Touching the Wire (2 page)

He mentally checked the
fail-safes he’d put in place to protect Jane, Jennie and the twins. He’d made a
promise before God, though he and God had long since reached a mutual
understanding: neither believed in the other. Nor would he be a party to his
mother’s Hail-Mary forgiveness: at least the Greek goddesses spoke to him of a
price to pay. He owed his dead their truth.

A shadow fell across the window
above the bench, fighting the naked bulb that hung from twisted flex and
darkening the workshop’s interior. Only Jennie. He covered his work and the
rocking horse, and opened the door. Charlotte ran into his open arms. He hugged
her, a lump forming in his throat. Lucy stood in the doorway, the sun gifting
her bleached-straw hair with the touch of Midas and lighting her delicate
features.  

 ‘Don’t get in
Grandpa’s way, you two. Send them in if they’re a nuisance, Dad.’ Jennie took a
deep breath. ‘I love this place. The smells, the junk. Nothing changes.’

He rubbed the back muscle
he’d pulled digging: bending to catch Charlotte had tweaked it. ‘We can’t hold
back time, love.’

 ‘Or turn it back.’

‘If you want to talk…’

‘Since Vince’s accident…
It’s like I’m walking out of step.’

‘Charlotte, Lucy, go and ask
Granny how long tea will be.’

‘Okay, Grandpa.’

Jennie nodded her thanks.

He held her close. ‘You’re
doing really well, love. It takes a while to find a way through grief. I had an
aunt who used to say a little mantra.
God grant me the strength to bear what
can’t be changed, the courage to change what can be changed, and the wisdom to
know the difference
.’

She caught a breath. ‘Maybe
it’s wisdom I need.’

‘She’d put each problem in
its own mental box, deal with those she could and close the lid on those she
couldn’t. You’ll find the strength to move on.’ 

‘How could I lie beside
someone at night and not think of Vince?’

She couldn’t, as he knew too
well. ‘You mustn’t think like that. A candle doesn’t burn dimmer because you
light another one.’

‘You sound as if…’ Jennie’s
eyes searched his. ‘Dad?’

What part of his soul had
she read?

‘Who was she?’

‘Just a girl.’

‘What happened to her?’

‘The war happened… to both
of us.’ He pursed his lips: subject closed. ‘Sweetheart, don’t build a prison
out of grief. Vince would want you to be happy.’ 

Lucy ran up the path.
‘Granny says five minutes.’

Jennie caught Charlotte at
the door and shepherded her outside. ‘Come on, you two. We’ll help Granny.’

The kitchen door closed
behind them and he felt for the wallet in his back pocket. He drew out the
sepia photograph. Just a girl…

Walt rode the bus home from the library,
flicking through
Out of Chaos: A Classical Treatise
.
According to
Hesiod’s Theogony
,
700BC, in the beginning was Chaos, a primal
emptiness, dark and formless with no trace of life. Out of Chaos came Gaea –
Mother Earth.
It was as good a Creationist theory as any.
Day, Night…

Nemesis, a daughter of
Night, and Goddess of Justice and Retribution, fitted his view of morality: a
price to pay for the gifts bestowed by her half-sister, Tykhe, Goddess of
Fortune. He sighed; when Nemesis decided his debt was paid, and he could find
peace in death, it would be her sisters, the Keres, the personification of
plague, slaughter and violent death who decided the manner of his dying.

He locked the entry door
behind him and tested the lock. The back door stood open, as welcoming as the
smell of fresh bread and the singing of the kettle. He put his books on the
table and pictured the contents of the biscuit barrel. ‘Have we got any custard
creams to go with that cuppa, love?’

Jane tapped out a loaf onto
a cooling rack. ‘I’ll nip and fetch some.’

The front door clicked shut.
Mrs Mobbs would keep her talking. He thumbed through the phone book.
Solicitors… a box-advert boasted Harris, Harris and Mason had been established
before the war. Their offices were in Northampton and no-one knew him there. He
dialled the number.

‘Harris, Harris and Mason.’
The voice sounded efficient.

‘I’d like to make an
appointment, please.’

‘Mr Harris, senior, has half
an hour tomorrow at ten?’

Jane was visiting her
sister, Elisabeth, tomorrow. ‘Ten o’clock it is, then.’

‘What name is it?’

‘Alb…’ He swung round.

‘Jane, you there?’ It was
Lil from next door, come in the back way.

He cupped his hand over the
receiver. ‘She’s popped to the shop, Lil. I’ll send her round when she comes
back.’

‘I brought a sponge cake for
us to try.’

A voice enquired his name a
second time. Why hadn’t he been more careful?  ‘Blundell, William
Blundell. Thank you. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

***

Walt clicked on the workshop light and checked
the blackout curtain for chinks before uncovering the five pieces. They were
weird, alien almost, yet the truth they concealed individually was obvious when
they stood together. He fixed the last piece into his vice and planed the final
flat surface before sanding the last sweeping curve. He placed it centrally,
between its neighbours. Perfect.

 He dipped a brush into
stained wax. The carved wolf sprang to life as he polished and buffed. He’d
been stupid and cruel to drag Jane into his nightmare. An island of hope in a
sea of despair, he’d clung to her love like a limpet to rock and once he’d got
her pregnant… He dipped the brush into wax again. Then, marriage had been the
only honourable course. He added carelessness to his list of sins.

All have sinned and
fallen short of the glory of God.

Christian beliefs, not his.

The hatred which divides
nation from nation, race from race, class from class.

Father Forgive.

Forgive…
He weighed the small brass key in his hand and took the
photographs from his wallet: dark eyes smiled out at him. He couldn’t fail Jane
like he’d failed the girl in his sepia past. ‘Goodbye, dear one. Your story
will be told. I promised, but it makes no difference, now, if it waits a little
longer. You do understand? I couldn’t hurt Jane then, and now there’s Jennie
and the twins… I can’t endanger them.’ Her smile exacted its own price, as
always.

He could watch, listen and
wait… Maybe, if the wolf didn’t wake, he could stay forever. 

The door handle rattled: the
taps on the door urgent. He covered his secrets and unlocked the door.

Jane smiled with obvious
relief. ‘Have you forgotten the time, Walt? It’s almost midnight.’

‘Sorry, love. I’ll be there
in a minute.’

Her brow furrowed. ‘You
feeling all right?’

‘Bit tired, that’s all.’

‘That chair leg for Ester
Todd can wait. You are retired.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘I’ll put the cocoa
on.’

He put his arms around her
and kissed her. ‘Did I did tell you how much I love you?’

She smiled. ‘Every day, you
old reprobate.’ She planted soft lips on his. ‘I love you too.’

‘Then go and get that cocoa
on, woman.’

She twisted away laughing.
Torchlight bobbed down the path, highlighting the uneven bricks and throwing
shadowy fingers into the gloom. He wrapped the key in a torn-off scrap of
polishing cloth and placed it carefully in its new home, where it would be
found when the time was right. He took a last look at his sepia girl. It was
time to let her go.

***

Walt had been up since first light and still
had one carving to pack. He wrapped it in newspaper, placed it in a cardboard
box and added an envelope containing instructions for Harris, Harris and Mason.
It needed extra packing. He found more newspaper, replaced the envelope and the
wrapped carving, and tucked the newspaper securely around it.

Five identical packages:
each one tied with string and neatly labelled, each one containing a letter of
instruction and a piece of his soul. He melted sealing wax in a spoon, and
dripped it bubbling and smoking onto the knots. A metal punch, used to mark his
work, pressed his initials into the hot wax.

But for Lil, he’d have made
the appointment as Albert Carr and avoided using the name Blundell: the risk to
Charlotte and Lucy would have been virtually non-existent. Now, one final
letter needed writing and his promise to Miriam must wait even longer.

He thought the letter
through to the drumming of rain on the workshop roof. Albert Carr… How many
years was it since they’d met in that snow-covered forest in Poland? Albert’s
signature was on the original instruction, when the box had been hidden, but
now that box must be gifted to him, William Blundell. It was his responsibility
to make sure the truth was told, at a time of his choosing. All he needed was
Albert’s signature, and Harris, Harris and Mason could do the rest. He
consulted a notebook of copperplate writing, and reached in his jacket pocket
for the paper and envelope he’d smuggled out of the house. He wrote
The
Manager
, and the address, and rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

The letter written, he
checked his watch: the house would still be wrapped in dreams. He settled in
the chair he should be mending and lit a cigarette.  Rain streaked the
window panes with the dust of summer. Through the window, clipped lawns and
neat borders of delphiniums, snapdragons and roses framed the rear of the
house, enclosing everyone he loved: safe, cocooned. The solid bricks wavered
behind the rivering rain. The lush summer growth gave way to the bare earth of
the camp.

He was almost glad of the
rain that settled the grey dust as he set off for his barrack but, set amid
mosquito-infested swamp, the camp would soon become a sea of stinking mud. The
gates to the quarantine compound clanged shut behind him. It had been a long
day, the quarantine camp full with suspected and confirmed typhus cases. Many
doctors and nurses had been lost to the last epidemic.

‘Doctor!’

The soldier high on the
guard post beckoned. It paid to keep on friendly terms with the guards, and he
knew this one; he climbed the ladder to the look-out platform.

‘Cigarette, Doctor?’

‘Thank you.’ The cigarette
smoke fought the sickening stench of burning flesh and chemicals.

The soldier pressed a hand
to his stomach. ‘Gut cramps… Suppose
it’s
typhus…’

‘Fever, muscle pain,
headache?’

‘Just keep running to the
latrines.’

This wasn’t a guard who got
closer to the inmates than the bullet in his rifle; it wasn’t likely he had
typhus. ‘They’ll give you kaolin at the hospital camp. Nothing to worry about.’

‘It’ll be on my record. I’ve
been promised promotion… an end to this bloody night duty.’

‘So?’

‘I’m stuck here all night….
If I leave my post, and that whore moves from that spot, Gustav will get my
promotion.’

He shrugged, the soldier’s
promotion of no importance to him. In front of the command centre, a short
distance away, a young woman knelt facing the guard post. Her arms hung limply
at her sides; her head was tilted back, mouth open to catch the life-giving
drops of rain. She’d knelt there since the pre-dawn Zählappell: he’d watched
her, on and off, all day.

Her long dress had once
graced an altogether grander woman. Now her only possession, it was ragged and
faded a muddy green; it clung to her thin, boyish figure, the lace at the neck
incongruous against the yellow star sewn to her left breast. Her shorn hair was
pimpled with bright droplets of rain like dew on grass. Her face was as mute as
her voice, though blisters on her nose, cheekbones and the corners of her mouth
testified to long hours working in the sun and made her look as if she were
smiling. Rain streaked from her open eyes for she was far beyond tears. She
lived at the whim of the camp officials, or her own Blockälteste, or the guard
on this tower.

Her crime was sabotage.
Working too slowly was sabotage, or fainting during roll call or having a
missing button; according to the guards her sin was vomiting outside her
barrack and women had been kicked to death for less.

A chill wind lifted her wet
rags and slapped them against her skin. She didn’t move apart from the constant
trembling of her body: it was death to move.

The soldier drew on his
cigarette, the butt glowing, his rifle loaded and ready, as he watched the
girl. ‘If I have to go to the latrines I’ll shoot the whore.’ 

His fists curled and
uncurled at his sides. ‘I don’t feel like sleep tonight. You mind if I keep you
company? If you need to run to the latrines I can watch the girl.’

The guard’s finger moved to
the trigger.

He hadn’t spent months
building trust to lose it now. ‘She’s not going to run far in that state, is
she? Anyway, there’s no escape. I give you my word as a doctor. I won’t take my
eyes off her.’

‘And my medicine?’

Kaolin was precious: better
souls than this guard needed it. He weighed the benefits. ‘I’ll bring you
kaolin, tomorrow. No-one need know.’

The guard rubbed his stomach
and waved his rifle at the girl. ‘I’m going for a shit.’

‘No-one will realise you’ve
gone.’

The man climbed quickly down
the ladder: avoiding the bright pools of light, he made for the latrines at a
shambling run.

The lights on the perimeter
guard-towers illuminated the slight figure, alone in the mud like a collapsed
scarecrow. The lights in the barracks went out one by one and deep shadows
fingered closer. He would wait with her, try to keep her safe.  It was a
small gesture of resistance. Her courage touched him: her still figure
epitomised everything that was pure and indestructible amid this relentless
evil. He wished he could tell her that in her trial she was not alone. 

It was eerie, isolated above
the rows of barracks that stretched, seemingly without end, like rows of
neatly-spaced dominoes awaiting a game with no winners. Lives without a future
huddled in misery beneath the smoking ruin of their past, everything they loved
gone: if man could make hell on earth this was surely it. Footsteps on the
rungs of the ladder broke his reverie: the guard’s leer was an obscenity.

The girl kept her silence,
kneeling against her will at the altar of evil: the slow night broken by wails
and screams and sobs. At midnight the rain stopped. Somewhere above were stars.
Somewhere, God watched this girl, this abomination of a place. Why did He do
nothing? Why did He not care? What sin had they committed?

At three in the morning the
barracks’ windows once more lit with a yellow glow and the camp echoed with the
calls of
Aufstehen…
 
Wstać… Felkel… Get up…
Zählappell
. The girl raised her head and her eyes met his: they
held the blank look of a Muselmann, one of the walking dead… He nodded to her,
as if his willpower alone could help her endure, but her expression didn’t
change. Was she dreaming of the ration of black bread, or the jealously-counted
swallows of thin soup that she’d foregone the previous evening, or did she
dream of some other, more distant reality?

Guards
approached and his night’s companion shouldered his rifle, ready to go
off-watch. The man accompanied him to the transit camp for Hungarian women,
where he was expected for this morning’s selection. ‘Don’t forget that
kaolin.’  

The
camp was alive with the noise of prisoners tumbling from their bunks, and
muffled curses as they trod on one another in their haste to drink their ration
of coffee, and wash at the faucets. The slick-wet earth was churned by hundreds
of pairs of ill-fitting shoes as the women in the compound lined up in rows of
five, the night’s dead and sick laid out in front of them. Death was no excuse
to avoid being counted.