The Last Telegram

‘Penny for them?’ Vera said, after a bit.

‘The usual. You know. Now shut up and let me get back to him.’

Vera had been my closest friend ever since I forgave her for pulling my pigtails at nursery school. In other words, for most of my life. By our teens we were an odd couple; I’d grown a good six inches taller than her, but despite doing all kinds of exercises my breasts refused to grow, while Vera was shaping up nicely, blooming into the hourglass figure of a Hollywood starlet.

I was no beauty, neither was I exactly plain, but I longed to look more feminine and made several embarrassing attempts to fix a permanent wave into my thick brown hair. Even today the smell of perm lotion leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, reminding me of the frizzy messes that were the catastrophic result of my bathroom experiments. So I’d opted instead for a new chin-length bob that made me feel tremendously bold and modern, while Vera bleached her hair a daring platinum blonde and shaped it into a Hollywood wave. Together we spent hours in front of the mirror practising our make-up, and Vera developed clever ways to emphasise her dimples and Clara Bow lips. She generously declared that she’d positively die for my cheekbones and long eyelashes.

In all other ways we were very alike – laughed at the same things, hankered after the same boys, loved the same music, felt strongly about the same injustices. We were both eighteen, just out of school and aching to fall in love.

‘Do I hear you sighing in the arms of your lover?’

‘Mais oui, un très sexy Frenchman.’

‘You daft thing. Been reading too much True Romance.’

More silence, punctuated by the low comforting chug of a tractor on the road and cows on the water meadows calling for their calves. School seemed like another country. A mild anxiety about imminent exam results was the only blip in a future that otherwise stretched enticingly ahead. Then Vera said, ‘What do you think’s really going to happen?’

‘What do you mean? I’m going to Geneva to learn French with the most handsome man on earth, and you’re going to empty bed pans at Barts. That’s what we planned, isn’t it?’

She ignored the dig. ‘I mean with the Germans. Hitler invading Austria and all that.’

‘They’re sorting it out, aren’t they?’ I said, watching wisps of cloud almost imperceptibly changing their shapes in the deepest of blue skies. That very morning at the breakfast table my father had sighed over TheTimes and muttered, ‘Chamberlain had better get his skates on. Last thing we need is another ruddy war.’ But here in the sunshine, I refused to imagine anything other than my perfect life.

‘I flipping well hope so,’ Vera said.

The branch-line train to Braintree whistled in the distance and the bruised smell of mown grass hung heavily in the air. It seemed impossible that armies of one country were marching into another, taking it over by force. And not so far away: Austria was just the other side of France. People we knew went on walking holidays there. My brother went skiing there, just last winter, and sent us a postcard of improbably-pointed mountains covered in snow.

The sun started to cool, slipping behind the poplars and casting long stripes of shade across the meadow. We got up and started looking again for the lost ball.

‘We’d better get home,’ I said, suddenly remembering. ‘Mother said John might be on the boat train this afternoon.’

‘Why didn’t you say? He’s been away months.’

‘Nearly a year. I’ve missed him.’

‘I thought you hated him,’ she giggled, walking backwards in front of me, ‘I certainly did. I’ve still got the scar from when he pushed me off the swing accidentally-on-purpose,’ she said, pointing to her forehead.

‘Teasing his little sister and her best friend was all part of the game.’ The truth was that like most siblings John and I had spent our childhood tussling for parental attention, but to me he was always a golden boy; tall like a tennis ace, with a fashionable flick of dark blond hair at his forehead. Not intellectual, but an all-rounder, good at sports, musical like my mother and annoyingly confident of his attractiveness to girls. And yes, I had missed him while he’d been away studying in Switzerland.

Vera and I were helping to set the tea in the drawing room when the bell rang. I dashed to the front door.

‘Hello Sis,’ John boomed, his voice deeper than I remembered. Then to my surprise, he wrapped his arms round me and gave me a powerful hug. He wouldn’t have done that before, I thought. He stood back, looking me up and down. ‘Golly, you’ve grown. Any moment now you’ll be tall as me.’

‘You’ve got taller, too,’ I said. ‘I’ll never catch up.’

He laughed. ‘You’d better not. Like the haircut.’ Reeling from the unexpected compliment, surely the first I’d ever received from my brother, I saw his face go blank for a second and realised Vera was on the step behind me.

‘Vera?’ he said tentatively. She nodded, running fingers through her curls in a gesture I mistook for shyness. He recovered quickly. ‘My goodness, you’ve grown up too,’ he said, shaking her hand. She smiled demurely, looking up at him through her eyelashes. I’d seen that look before, but never directed at my brother. It felt uncomfortable.

‘How did the exams go, you two?’

I winced at the unwanted memory. ‘Don’t ask. Truth will out in a couple of weeks’ time.’

Mother appeared behind us and threw her arms round him with a joyful yelp. ‘My dearest boy. Thank heavens you are home safely. Come in, come in.’

He took a deep breath as he came through the door into the hallway. ‘Mmm. Home sweet home. Never thought I’d miss it so much. What’s that wonderful smell?’

‘I’ve baked your favourite lemon cake in your honour. You’re just in time for tea,’ Mother said. ‘You’ll stay too, Vera?’

‘Have you ever known me turn down a slice of your cake, Mrs Verner?’ she said.

Mother served tea and, as we talked, I noticed how John had changed, how he had gained a new air of worldliness. Vera had certainly spotted it too. She smiled at him more than really necessary, and giggled at the feeblest of his jokes.

‘Why are you back so soon?’ Father asked. ‘I hope you completed your course?’

‘Don’t worry, I finished all my exams,’ John said cheerfully. ‘Honestly. I’ve learned such a lot at the Silkschüle, Pa. Can’t wait to get stuck in at the mill.’ Father smiled indulgently, his face turning to a frown as John slurped his tea – his manners had slipped in his year away from home.

Then he said, ‘What about your certificates?’

‘They’ll send them. I didn’t fail or get kicked out, if that’s what you are thinking. I was a star pupil, they said.’

‘I still don’t understand, John.’ Father persisted. ‘The course wasn’t due to finish till the end of the month.’ John shook his head, his mouth full of cake. ‘So why did you leave early?’

‘More tea, anyone?’ Mother asked, to fill the silence. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’

As she started to get up, John mumbled, almost to himself, ‘To be honest, I wanted to get home.’

‘That’s nothing to be ashamed of, dear,’ she said. ‘We all get homesick sometimes.’

‘That’s not it,’ he said, in a sombre voice. ‘You don’t understand what it was like. Things are happening over there. It’s not comfortable, ‘specially in Austria.’

‘Things?’ I said, with an involuntary shiver. ‘What things?’

‘Spit it out, lad,’ Father said, gruffly. ‘What’s this is all about?’

John put down his cup and plate, and sat back in his chair, glancing out of the window towards the water meadows at that Constable view. Mother stopped, still holding the pot, and we all waited.

‘It’s like this,’ he started, choosing his words with care. ‘We’d been to Austria a few times – you know, we went skiing there. Did you get my postcard?’

Mother nodded. ‘It’s on the mantelpiece,’ she said, ‘pride of place.’

‘It was fine that time. But then, a few weeks ago, we went back to Vienna to visit a loom factory. Fischers. The owner’s son, a chap called Franz, showed us round.’

‘I remember Herr Fischer, Franz’s father. We bought looms from him once. A good man,’ Father said. ‘How are they doing?’

‘It sounded as though business was a bit difficult. As he was showing us round, Franz dropped a few hints, and when we got outside away from the others I asked him directly what was happening. At first he shook his head and refused to say anything, but then he whispered to me that they’d been forced to sell the factory.’

‘Forced?’ I asked. ‘Surely it’s their choice?’