Molly did as she was told, happily, and then skipped towards the car.
‘Clara?’ Lucy asked. They had to sort this argument out.
‘Yeah?’ Clara looked at her watch and adopted a hurried expression.
‘Nothing. Have a good evening.’
Lucy leafed through the vinyls, found some classical music she’d not yet played and made sure to keep the volume at a respectable level. She didn’t want Will to find an excuse to descend upon her. Or did she? She laughed at herself and thought back to him on thebeach, looking out across the sea. She’d not got too much out of him. Was he married? Divorced? Did he have children? What did he do for a living? She was oddly intrigued by the man who lived in the cottage by the far field. She stole a glance out of the sitting room window, looked down past the drive to where the cottage was all but hidden from this angle by tall conifers. Then she turned, retrieved her cardigan from the newel post in the entrance hall, made a mug of tea and settled down to look through the box.
There were a lot of papers within and to Lucy’s untrained eye it looked mainly as if they were formal documents, forms and carbon copies of receipts for payments of goods delivered to the house over the years. That reminded her of the carbon copies of shorthand she’d found before. Where had she put those? Laundry bills and household expenses from years gone by showed regular deliveries of milk from the local farm and other items that Lucy wasn’t immensely interested in. As she delved deeper within the box, lifting stacks of papers and flicking through them ad hoc, she stopped and stared at an old newspaper cutting, aged and flecked, its edges torn.
The advert read:
Compensation
For United Kingdom Victims of Nazi Persecution
On July 24th 1964 applications were invited from, or on behalf of, United Kingdom nationals who were victims of Nazi persecution, that is persons who suffered detention in a concentration camp or comparable institution. This excludes imprisonment in an ordinary Civilian Internment or Prisoner-of-War Camp.
No applications can be accepted after July 31st 1965. Victims who have not yet done so should therefore apply without delay. Application forms can be obtained from The Under-Secretary of State, Foreign Office, London, S.W.1
Lucy read the poster twice, not quite understanding it. Why was this poster in the box? She looked at it line by line. She shuddered when the phrase concentration camp leapt out at her more prominently than it had on the previous read-through. She sipped her tea thoughtfully. Who on earth had gone to a concentration camp?
Chapter 9
1940
‘The cleaning lady mentioned she thought you had gone to England,’ Stefan repeated at the dining table when Jack failed to respond. ‘To join up.’
At the other end of the table Dido dropped her knife and it clattered noisily against the bone china, chipping a piece off the plate. To Persey it seemed that the dining room then became still and a sense of dread hovered over her.
‘But she must be wrong?’ Stefan said before glancing briefly at Dido’s chipped plate with an expression Persephone couldn’t read. He returned his gaze to Jack. ‘You did not enlist? You are here.’ He phrased the question so innocently, so like his old self, that Persey couldn’t tell if he was probing with intent or if he was genuinely curious. She looked towards Jack who licked his lips and then rubbed them dry, stalling for time.
‘Well …’ Jack started. ‘I didn’t. I mean, I did go and then …’ His hand shook as he leant forward, taking another piece of roast chicken from the dish that sat on the table between him and the German officer. Stefan leaned forward, picked the dish up to help Jack when it became clear the Islander couldn’t quite reach.
‘And then?’ Stefan asked, his eyes narrow, but a smile touched the corners of his mouth as if he was genuinely confused.
‘And then I returned.’
‘Oh,’ Stefan replied. He looked at his own plate, cut and sliced some chicken and then chewed. ‘When?’
‘When it became clear I wasn’t cut out to be part of it all, I’m sorry to say.’
‘In what way?’ Stefan glanced suddenly towards both Dido and Persephone who had both paused eating. Persey slowly speared another carrot and willed Dido to do something normal, something that showed they weren’t perturbed by this line of questioning.
‘I’m not well,’ Jack declared.
‘In what way?’ Stefan asked again.
‘You do ask a lot of questions, old boy.’ Jack’s tone was that of exasperation. ‘Dicky heart, if you must know. Failed my medical, spectacularly.’
‘Dicky?’ Stefan questioned the word.
‘Skips a beat, far too often for a doctor’s liking.’
‘I am sorry to hear that,’ Stefan said kindly.
‘Yes, me too,’ Jack lied. ‘But there it is.’
