Spitfire Girls (56 page)

How had he discovered the truth?

Delia had been suspicious of Anthony's story, but she had to admit that their physical resemblance was uncanny. She had pressed him for evidence and he had told her the even more remarkable story of his birth: their mother had been compelled to leave the family home when Seifert had become insane with alcoholism. Lord and Lady Newman had taken her in on a Friday, the eve of their most sacred
holiday, Yom Kippur, and had told her a child born on Sabbath Kol Nidre would have good fortune all his life.

And Anthony had indeed arrived during that night, after hours of agony for his mother. Certain of her impending death, the Brigadier's wife had confessed her transgression and begged them to tell Truman he had a son. She survived, however, and with the passage of a day was beseeching the kindly couple to keep her secret intact. Life with Seifert became intolerable, and the baby boy became wild and uncontrollable. Without money, and her mind a shambles, Anthony's mother had surrendered him to a children's home, her psyche too filled with shame and uncertainty to have considered the possibility of the childless Newmans adopting the boy. He would have been raised in the Jewish faith, and that would have damaged his future, she told herself. Late in life, the Newmans had a child of their own, a daughter, and when Barbara had come of age her mother had related the story of the baby Anthony, who had been born in their home on the Holiest of Holy Days.

Delia's Wellington surged on.

She hoped her brother would keep his story to himself. He had a propensity for animated and effusive narrative and she had asked him to exercise discretion. They had agreed it would do their parents little good to discuss the matter, and now, as the weather cleared and her bomber sailed along with glorious power, she vowed to swear Barbara Newman to secrecy. Life as a champion athlete had made the girl over-confident, and Delia wanted her family story silenced for ever. Brigadier Seifert had become benign in direct relation to the number of flights Delia had completed for ATA, and she did not wish to disturb his
quietude. She was glad mothering and romance never entered her train of thought. After all, Angelique's life had become painfully complicated due to her desires. Marion had had to leave ATA at the height of war, and Delia could see this as a result of silly desires.

Why did people marry?

She herself would be satisfied in the pilot's seat until she died.

Out of the corner of her eye Delia was startled by the approach of another Wellington. For a moment she thought it was a mirage or a weird optical illusion reflecting her own X9707 through one of the windows. Gradually the image grew more distinct and she remembered Alec Harborne having threatened to provide an escort, his chits requiring Wellingtons to and from various Maintenance Units all day. Delia was delighted and waved excitedly, but she could not be sure it was Alec or if in fact the pilot could see her happy gesture. Heavy weather was closing in, and following one of Shirley's thousand pointers, she veered away from the other bomber, only to see him in hot pursuit seconds later.

Delia's relaxation melted into a sweaty unease but she pressed on towards White Waltham and begged the Almighty to prevent womankind's first major four-engined-bomber assignment from ending in disaster.

‘By any stretch of the imagination, the whole thing is monstrous,' fumed Brigadier Seifert, his wife cowering on the edge of the dreary grey fabric that covered a well-worn sofa.

‘My darling, you were not meant to know – but the boy is on his way, and I want you to love him as I do,' she said, shaking within.

‘I would never be able to find love for human filth.'

‘He is a beautiful boy – so Delia tells me,' she said. ‘This is wartime. For God's sake – people reveal all their secrets when whole cities are burning before midnight. What does it matter, anyway? This was thirty years ago.'

He moved to the whisky decanter. ‘You were always an unloving slut and you bred me an unnatural daughter who behaves like a boy.'

‘Delia is your reason for living – you adore her!'

‘Could I ever be seen at my club, I ask you?' he boomed. ‘Dare I present myself at the Parish Council as Fleet Street's favourite cuckold?'

Listening at the door leading to the drawing-room of the Seiferts' sparse residence, Marion Harborne had heard the saga of Anthony unfolding and wondered if Delia had been exposed to any portion of the story. She had wanted to sleep, but the sounds of shouting awakened the heavily pregnant pilot, her stamina decreasing with each passing week of April 1942. She wanted the new life inside her to eclipse even the fever of war.

She thought of Delia in the Wellington. Alec had told her of the girl's historic first, and she was baffled by Delia's secrecy. Perhaps she had not wanted anyone to worry; Marion knew the four-engined bomber could be a daunting prospect and in unfamiliar circumstances could place the flier in great peril. Marion had moved down the stairs one by one and stopped outside the room in which Delia's parents raged: she could grasp a scenario about an affair on which Marion knew this withered woman had had every right to embark, her withering having started long years ago. Brief but unbridled, this affair had produced fruit equally volatile: talkative and violently energetic, Anthony had set sparks alight amongst all of women's ATA.

Passion, Marion theorized, was passion's inevitable product.

Had Hitler been conceived in rapture, she wondered?

Now the beauty and prolonged ecstasy of the Brigadier's wife had been putrefied by the newspapers during a war in which scholars were being hung on meat-hooks to die.

There was a sudden loud knocking and Marion stirred. She hadn't time to mount the stairs, and she watched wearily as her hostess moved slowly to the front door as if walking to her beheading. Anthony entered the hallway briskly, holding his cap and projecting an earthy, intensely masculine presence as his purple eyes surveyed the staircase.

‘Marion Harborne,' he exclaimed, striding to the figure crouching along the wooden banister.

‘I wasn't eavesdropping, Mrs Seifert, if that's what you were thinking,' she said pleadingly.

‘It's all in the press anyway,' the older woman said, turning away.

‘The woman's a slut!' Delia's father shouted from the drawing-room.

Marion looked on quietly as the boy and his mother, meeting for the first time in thirty years, embraced – her thin figure engulfed by his tall, robust newness. They remained in each other's arms for what seemed several minutes, and Marion feared the Brigadier's temper, which growled aimlessly a few feet away.

‘There is something I need to tell you, Mother,' he said, holding her face and studying it, his colourful expression bringing a pulse to her deadened veins. ‘Would you excuse us, Marion?'

Lifting her heavy abdomen with her hands, Marion rose from the steps and Anthony moved to help.

‘I'll be fine,' she said, mounting the stairs.

Mother and son entered the drawing-room and Marion stopped once more, settling on a middle step. There was an eerie silence – no explosion from the Brigadier, just a strange stillness. She could barely hear Anthony's voice, and the urge to eavesdrop compelled her to move without standing, sliding down on her bottom until she had reached the base of the staircase.

‘Two ATA Wellingtons collided – it was all very quick, and there was little suffering,' she could hear him murmuring. Her heart began to race with blind alacrity and she could no longer hear the unbelievable because Mrs Seifert's hideous sobs were drowning out her own as she cried out for:

‘Alec, Alec …'

‘This is going to ruin our word games,' said Friedrich Kranz, packing a large suitcase full of books.

Watching his movements, Raine Fischtal focused and snapped a photograph. ‘I think it is very unjust,' she said, winding the film to the next exposure.

‘You just hate the idea of Jews being freed and real Deutsch being kept imprisoned,' he asserted, grinning.

‘May I keep your old neckties?' Zuki asked, rummaging through Kranz's detritus.

‘Of course,' Kranz replied. ‘Just think: someday you will be offered British citizenship and on the day you are sworn in you will be seen wearing a Cambridge tie. Mark my words that this will happen.'

‘Nonsense,' Zuki said glumly, ‘we are to be exterminated very soon.'

‘The British would not be so stupid,' Raine said, still snapping from different angles. ‘We will be given important jobs and perhaps the Americans will buy our freedom.'

Grunberg listened in silence, ecstatic that the day had finally come. His gargantuan project on the Blood Libel was nearing completion, and he was hopeful of a publisher. His months interned had passed without trauma because he had been allowed to exercise his brain. This had not been the case for Hartmut Weiss, whose internment had been a nightmare of boredom; he had fought daily for permission to be freed to fly for the RAF, or at the very least for ATA, but the authorities had scoffed. His brawn
had been assigned to haulage duty, and he had begun keeping a record of the number of bags of camp garbage his arms had lifted in thirteen months of captivity.

Throughout their time in the Isle of Man detention centre, Raine and the four men – Hartmut, Zuki, Friedrich and André – had developed a rhythmic relationship in which waves of bad temper were overtaken by periods of intense humour, characterized by ingenious word games and political debates the Nazis always won. In one of their most heated arguments, Raine had predicted Britain would be the next location for a National Socialist regime. A camp guard had joined this organized affray, asserting that foreigners and African tribesmen would colonize the British Isles and by the 1990s ruthless money-grabbers would rule the Kingdom and hordes of young neo-Nazis would terrorize the streets. Friedrich always became hysterical at these debates, his truculence making the others laugh as he predicted a gentle England overrun with university towns and human rights organizations, neutral like Switzerland but quaint as a giant Norfolk …

‘You have visitors,' a guard announced, reaching for Friedrich's suitcase.

‘I suppose this is goodbye until we meet in Utopia,' Raine said, smiling.

Friedrich had grown fond of the Nazi film-maker, her yearning to see Edith Allam manifested in the small snapshot she had kept pinned to her headboard through the long, frustrating months. Hartmut had asked Raine for a copy, but he had been unsuccessful and could often be
found staring at the faded likeness for whole afternoons, and evenings, and mornings before sunrise.

Grunberg's picture of Nijinski had been removed by guards shortly after his arrival, but Zuki's portrait of Hitler had remained in place. When a small contingent of detainees had been transferred to a location on the English mainland the close quintet had been overjoyed that the authorities were not separating their group. Sadly, however, Grunberg had stopped receiving letters. He became convinced his mail was not being forwarded from the Isle of Man and had vivid imaginings about news from Stella being incinerated.

‘It's an entourage,' muttered Zuki, peering out of a barracks window.

They had not been given the location of their new encampment, but Hartmut's calculations, based on the length of their transfer trip, placed them in East Anglia. This had been confirmed when copies of the
Anglian Press
had begun appearing around the compound. Their luxury accommodation was a country house, and Friedrich had asserted on the day of their arrival that they were on the verge of liberation.

Friedrich became apprehensive as voices approached. He had been informed only the night before that he was ‘to be released along with the other Jew'. Britain had decided they could be of better use as free men, despite their German origins, and Grunberg had invited Kranz to Cambridge. Hartmut wanted to escape to the nearest airfield to fly once more, and now all three men waited anxiously for the truck that would transport them to freedom.

‘Ready to go?' asked a pompous voice. Tim Haydon
had arrived ahead of the liberation party, a photographer at his heels.

‘I take pictures – why do you need him?' smirked Raine, scrutinizing the man's camera.

‘This is a Leica,' said Stan Bialik, moving to let her have a closer look.

‘Probably the one stolen from me when I arrived in England,' she said.

‘I'm from Philly, honey,' he said meekly, ‘so I couldn't have stolen your stuff.' He looked at Raine more closely. ‘I remember you! Raine Fischtal!'

Raine stepped back and her face flushed. ‘You were the projectionist?' she said. ‘Do you know what has happened to Edith Allam?'

‘I'm here,' said a voice. Edith's smartly uniformed figure entered the sedately furnished room and offered a gloved hand to the dishevelled German film-maker. Raine felt ashamed, her hair having gone grey and her clothes in tatters as she had forgotten real life in the endless months of nothingness.

‘This is a surprise,' Raine said politely, her heart racing.

‘What do you think of Stan, huh?' asked Edith. ‘Both my guys are here, and now they tell me Molly and Kelvin are here with the first of the US forces. It's the whole Philly crowd back in one place!'

Raine became subdued, her face acquiring an odd, glassy stare as she listened to the vivacious aviatrix.

Edith turned to face Hartmut. She was mortified that nothing stirred inside her, his taut, muscular presence only made her want to avert her gaze. He had not moved from the far end of the room, and she let her eyes return to
Raine. How strange that the small German still inspired excitement, Edith reflected; she regretted her task, which would leave Zuki and Raine behind and bring Hartmut back to the real sex he craved. Edith was not sure she could fulfil his needs and she let her eyes roam once again, letting them fall upon an
Anglian Press
.