly deed,’ she tells me severely.
‘Evelyn, I wasn’t fraternising. But we have to be civil. Stay on the right side of them. They could do anything to us …’
She’s implacable.
‘You’re a soldier’s wife, Vivienne. You need to show some backbone. If he comes to the door again, don’t you go letting him in.’
‘No. I won’t, I promise.’
‘Never let them in,’ she says. Ardent. ‘Never let them in.’ As though the maxim is something to cling to amid all the chaos of life.
She
