Magnolia Square (41 page)

‘He won’t be alive for much longer if you don’t get that winch off him!’ someone shouted. ‘And it’ll have to be prised up and off him, it can’t be
lifted off, not without a crane!’

Leon was on his knees beside Mavis. ‘You get out,’ he said to her tersely, ‘I’m going to try and prise the weight up long enough for him to be dragged free.’

‘An’ ’ow the ’ell are
you
goin’ to then get out from under?’ Mavis asked, wriggling back out of the shadow of the winch, her face chalk-white.
‘Do ’ave a bit o’ sense, Leon. The fire brigade will be ’ere in a tick and—’

‘Get him out! Get him out! What’s everyone standing around for? Why isn’t anyone doing anything?’

At the sound of the harsh, authoritative voice Leon’s head spun round.

‘’E can’t be got out,’ a spectator from the pavement informed Joss Harvey helpfully. ‘Anyone tryin’ to get ’im out will be crushed as well.’

‘Someone’s rung for the fire brigade,’ someone else proffered, ‘but I don’t think he’ll last. He’s bleeding from his mouth. He must be hurt horrid bad
inside.’

The winch creaked, seeming to settle even heavier, and there were fresh screams from the women standing on the pavement.

Leon began to scramble out of his jacket. ‘The fire brigade will get me out,’ he said in answer to Mavis’s question. ‘If this chap stays under that weight any longer,
injured as he is, he’s going to be dead by the time they get here. I won’t be.’

‘I wouldn’t bank on it, mate,’ Burt, Mavis’s driver said pessimistically. ‘Still, if you think you can hold it off him, I’ll drag him out. I’ve had
plenty of practice. I was an ARP warden during the war.’

As Leon lay flat on his back on the ground, preparing to ease himself under the winch beside the unconscious Hemmings, Joss Harvey dropped to one knee beside him, his camel-coat trailing in the dust of the road.

‘It’ll take more than one man,’ he said tersely. ‘I’ve still got a lot of power in my arms. Let me try and lift from the other side at the same time.’

Leon blinked, wondering if he was hallucinating. Joss Harvey was a great-grandfather, for the Lord’s sake! And even if he wasn’t, he was far too heavily built to squeeze into the
narrow gap between the monstrous weight of the winch and the road.

‘You couldn’t do it,’ he said tersely. ‘What you can do is give a hand hauling Mr Hemmings out when I give the word.’

Before Joss Harvey could protest, or make any more ridiculous suggestions, he carefully manoeuvred himself into a position where he could get the flat of his hands beneath the underside of the
winch. And then he pushed with all his might and main. And kept on pushing.

It was already getting dark and it was bitingly cold. Kate held her cherry-red coat close to her throat and wished she hadn’t left the house in such a hurry that
she’d left without putting a scarf on. Where might Jack be? Bob Giles had said he had last seen him striding away across the Heath in the general direction of Greenwich. She thought of all
the pubs in Greenwich and felt a surge of despair. Her search could well take her all night and even then might not be successful.

‘Perhaps you should wait to talk to him until he comes home,’ Harriet had suggested when she had explained the problem and asked her if she would look after the children for her.

Kate had shaken her head. She knew Jack. And she knew from what Bob Giles had told her of his encounter with him that Jack would now be in a pub somewhere. Once he was drunk, talking to him
would be an impossibility, and she had to talk to him. She had to tell him all the things Christina had longed to tell him and had never succeeded in telling him. As she reached the foot of Maze
Hill, at the bottom right-hand corner of Greenwich Park, she hesitated. Opposite her was Greenwich Park Street, which would take her into the heart of old Greenwich and the cluster of pubs around
Greenwich Pier. To her left was Park Vista, a narrow road which faced the bottom wall of the park and which boasted a pub, The Plume and Feathers. It wasn’t a pub anyone in Magnolia Square
ever patronized in the winter, being a little too far to walk in bad weather, but they did patronize it in the summer, calling in for an early evening drink after a picnic or a cricket match in the
park. If Jack were going to drink anywhere in Greenwich, he would very likely do so in The Plume.

Three minutes later, she was pushing open The Plume’s door. The minute she stepped inside the low-beamed saloon bar, relief swamped her. He was sitting alone in an inglenook, a half-drunk
glass of brandy on the table before him, tension in every line of his hard-muscled body. He looked up at her approach, surprise flaring in his eyes.

‘It’s all right, Jack, I’m not out on the loose,’ she said, sitting down beside him. ‘Mr Giles said you’d headed off in the direction of Greenwich, and I
thought you might be here.’

‘Don’t try and commiserate,’ he said abruptly. ‘There’s nothing you can say that can help make sense of what Tina’s done.’

‘Oh yes there is,’ she unbuttoned her coat, knowing very well all the false assumptions he had come to, ‘but it’s going to take me quite some time to say it.’

‘And is it going to make any difference?’ There was sarcasm as well as raw bitterness in his voice.

‘Oh yes,’ she said with quiet confidence, grateful for the heat of the inglenook’s fire, ‘it’s going to make all the difference in the world.’

‘Emily’s here again,’ Ruth was saying to her harassed husband. ‘I know you have a lot on your mind at the moment, darling, but I really do think you
should talk to her. She says it’s very, very urgent.’

Jack pushed his brandy to the far side of the small table. Christ, what a fool he’d been! Christina
had
tried to tell him all the things Kate had just told him. He
remembered her words to him after they had made love on the last morning of his leave; she had said there were things she wanted to say to him, things that wouldn’t be easy for her to put
into words, and then she had told him how, ever since the war had ended, she had been thinking more and more about her mother and grandmother. And how had he responded? He groaned, running his
fingers through his thick shock of curly hair. Crassly, that was how. It had never even occurred to him she was hoping and praying her mother and grandmother were still alive. He had told her that
that particular nightmare was over and that she had no need ever to think of it again. And then, whilst she had been struggling to tell him of the guilt and misery she was feeling at having denied
her religion and culture, he had breezily told her she was now a south-London girl.

‘I’m not,’ she had said, ‘I’m a German. A German Jew.’ And even then he hadn’t realized the enormity of what she had been trying to convey to him.
Thinking he was reassuring her, unwittingly making the situation far, far worse, he had glibly told her he no more thought of her as being Jewish than he thought of her as being German. He groaned
again. Dear God in heaven! It was no wonder she’d given up on the attempt to make him understand, especially as he had then left her alone with her mental torment and had gone downstairs to
eat a kipper breakfast!

He looked at his watch, his mind racing. The sooner he set off after her, the better. He’d have to fiddle some travel papers and get hold of some cash. The cash bit was easy enough as he
had all his demob money, as to travel papers – he’d fiddled far more than travel papers in his time. Adrenalin began to race through his veins. With luck, he’d be across the
Channel by midnight and in Heidelberg even before she was.

‘Don’t bother walking me back to Magnolia Square,’ Kate said, reading his thoughts. ‘Christina will probably be in Cologne tonight, with Miss Marshall. After that
she’ll be on her own. The sooner you meet up with her, the better.’

He rose speedily to his feet, flashing her his down-slanting smile. ‘You’re an angel, Kate Emmerson. Has anyone ever told you?’

‘Not this last half-hour or so,’ Kate said with a wry smile, her thoughts already skeetering back to her own problems. Would Leon be waiting for her at home? Would he have succeeded
in waylaying Joss Harvey, and what would have been the outcome if he had done so?

Jack leaned forward, kissed her on the cheek and then turned on his heel, striding for the door. Kate reached for his undrunk brandy. How would he get down to Dover? Hitch a lift? Borrow
Ted’s motor bike? And once there, how would he get across the Channel? She sipped at the brandy. Jack had been in the Commandos for six years. He wouldn’t let a little thing like
crossing the Channel perturb him. If necessary, he’d steal a boat and sail it across single-handedly.

Wondering what Charlie was going to say when she broke the news to him that his demobbed son was en route for Germany, she finished the brandy and buttoned up her coat. By the time she had
walked back to Magnolia Square, he and Harriet would no longer be baby-sitting for her. Leon would be home and his news could well be nothing more dire than that Joss Harvey had refused to speak to
him. She stepped out of The Plume and Feathers’ cosy warmth into the biting December cold, grateful for the warming inner comfort of the brandy. One thing, at least, had gone right, and that
had been Jack’s reaction when she told him of all the feelings Christina had been keeping from him.

‘I can’t help being a
goy
, but if I’d known how Christina was going to feel about marrying in an Anglican church, I’d have happily settled for Lewisham Registry
Office,’ he had said passionately, ‘and if she’d wanted to celebrate Friday nights like the Jews in Whitechapel and Stepney do, having a special meal and candles and all that,
then that would have been fine by me!’

Kate increased her speed as she turned out of Park Vista and into Maze Hill. She didn’t want Leon to begin worrying about her, and she certainly didn’t want him to set off looking
for her. If it had been daylight she could have cut through the park. As it was, it was going to take her a good twenty minutes to get back home, even walking quickly.

By the time she was on home turf, walking briskly down Magnolia Terrace into the Square, she felt quite out of breath. How far on in her pregnancy was she now? Fourteen weeks? Fifteen? The baby
hadn’t started moving yet, but it would be doing so any day now. She loved those first, fluttery movements and the inexpressible feelings of tenderness they aroused in her. She turned the
corner leading into the Square and immediately, in the yellow light of the gas-lamps, saw the black taxi cab parked outside her house and the looming overcoated figure standing beside it.

‘What on earth . . .’ she whispered, her heart beginning to slam in hard, heavy strokes.

‘Kate?’ It was a long, long time since he had called her Kate; not since the early days of the war when she had agreed to Matthew being evacuated to his Somerset home and a semblance
of friendly politeness had existed between them. Why was he doing so now? Why was he outside her home, and why had he travelled by taxi? Where was his Bentley? She broke into a run, engulfed by
fear. Something had happened to Matthew! Why else would Joss Harvey be waiting for her with a face as sombre as that of an Old Testament prophet?

‘What is it?’ she demanded, distress cracking her voice as she ran towards him. ‘Why are you here? What’s happened to Matthew?’

‘Nothing’s happen to Matthew,’ Joss said bluntly. ‘He’s tucked up in bed and being baby-sat by the most efficient-looking woman it’s ever been my privilege to
meet.’

‘Then what . . .’ She came to a halt before him, the light of a hissing gas-lamp gleaming on the wheat-gold braid of her hair, her breath coming in harsh rasps, her bewilderment and
fear increasing.

‘It’s your husband,’ Joss said, taking her by the elbow and steering her towards the taxi cab. ‘He’s in Guy’s Hospital. He’s not seriously hurt. A
broken wrist, crushed ribs. But I knew you’d want to see him.’

‘Leon? But how . . .? Why . . .?’ She stumbled as he bundled her into the cab.

‘How?’ Joss said as he stepped into it after her, slamming the door behind him. ‘He saved Hemmings’s life by lifting what must have been a ten ton weight off him,
that’s how. As for why I’m here . . .’

The cab was already speeding past St Mark’s Church. From the adjoining church hall came the sound of Malcolm Lewis’s scouts practising carols ready for the Christmas Carol
Service.

‘. . . I’m here because I’m a man who respects courage, that’s why. Your husband may be a darkie, but he’s a brave man. Without him, I’d be looking for
another chauffeur.’

‘And he isn’t seriously hurt?’ Her voice was urgent, her heart hammering painfully.

‘No.’ Something suspiciously like a chuckle entered Joss Harvey’s gravel-rough voice. ‘He was fit enough to be able to ask me if I’d light a gasper for
him!’

As Kate sank back against the cracked leather of the taxi’s rear seat, weak with relief, a chorus of ‘Hark, the Herald Angels Sing’ echoed out of the lamp-lit Square and
followed them all the way down Magnolia Hill and into Lewisham.

The train rolled relentlessly on, through a plundered countryside crawling with the hungry and the homeless, bypassing ravaged, near-obliterated towns. Christina sat on a
musty-smelling seat, wedged between Miss Marshall and an over-friendly American GI.