You'll Never See Me Again Page 12

  Besides, Mabel doubted Carsten daydreamed about her; she’d asked him once if he had a sweetheart back home, but he’d just laughed and said he’d been too busy studying to see any girls.

  She told herself that she was just being silly, thinking like a schoolgirl not a grown woman. But that didn’t stop her heart skipping a beat when he was at the door of her cottage or, like now, when she knew he was coming in for lunch with them.

  Clara did most of the talking over lunch, asking Carsten about men she had in her art class, some of whom she felt were talented artists. Carsten had been going to her class, as he liked drawing, but he’d stopped once he came to Willow Cottage to work, in case Clara was seen to be favouring him.

  ‘Dieter’s art is getting darker and darker,’ she said, talking about one of the men that shared Carsten’s hut. ‘How do you find him? Do you notice him having problems?’

  ‘Many of the men have problems, they are scarred by what they’ve seen and frightened they will never get home. They have bad dreams. Maybe it is good for Dieter to paint and draw darkness, then he can let it go.’

  ‘When you were in the class you drew horses, flowers, beautiful landscapes. You weren’t affected in this way?’

  ‘All people are different,’ Carsten said with a shrug. ‘I am lucky that I come here, working in a garden. As the snowdrops and other flowers push out, I can feel the bad memories fading. And I can talk to you too, that is good.’ He paused for a moment, a cloud crossing his handsome face. ‘I think we are losing the war, now the Americans have come, and soon it will all end. It will be hard to go home, knowing it was all for nothing, and to see my country in trouble. I am not bitter about this, but Dieter is. He feels betrayed. They won’t let him work outside the camp because of this. So his only way to show what is in his heart is through his painting.’

  ‘You have a great understanding of people,’ Clara said. ‘I hope you use that when you go home. You could be a psychiatrist.’

  She had to explain what that was, by calling it a ‘doctor of the mind’.

  He smiled and said he doubted he was clever enough, and anyway Germany would need engineers, chemists, farmers and builders. He didn’t think anyone would go to a doctor of the mind.

  The conversation moved on then to the influenza epidemic, which appeared to be spreading.

  ‘I spoke to Dr Silby at the camp,’ Clara said. ‘He told me the epidemic is worse in America, but so far in England it is only in small pockets and people are recovering. But he thinks it will become much worse, and they have nothing to treat it.’

  ‘I read the other day that the people who are catching it aren’t those who are usually the most vulnerable – the old and the very young – but young adults in the twenty-to-thirty age group,’ Mabel said. She hadn’t been alarmed at this; it all seemed far too distant from them.

  ‘We’ll be alright, I’m sure,’ Clara said soothingly. ‘We don’t have much contact with other people. We are all healthy. And besides, I haven’t heard of one case round here. Only a few in Southampton.’

  ‘Some soldiers in France have caught it,’ Carsten said. ‘If it is very infectious, and if they bring it home on crowded trains, it will spread.’

  ‘Dr Silby said they were putting suspected cases into quarantine in France. But the doctors don’t know enough about the disease, the incubation period and so forth, to get to grips with it.’ Clara shuddered. ‘Let’s move on from this subject to something more comforting, like apple pie and custard. How lucky you checked the shed, Carsten, or we might have lost the remainder of the apples.’

  As March went by, and the days grew longer and warmer, Mabel had never felt happier. She liked Clara a great deal and she was easy to work for, very appreciative and fun too. Sometimes on a fine afternoon Mabel would take the spare bicycle from the shed and explore the area. She loved going into Dorchester, especially to the public gardens, which were now bright with daffodils. She bought material for a new dress with her wages and used Clara’s sewing machine to run it up. It was Clara’s opinion that Mabel didn’t need to remain in full mourning. But to avoid risking public condemnation, she picked a pale grey with a thin white stripe. She bought a straw boater too and trimmed it with white ribbon. It felt so good to be wearing something other than black, now the sun was shining.

  She loved her little cottage, especially now the weather was growing warmer. With her wages she bought little things to make it more homely, and she loved waking each morning to birdsong in the garden. Yet one of her greatest pleasures was to sit by the stove in the evening and read a book she’d borrowed from Clara’s vast collection. She realized that, all her life up till now, she’d rarely had any quiet moments to please herself. In the past there had been the mending of fishing nets, darning socks, washing, cleaning and cooking. Since Martin enlisted, she’d had Agnes on her back constantly. Sometimes being answerable to no one was such a good feeling.

  But most fine afternoons when Carsten was there, she helped him in the garden. As she didn’t know much about flowers – she’d only ever helped her father with vegetables on his allotment – she took the lead from Carsten, who seemed to know everything.

  ‘Not really,’ he laughed when she said this. ‘I just know weeds. The flowers will be a surprise to me.’

  Mabel wrote to Mrs Hardy every two weeks and really enjoyed getting the gossip back about how unpopular Mr Bedford and his family were with the neighbours. So far, two maids had left in a hurry, and now the cook was leaving too. She said Mrs Bedford had asked Mrs Tweed to come back, and she’d taken sweet pleasure in refusing.

  Writing to the housekeeper always made Mabel think about Nora, and sometimes she was tempted to write to her. But she resisted. She could never be what Nora wanted, and they couldn’t be comfortable as friends after what had happened.

  She wished too that she had someone in Hallsands who could tell her how things were there. The guilt at what she’d done hadn’t gone away, and she still worried about Martin. Many a night she thought back to how sweet it had been between them when they first got married, and she wondered if he had any memory of that time at all. There was also the niggling worry that one day she might be asked for proof of her identity. She couldn’t show anything, and that would look very suspicious.

  Yet even greater than all these worries was the fear that she was falling in love with Carsten. She wanted him physically, dreaming of what it would be like to sleep with him or to hold him close. Sometimes the dreams were so real that she woke in a state of excitement.

  He liked her too, she knew that for certain, yet he never said or did anything that would allow her to take the initiative. She told herself this was because he knew he couldn’t stay here when the war ended, and she couldn’t go to Germany. Perhaps, too, he was worried she would be condemned locally. But Clara had told her other prisoners at the camp were having relationships with local women, although she was at pains to point out they were ‘lowly sorts’, so why wouldn’t Carsten at least kiss her?

  All she felt she could do was make herself as attractive as possible. She washed her hair far more than she used to, and she let it dry in the sun, so it grew shiny and curlier. Clara had said her hair was too pretty to tie back severely, so she tied it back when working in the house, then in the afternoons outside, she let it loose. Sadly, her hair did nothing to lure Carsten, nor did the dabs of lavender oil behind her ears. One very warm day, she opened her bodice and showed an inch of cleavage, but that achieved nothing. She didn’t think he even noticed.

  Yet Carsten noticed everything else! He was the most observant and intuitive person she’d ever met. A cut on her hand, a cat walking though the garden, Clara with a new hat, he saw them all. But it was more than that; he knew how people’s minds worked and why they did things. He told Clara one day that her art had become like a shield to keep people at a distance. Later, Mabel asked her what she thought of his remark, and Clara admitted it was true.

  ‘I’ve had my fingers burne
d with two men, Mabel. They were rather more interested in my money than my looks and personality. I began to paint more after the last man, working into the night quite often. I think a psychiatrist would call it “displacement activity”.’ She laughed as she said this, but Mabel sensed she didn’t really see anything funny about it.

  It seemed Clara was rich. Her grandfather had made a fortune building rows of houses in London before he died, in 1892. He could neither read nor write, but had superb business acumen. He sent his son, Clara’s father, to Harrow, and then on to Oxford. His plan was to make him the gentleman he’d never been.

  ‘But father liked to get his hands dirty too,’ Clara explained, her eyes twinkling with humour. ‘He bunked out of Oxford and trained as an architect. Instead of building rows of houses for ordinary people, as Grandpa did, he chose to design houses for the rich. Sadly, he died suddenly at the age of just fifty-five, only ten years ago. That’s when I bought this cottage, here in Dorchester. I could’ve bought a house in London’s Mayfair, if I wanted. But I loved it here in Dorchester, and I’d already discovered that with great wealth come the snakes and hyenas.’

  Mabel raised her eyebrows at that. She knew exactly what her employer meant; she was just surprised Clara would voice it.

  Clara laughed at her surprise. ‘Oh, I know all about predators. I think my father knew this too. He gave away much of his inherited fortune to good causes, long before his death. Mother was angry, but then one could say she was one of the hyenas. She’d been a bitch to my father, and a mean mother too. She didn’t understand me moving here, any more than she’d understood my father. She died a lonely, embittered woman, two years after my father. There’s a lesson to be learned there.’

  ‘Gosh!’ was all Mabel could say. She couldn’t imagine how anyone with a great fortune could be unhappy.

  ‘Carsten sees it all,’ Clara said with a wry smile. ‘I think he comes from a good family. Not top drawer exactly, but there is money and class. Being taken prisoner has probably been the making of him, though I doubt he would agree.’

  ‘Why would it be the making of him?’

  ‘He was quite arrogant when I first met him, though ashamed he had been taken prisoner. He’s come full circle now; the arrogance has gone, with a more compassionate man exposed. And I think working here in the garden, close to nature, has added another dimension to his character.’

  ‘What will happen to him when the war ends? Must he leave? Or will they put all the prisoners on a boat back to Germany?’

  ‘I don’t think I’ve met one prisoner who wants to stay,’ Clara said. ‘Boredom is their biggest enemy up at the camp. They miss their families dreadfully. Especially the married ones with children. But I doubt they’ll be sent away as soon as the war ends, there’s far too much red tape to be tied up. I think going home will be tough too. It won’t be the land of plenty they remember, and although we don’t hear much about it, I suspect there are as many shell-shocked and damaged German soldiers as there are English ones.’

  ‘Do they recover from shell shock?’ Mabel asked, thinking guiltily of Martin. ‘I heard about men in Plymouth with it. Some people were saying they’d never recover.’

  ‘I don’t think those with it will ever be quite the same again. But it’s too soon to make predictions, Mabel. Some people break a leg and walk with a limp for the rest of their life, while others heal quickly with no lasting problem. I suspect it’s down to the severity of what they experienced and the care they got when they were brought home.’

  It was a few weeks later when Carsten brought the news that two cases of Spanish flu had been diagnosed in the camp. The men were in a different hut to him, but he kept his distance from Clara and Mabel, shouting his news across the garden and asking if they wanted him to stop coming to Willow Cottage.

  ‘No, not at all,’ Clara shouted back. ‘You don’t need to stay that far away from us, either. It’s spread by sneezing and hand contact, and you haven’t even got a sniffle.’

  Mabel made Carsten a bacon sandwich that morning; she believed that well-fed people didn’t catch things, though Carsten laughed heartily when she took it out to him in the garden and told him her theory.

  ‘The well fed just die of different things,’ he said. ‘But a bacon sandwich is food of the gods to me. If they were to execute me, I’d ask for one as my last meal.’

  ‘Who is looking after the poorly men?’ she asked. ‘I know you have Dr Silby who goes to the camp, but you don’t have nurses, do you?’

  ‘Only two men are ill so far,’ he reminded her, and smiled. ‘So stop clucking like a mother hen. Their friends will take care of them.’

  Mabel woke at five the next morning to find it was already warm, and the hazy sunshine was evidence it was going to be a hot day. As she had intended to wash bed linen and towels, she jumped out of bed quickly to go and light the fire under the old copper in the wash house. If she left it till later, the heat in there would be unbearable.

  By eight she was back in the kitchen, getting breakfast for Clara. Out in the garden the washing line was full of billowing, brilliant white sheets and towels.

  Clara came into the kitchen and, as she glanced out the window, she laughed. ‘Is that the fairies who’ve done all the washing? Or have you been up all night?’

  ‘It will be too hot to do it later. Besides, there’s nothing nicer than hanging washing out to dry when the sun’s shining. Now, would you like a boiled egg?’

  ‘What did I do before you came?’ Clara said, sitting down at the table. ‘Oh, I remember, I used the laundry service for the big stuff. You informed me that was a waste of money.’

  ‘So it is, in weather like this.’ Mabel grinned. ‘It’s different in the winter, when it takes forever to dry.’

  ‘Well, I suggest you do no more work today,’ Clara said. ‘You should put on your nice new dress and walk into town to give Mr Bunday the list of groceries for the weekend. Then have a wander around the town.’

  ‘That sounds good,’ Mabel said.

  She didn’t have an official day off, because she always had a few hours free in the afternoons until it was time to make the evening meal. But then, working at Willow Cottage had never seemed like real work, anyway. How could it be when she decided what needed to be done each day?

  A couple of hours later, having taken the shopping list to the grocer’s, had a cool lemonade in the tea shop, and bought some sandals, as the weather was so hot, she went along to South Walks, a shady lane lined with big chestnut trees. Clara had mentioned this place on several occasions; she said courting couples walked there in the evenings, but today there were only a few overheated mothers pushing perambulators and a couple of old gentlemen taking a stroll. But under the leafy canopy it felt cool and pleasant; she just wished she had a companion, it wasn’t much fun wandering around on her own.

  When she reached the River Frome, she was taken aback to see Carsten sitting on the stump of a felled tree. He hadn’t been due at Willow Cottage today, but she had always imagined that when he wasn’t working, he had to stay in the camp.

  ‘What a surprise, seeing you,’ she called out as she drew nearer.

  He almost jumped out of his skin. Whatever it was he was thinking about, he hadn’t been aware of anyone else. He looked extremely hot and grubby. His hands were black.

  ‘Mabel!’ he exclaimed. ‘You look especially nice today. Is that the dress you made?’

  ‘Yes, it is, and thank you for saying I look nice. It’s awfully hot, isn’t it? Why aren’t you in the camp?’

  ‘I was sent out this morning to help Mr Rawlings rebuild his chicken shed. It was disgusting, dirty work – and I have to say, he is a horrible, rude man too.’

  ‘I don’t know him,’ she said. ‘But then I really don’t know anyone much in Dorchester. But I’m sorry if someone was mean to you.’

  ‘I was just thinking of going along to Greys Bridge and having a swim, to get rid of all the filth and maybe chicken fleas. That
man, I think he didn’t clean the chickens out in years.’

  A pool had been made by the bridge to use for swimming. The prisoners could often be seen walking to it along the riverbank, with towels over their arms. The guards keeping an eye on them usually looked like they wished they could join them.

  ‘Why don’t you? The water looks very inviting,’ she agreed. ‘I used to live by the sea, and on a day like today I would be swimming. I miss the sea. But of course, it would raise eyebrows if I went in at Greys Bridge.’

  ‘Then we find a spot where nobody is, and go in.’

  ‘I can’t do that,’ she giggled.

  ‘I didn’t mean with no clothes,’ he said, looking alarmed. ‘Sie tragen ein Frauenhemd? ’

  ‘What is that in English?’ she asked.

  He looked flustered. He unbuttoned his shirt and pulled out a bit of vest.

  ‘Are you wearing a chemise?’ she assumed he meant.

  ‘Yes, I am, but I can’t be seen swimming in that in daylight!’

  ‘I take you to good place,’ he said. ‘I found it in winter, and I thought it would be good for swimming.’

  Mabel knew, if any of the matrons of the town were to see them in the river together, she’d probably be drummed out of town. But she looked into his blue eyes, thought how lovely it would be to swim with him, and all sensible thoughts left her.

  ‘Okay, as long as it is hidden,’ she agreed.

  He took her about a mile further down the riverbank, parted some thick bushes to reach the edge of the river and then, taking her hand, he led her through the bushes and pointed downwards. The river swirled into what looked like a little pond, about six feet below them. Better still, there were giant tree roots going down to the water’s edge that were almost as good as steps.

  It was the sort of place that Mabel would’ve revelled in as a child, and though she knew she shouldn’t even be thinking of stripping off her dress and going in, she couldn’t help herself.