The Collaborator (30 page)

‘M
um, why are we having porridge?’ says Blanche.

‘I had a bit of oatmeal left. I thought we might as well eat it up,’ I tell her vaguely.

‘Mmm. I like porridge. D’you remember before the Occupation, when we used to have porridge every day?’ she asks me.

But it’s becoming harder to remember that time—before the Occupation.

When Blanche has gone to work, and Millie is playing in the garden, and Evelyn is knitting in the living room, I fetch a tray and put out food for Kirill. To pour on the porridge, there’s creamy milk in a jug, and I’m going to give him some Golden Syrup I’ve saved. I’d been keeping it for Millie, in case she ever had to take some bitter medicine; there’s just a scraping at the bottom of the tin. I spoon it out, and watch as it falls in the bowl, gorgeously sticky and gilded. All the time I’m listening out for the horse and cart, for Johnnie.

There’s a knock at my front door—then someone walks straight in, not waiting for me to answer. Relief floods me. It must be Johnnie. I’m surprised I didn’t hear the cart: he must have thought it safest to leave it further down the lane.

I put the tray down on the kitchen table. I come out of my kitchen, step into my passageway.

Gunther is there. He has a loaf of bread in his hand. He looks immediately uncertain—reading something in me.

‘I didn’t wait for you to come to the door,’ he tells me, in a lowered voice. He’s studying my face—worrying that he’s done the wrong thing and upset me. ‘There was a woman walking her dog in the lane.’

Probably Clemmie Renouf, I think. Long, long ago, in another life, I might have been alarmed.

‘I know you would prefer she didn’t see me at your door,’ he says.

‘Yes. Thank you.’

‘Vivienne. I know you don’t like me coming here in the day. But I was worried about you …’

I wish he wouldn’t keep apologising like this.

‘You don’t need to worry about us. But that’s very thoughtful,’ I say.

My voice sounds unfamiliar to me, as though it is someone else’s voice.

He comes into the kitchen, puts the bread down on the table.

‘You said you were short of food, and I thought this might help,’ he tells me.

There’s a sliver of doubt in his voice. I see his gaze falling on all the food on the tray.

‘That’s so kind of you,’ I say again.

My tone is all wrong—formal, constrained. As though I scarcely know him. As though our loving was just a dream that I’d had.

‘Are you sure you’re all right, Vivienne?’ he asks me. ‘Yes, I’m fine,’ I tell him.

My hands are shaking: I push them into my apron pockets, hide them.

‘How is your mother-in-law?’ he says.

‘She’s much the same. Thank you for asking.’

He’s still staring quizzically at the tray. I know I have to explain.

‘I was just taking some breakfast up to her bedroom for her,’ I say.

‘I hope she feels better soon. I do think you should ask a doctor to examine her.’ ‘Yes. I will.’

‘Darling.’ Speaking very softly now. ‘There was something else. I’m afraid I can’t come ‘round tonight—I have a late meeting,’ he says.

I nod. I hope he can’t read my relief in my face. ‘Well—thank you so much for the bread,’ I say. ‘My pleasure,’ he says.

I follow him out to my door. He leaves quickly. I close the door behind him.

I turn; and feel the drumbeats of disaster through my body. I stand transfixed in the passageway. I try to recall just where he was standing, when first he stepped through my door—try so desperately to remember. Could he have seen straight past me? Did he see into the living room? Did he see Evelyn there, knitting briskly, looking perfectly well?

K
irill stirs as I go in. Sunlight slants through the uncurtained dormer windows, golden and thick as honey and dense with motes of dust, looking as though it might feel solid if you touched it; while the substantial things in the attic have an indistinct, unreal look—the blanket chest, the bed, the man who lies in the bed.

He stares around him. At first he has a look of utter confusion.

‘Kirill. It’s Vivienne,’ I say gently. ‘You’re staying with me now, remember? You’re not in the camp any more.’

I sit on the blanket chest and wait for him to wake properly. In the brightness of the morning light, I can see a den that Millie and Simon have made, with a moth-eaten curtain I found for them, draped across a clothes-horse; and there’s a broken old doll that’s been put to bed in a box—this looks like Millie’s handiwork. I wonder whether Millie sometimes comes here to play on her own. I know I will have to speak to her.

Kirill sits up shakily. I prop the pillows behind him.

‘You are so kind, Vivienne.’

I see the lilac stains of illness around his mouth and his eyes.

‘I’ve brought you some breakfast,’ I tell him. I spoon treacle onto his porridge, pour milk. He watches the swirl of milk on the porridge, the opulence of the syrup.

‘Is he here yet, Vivienne?’

‘No. Not yet. But he’ll come,’ I say. ‘I trust him. I’ve known him for years.’

‘I thought someone came,’ he says. ‘When I was still sleeping. I thought your friend had come then.’

‘It was someone else,’ I tell him. ‘But don’t worry. You’ll be safe here.’

‘I don’t want to put you in danger,’ he says. ‘When you have been so kind to me.’

‘You just rest and get yourself well again. Don’t worry about us,’ I say.

Millie is in the garden, skipping and chanting breathily.

The lawn needs cutting; the long grass is lustrous with dew, and so are all the flowering weeds that grow there—yarrow, dandelion, white clover. Everything is glittering.

‘Millie.’

I startle her, break her concentration. She stumbles over the rope.

‘Mummy.
You made me trip.’ Accusingly. Her face is flushed, her voice is full of breath. Her brown hair shines like a seal’s pelt in the brightness.

‘Sorry, sweetheart. But I need to tell you something important.’

She waits, the skipping rope trailing from her hand, still resentful that I broke her rhythm. She’s wearing her summer sandals and the straps are dark with wet. Around her, I can see the cross-stitch patterning of her footprints, where with all her skipping and jumping she’s crushed the brilliant grass.

I bend to her, speaking very quietly.

‘Millie. I don’t want you playing in the back attic today.’

She’s puzzled.

‘I wasn’t going to anyway, Mummy,’ she says. ‘All right. But just promise me anyway.’ ‘I promise,’ she says.

Behind her, climbing nasturtiums flare on the walls of my house, orange as tongues of flame, as though little fires have been set there.

‘And it has to be a secret,’ I tell her. ‘Just do as I say. Don’t tell Blanche or Evelyn or anyone.’ A small smile plays on her lips.

‘One of
those
secrets, Mummy? Just you and me?’ she says. ‘Yes.’

But I wonder if I have misjudged this. I know that she suspects that this is something to do with Kirill. Perhaps I should
have kept quiet and hoped for the best; or perhaps I should have been open, told her everything. I don’t know what the right path is. I don’t know how to keep her safe any more.

I
listen out for the horse and cart all morning, my hearing acute, missing nothing; but Johnnie doesn’t come. The morning stretches on for ever. My heart is pounding, pounding. I can’t settle to anything. I busy myself preparing lunch; but the smell of boiling vegetables makes me feel sick.

Around noon, I hear footsteps coming rapidly up to my door, crunching in the gravel. Relief floods me. I’m sure, so sure, it’s Johnnie. I rush to open the door. ‘Oh,’ I say.

It’s Piers Falla. I stare at him—his twisted body, his eyes that see right into you. I can tell he’s been rushing—his black hair is glued to his forehead, his face is glossy with sweat.

‘Piers. What are you doing here?’

But I know. I can tell from his face: which is at once hard and stricken.

‘It’s Johnnie. The bastards have got him. He’s been arrested,’ he says.

My heart leaps into my throat. ‘Oh God.’

My first thought is that this is my doing—because I asked Johnnie for help. That this disaster is all my fault.

‘They came yesterday evening.’ Piers’ voice is bitter. He turns a little away from me, wanting to hide what he feels. I see his face in profile, the fierce shape of his nose and his brow that makes me think of a bird of prey. ‘They found that shotgun of Brian’s.’

I stare at him. It’s not as I thought. For a moment I don’t understand.

‘There was this gun that belonged to his brother,’ says Piers. ‘They’re having a clampdown on wirelesses. Some two-faced rat must have tipped them off. Someone must have told them there was a wireless at Elm Tree Farm. So the bastards came to his house, and they ransacked his room.’

‘I thought he’d buried the gun,’ I say. ‘Gwen talked about it. She said she’d make sure he buried it.’

Piers shakes his head, despairing.

‘He’d hidden it under his bed. He kept all Brian’s things with him. Johnnie can be such a bloody idiot at times.’

His voice is striped with scars. I can hear just how much he loves Johnnie.

‘What happened?’ I say. ‘Did they hurt him?’ Not meaning that exactly: meaning more than that. My heart thudding, hurting my chest.

‘He’s in the prison at St Peter Port,’ Piers tells me.

I feel a rush of relief, that at least he’s still alive.

‘But—what will they do?’ My throat seals shut. I can scarcely form the words. ‘Piers—will they shoot him?’

‘Depends,’ says Piers curtly. ‘It depends on what?’

He makes a slight gesture that would be a shrug, if it weren’t for all the pain behind it.

‘And Gwen? Is Gwen all right?’ I ask.

He gives me a small cold look. I can tell he despises me, that I am asking all these stupid questions.

‘Well—what do you think?’ he asks me.

I’m desperate to see her—but I can’t go, I can’t leave the house.

I reach my hand a little way across the space between us, as a drowning person might reach, in a scrabbling, desperate gesture.

‘Piers.’ I lower my voice to a whisper. ‘I’ve got Kirill here. Kirill from the work camp. I’ve got him in my attic.’

‘That’s what I’ve come about. You’ll have to keep him,’ he says.

There’s an edge of steel in his voice. Behind him, I hear the insects around the fruit on my pear tree, buzzing and crackling, like sugar overheating in a pan. Everything sounds dangerous to me.

‘Johnnie said—just for one night.’ I hear the tremor in my voice. ‘He said you’d need to move him on, to your safe house in St Sampson.’

He shakes his head briefly.

‘We can’t possibly move him now,’ he says. ‘Not when they’ve got their eye on us.’

In the glimmery silence between us, I hear Millie from the garden round the back of the house:
‘In came the doctor, in came the nurse,
In came the lady with the alligator purse …’

Her voice rises up like a bright balloon. A chill passes through me, in spite of all the lavish warmth of the sun.

‘Piers—I’ve got children,’ I say.

‘You wanted to help Kirill.’ His mouth is set in a thin line, unrelenting.

‘Of course I did. Of course I do.’ ‘Well, then.’

This lad is all I have—the only one who can help me: this harsh boy, with the face of a kestrel, who scarcely knows me but guessed the truth about me. This boy who would have painted a swastika on the wall of my house.

‘But I don’t do things like this. I’m not a hero,’ I say.

My voice seems to echo in the hollow rooms of my memory. I think how Gunther once spoke the very same words.

‘Well, maybe you’re going to have to be one,’ says Piers, dryly. ‘Just keep him. Someone will come.’

‘When? When will someone come?’

‘It could be a week,’ he tells me.

‘I’m frightened,’ I say. And immediately regret that I said that. Whatever this boy is, he isn’t weak. I don’t think he understands weakness.

‘Live with it, Mrs de la Mare.’ His voice is rough as sandpaper, scraping my skin. ‘All across the world now, people are bleeding and dying. You can put up with being a little bit
frightened!

I don’t say anything.

‘You know what to do,’ he tells me.

Then, as though he’s ashamed of his outburst, he reaches towards me and puts a hand on my arm. I feel all his warmth through the flimsy sleeve of my blouse.

‘You’re stronger than you think,’ he says. ‘Just keep him. Someone will come.’

He turns and leaves me.

Kirill is in the bed, half asleep, the blankets pressed to his face.

I kneel on the floor beside him. ‘Kirill.’

He opens his eyes, sees me.

‘There’s something you need to know. There’s been a change of plan,’ I tell him. ‘That boy who was coming—the boy I knew—he isn’t coming today.’

I notice how I’ve used the past tense—
the boy I knew.

‘Has something gone wrong, Vivienne?’ he asks me.

‘It’s nothing to worry about,’ I say. ‘They’ll just have to send someone else.’

‘When, Vivienne? When will it be?’

‘We don’t know exactly,’ I tell him. ‘It might take a few days. You’ll be safe here …’

I see something surprising in his face—not the fear I was expecting, but a letting-go, an overwhelming relief. Yet at once I understand why he feels this—knowing he won’t have to stir from this bed, that he can just stay here, dozing in the slanting beams of sunlight. That he is at peace for the first time since the Germans broke into his house—long, long ago, in another world, in the early morning dark of Belorussia. That he doesn’t have to fight each moment just to stay alive, that he can lie here
and listen to the murmur of the pigeons on the rooftop, and dream of his forests, his rivers, of the wooden houses where the storks make their nests. ‘Thank you, Vivienne.’

He sighs, leans back on the pillows. Sleep comes to him abruptly, like the closing of a door.