Sea Music

‘Heinrich will see we are all right. Heinrich won’t let anything happen to us. I know it. You are colleagues, Paul. You are friends. Our children have played together nearly all their lives.’

Papa walks abruptly towards the house. He does not see Marta sitting up in the window, listening. ‘Esther!’ he says angrily. ‘We are Jews. His wife comes from one of the old Imperial families. Do you really think that Heinrich can protect us from anything? What is the matter with you? Are your eyes shut? How can you fail to notice what is going on around you? Do you think our money can project us against this rising tide of anti-Semitism? Do you?’

Marta’s mother grows pale at her husband’s anger. He is a gentle man who does not raise his voice. Esther is not used to people being unkind to her. She was a spoilt child and went straight on to being a sheltered and beautiful child-wife. ‘Our children have known each other, played together … all their lives,’ she repeats.

‘That time is over. It is gone. They are children no more,’ Papa says firmly. ‘I don’t want that boy, who has the makings of a dangerous little Nazi, anywhere near Marta.’

His voice is sad: ‘Heinrich and I have known each other for longer than I care to remember. But whatever he privately feels about what is happening, they are Germans, Esther, and we are on the brink of war. Already the family are distancing themselves. At work I am being relieved of many of my patients, many of my duties. If the Germans invade Poland, I Would be relieved of all of them. You must understand, Esther, I could lose my clinic, my life’s work and probably all my money.’

‘You can’t know that!’ Mama’s voice is full of panic. ‘England will stop the Germans, you’ll see, Paul.’ She claps her hand to her mouth.

Papa says quietly, ‘I Wish with all my heart I could protect you and Marta from what is coming, but I can’t. I cannot leave. I am a doctor and will be needed. The only thing I can do is send you both to England.’

Mama stares at him, suddenly very sure. ‘No, Paul, We stay together as a family. Whatever happens, We stay together.’

Marta, sitting up in the window of her room, shivers. She looks down on her arms, which are covered in goose bumps as if a cold wind has suddenly sprung up. She runs down the stairs, past her mother and across the garden to her father and clutches his arms. ‘Don’t send me away,’ she cries. ‘You’re frightening me, Papa.’

Her father holds her hands between his for a moment and apologises for frightening her. He tries to change the subject, Make her laugh. He calls Pepe, their dog, and as they set off for their evening walk together he tells Marta about England and his friends who live there.

‘England is a very beautiful place, full of rivers and trees. In the towns there are parks to sit in the sun. People take their children and picnic and sail small boats in lakes. People mix freely, Matusia …’ Marta’s papa takes her arm. ‘A distant cousin of mine has offered to take you in. This is a great opportunity for you to learn, to extend your education. You are so good at languages … My dear child, I need to persuade your mama to let you go even if she will not leave me. You must trust me and help me to convince her that it really is the best thing to do.’

Marta is silent, for she knows Mama is right: they must all stay together. The birds of evening are singing and fluttering, caught in the blossom of the huge apple tree at the bottom of the next-door garden, where she plays with the boy. Marta listens to the noise the birds are making and her fear is back. She shivers again, her father draws her away and they circle the wood and go home for supper.

Marta remembers that walk. It was the last walk she ever took with her father without fear, without the hated yellow armband with the star.

Coming into Martha’s bedroom, Kate sees that despite the warmth of the room, Martha is shivering with cold, sitting upright in bed, her tiny limbs trembling. She looks in the cupboard and finds a pale blue mohair sweater, which she wraps round Martha. Then she helps her into her trousers, which she has taken off. Her legs are like sticks and slightly misshapen. Odd little legs.

Kate chats to Martha while she does these things, but Martha is a long, long way away and Kate knows in Martha’s head there is a different scene playing.

Twenty minutes later Kate has both the old people safely in the back of her car. She drives out of the gates and takes the road towards Newlyn.

As they drive along Kate thinks about how she will cope once she parks the car. She must hang on to both of them without seeming like a sheepdog. She is not going to lose them twice.

She turns the radio on low and twiddles the knob to Classic FM. Fred turns contentedly towards the sea as they reach the coast road. Frothy waves are bouncing off the sea wall and the sun glints on the surface of the sea in dancing sparks.

Martha does not see the sea. She is still somewhere far in the past. She is worrying about her knitting needle. Has someone stolen it? Her knitting needle is vital. Before she goes to bed she wants to poke it into the holes. She wants to poke out those revolting bugs that stop her sleeping.

‘My knitting needle,’ she murmurs.

Kate looks at her through the car mirror. ‘Don’t worry, Martha,’ she says comfortingly. ‘We’ll find it when we get you home.’

Fred folds her tiny hand in his large one and Martha is soothed. She looks out and sees the shimmering blueness of the sea and the bright fishing boats heading in and out of Newlyn, and is enchanted.

As they drive past the harbour with the heavy trawlers and sleek yachts crammed together, the wind catching their stanchions and making a wonderful clinking sound, Martha smiles happily.

‘How beautiful,’ she says to Fred, turning to him. ‘How beautiful, darling.’

Fred, seeing her lovely smile, smiles too, his heart aching with love and fear. All his life he has protected her, now the knowledge that he can no longer do so is slowly killing him. He brings her hand to his mouth.

‘My beloved little Martha,’ he whispers.

Kate turns the car round at the end of the road and drives back to park near the gallery. Watching their faces, she realises they don’t get out enough. She will try and change that.

‘What did you say?’ she asks Dr Tremain.

‘I said, it’s a long time since I was last here,’ Fred says clearly.

Kate smiles.

Chapter 9 (#ulink_b61a14cc-1bd3-5128-9602-56a13ea0540d)

Anna sits with her chair swivelled round from her desk, facing the long window of her study. She loves these early mornings. The stillness helps her think. She feels mellow and calm, as if she has not yet put up a barrier between herself and the coming day.

Wisps of pink cloud hang in a vivid blue sky. Anna is reminded of Cornwall where the day unfolds from a blackness over the ocean to slow-unfurling ribbons of colour reflected in the water. Even before dawn there was light behind the darkness, waiting.

She had forgotten, almost forgotten those Cornish mornings.

She closes her mind and breathes in the sky outside the window. Tries to remember the child she was with no demands or responsibilities, waking to a summer morning, running down to the water in near darkness. The acute shiver of loneliness and wonder in the sound and size of a huge sea rolling in to empty sands stretching all around her.

Lucy was the same as a child. Half the fun was getting outside with no one hearing you … She used to take Puck, the small Labrador cross Martha adored. Or was that later? Was she older when they got the dog?

Deep pink slashes of cloud are dispersing over the Thames, spreading across the city, blurring and smudging into the sky, like spilt water paints, tingeing the river and touching the buildings. She hears Martha’s voice: ‘Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning, darlink.’

How old was she before Martha said ‘darling’ properly? Anna cannot remember that either. She always has trouble remembering the sequence of her childhood. She often thinks her bad memory is the result of being so bored most of her childhood. Nothing of note ever happened to pierce the monotony of those seemingly endless years.

She gets up, goes to the long window and looks out into the wide, tree-lined road, at the elegant Edwardian houses opposite. It is deserted except for the line of parked cars. Curtains drawn. People sleeping.

She must be getting old, she concludes, if a sly trick of memory can turn those endless Cornish summers into nostalgia. Yet for a moment she does not see the houses; she hears the bent palm in Martha’s garden, hanging skewwhiff to the wind, rattling like dry fingers. She sees the glint of silver water and white houses illuminated on the other side of the harbour. She can hear the scream of gulls wheeling and circling above her head and the sensation of cold wet sand clinging to her feet. She sees Fred waving to her from the steps to the beach. She smells baking, and Martha, standing in that old-fashioned kitchen, pulls a chair out so she can lick the bowl.

Something rises up in her throat for what might have been. If she had been different. If they had. It is like fingering a bruise. She is sure her nightmares go back to her early years. She often thinks it must be because Martha was so often ill when she was small. When Martha took to her bed, or could not eat, it must have been an emotional illness, not a physical one. Anna does remember spending a lot of time with Hattie. Fear and sadness affect children. When she was little something about Martha frightened her. Easy to be frightened when you do not understand.

Only one thing sticks in her mind. She was furious with her mother and threw herself at her, clutching at her legs in a rage that consumed her. That is all she can remember: not wanting to let go of those legs. She cannot remember a face or arms or a voice. Just those legs trying to get away from her.

Anna pushes the image away, stretches and takes a deep breath. She can hear Rudi moving about upstairs and she goes back to her desk. For heaven’s sake, she is supposed to be studying her brief. Berlin was a success, but exhausting. Now she is about to reconvene a complicated criminal injury case and she is tired. Her workload is frightening this year.

She goes into the kitchen and grinds coffee and puts the pot on the stove. Places her files and papers back into her briefcase. She will have coffee with Rudi, then grab a sandwich later.

Rudi comes in smelling of soap, and kisses her. ‘You seem to get up earlier and earlier. Two complicated cases at the same time. Are you worrying, darling?’

Anna smiles at him. ‘No, not really. I’ve got a good team. But so have they. I do need to be on the ball …’ She reaches out and touches his arm. ‘Sorry if I bored you last night. I just wanted to run it past you.’

‘You never bore me. And I do know a bit about insurance companies.’

‘Well, I am still sure they, or the airline, are stalling, playing for time, and I am not sure why. My client will certainly never walk again. They cannot avoid liability. I expected the usual initial derisory offer of compensation, which would be unacceptable. Instead of which they asked for four days’ grace to make inquiries about a matter “vital to the outcome of the case”.’

‘Which means?’

‘Which means, either they have discovered something which makes the airline culpable and they will pull out, or something that I have not been told that makes my client responsible, or partly responsible, for his injuries.’ Anna puts down her half-finished coffee. ‘Anyway, this morning I will find out. I must go.’ She gets up and kisses him. ‘Why are you smiling?’