The Palace of Strange Girls Page 13

  Hania, Northwest Crete, May 20, 1941

  It is early morning when the Stukas come in. Jack and Nibs are queuing up for breakfast when they hear a restless, uneasy buzz in the air which, within minutes, increases to a roar: wave after wave of enemy aircraft heading for the airport at Maleme, five miles away. By the time Jack and Nibs have scrambled to their gun emplacements above Souda Bay, the sky has grown dark with the concentration of enemy aircraft. There have been rumors for weeks about a German invasion, but still the sight of that many bombers is overwhelming. In the distance Jack can hear the thump and boom of Allied heavy antiaircraft guns firing greedily into the crowded skies above the airport. And so it continues, day after day without respite. Jack, still manning one of the heavy antiaircraft guns on the escarpment above the beach, can only watch in amazement as hundreds of low-level gliders come in like a plague of dragonflies. Each glider lands on the beach in a storm of sand and disgorges a dozen fully armed troops, bent double and running for the shelter of the cliffs. And still the escarpment guns fire and reload and fire again, striving to beat off the aerial invasion. Another four days of fighting follow in a desperate bid to hold Maleme, but once the Germans have control of the airfield the battle for Crete is effectively lost.

  After a week fighting, and now overwhelmed by the numbers of invading troops, the order comes through to withdraw beyond the smoldering remains of Hania and Souda Bay into the cover of the daisy-strewn olive groves further inland. Jack, Nibs and three other lads find shelter in an empty bomb crater. Here they wait out another day, firing their Bren guns intermittently but mostly keeping their heads down as the Germans set up a series of creeping barrages on the slopes below them. Late on that day a message comes through from headquarters. A fighting retreat is ordered to Sfakion on the south coast where ships are stationed to take them off the island. Chaos sweeps through the ranks with some troops moving east to the apparent safety of the garrison at Heraklion while others make directly for Sfakion via the White Mountains.

  When Jack sets out on the road to Kalivis with the intention of seeing Eleni one last time, Nibs tags along. At the end of the first day they are joined by Jonno and Tommy, two New Zealanders who have been cut off from their regiment. Together they make their way slowly up the only road that runs south. They hear the strafing attack and catch the smell of burning flesh on the wind long before they see the line of wrecked jeeps. The road is littered with the detritus of retreat: scattered documents, steel helmets, ripped canvas, empty shells, brass buttons, odd boots and torn webbing. And still the bombing and strafing continue, forcing them to desert the road and take the safer mountain tracks. A mile from Kalivis Jack skirts off from the group, promising to catch them up later.

  She has seen him coming. Eleni, her dark hair blowing in all directions and her face pale with concern, meets him at the edge of the village carrying a rough sack filled with food and a flask of water. For the first time in over a week Jack relaxes. They embrace, giddy with relief at each other’s survival. On this, their final picnic, they lie hidden in the shelter of an outcrop of rock. Their conversation is conducted against a backdrop of strafing attacks along the line of retreating troops on the road below. They part at sunset. Jack looks back at the last turn in the path, searches for her figure in the gathering darkness. A glimpse of her, nothing more, her pale arm raised against the darkness, her face hidden in the shadows, and yet still as close to him as his next step, his next breath.

  They are waiting for him further up the valley. Jonno has built a meager fire and Tommy is doling out rations. Nibs has his feet up, catching forty winks. They greet his return with relief. Jack, with his keen sense of direction and his constant chivvying, is the best chance any of them has of reaching the rescue ships. They spend an uneasy night making their way up the lower slopes of the White Mountains. Coming over a rise, they look down into a smoke-filled valley crowded with fires and spend the rest of the night in the shelter of a cave watching for the yellow flares from enemy aircraft. Dawn comes up to reveal the valley floor punctured with a smoldering orchard. The breeze lifts brief sparks that glitter crimson against the devastation. The flare of blackened branches against the pall of smoke stays in Jack’s mind long after the details of their retreat to Sfakion are lost.

  They keep moving during the heat of the day and into the chill of the night until, an hour before dawn on the second day, they stop and spend a fruitless hour trying to sleep. When the sun rises they slide down the side of a nearby creek in search of water, only to come across a group of fellow soldiers. These lads had overtaken them earlier, intent upon sticking to the road in the hope of finding a lift. Now they lie, their bodies crammed together like sardines, glistening in the thin dawn light, uniforms and flesh ripped apart by machine-gun fire. The sight is greeted with numb acceptance rather than surprise. Groups of retreating British troops are being hunted down all over the island. Invariably they try to evade capture by hiding in caves, concealed gullies and isolated shepherds’ huts. Now that any form of organized resistance is in ruins, the German battle for Crete has resolved itself into a race to prevent the Allied forces from escaping. There is no food, little water and still the White Mountains surround them. Another day’s walking takes them up to the Askifou Plain—a wild, inhospitable area covered by cypress forest. Purely by chance they come across an army dressing station at the head of the track. Jonno throws in the towel and takes up the offer of shelter by a local shepherd. Tommy is finished, his ankle broken after a fall during the previous night’s march. He sits down outside the dressing station and refuses to move. Only Jack and Nibs take the track that leads down to the Imbros Gorge.

  Blackpool, Wednesday, July 13, 1959

  Back on Blackpool beach Jack tries to shake himself free from the nightmare of the Imbros Gorge. He attempts instead to reconstruct in his mind’s eye a photo he used to have of Eleni. It was taken in happier times with a Box Brownie borrowed from Nibs. She is sitting under the flowering judas tree, a flask of wine, bread and goat’s cheese in front of her. Her head tilted back laughing and her arms raised towards him as he fiddles with the shutter of the unfamiliar camera. The photo was destroyed, along with the better part of his pack, during the bombing of Tripoli. He had lain at number 4 Dressing Station, covered in bandages, his eyes blurred with the loss. Jack shakes his head, as if to dislodge the memory, and returns the letter to its hiding place in his back pocket. Why hadn’t Eleni told him she was pregnant before he left? But what does it matter now? He is married to Ruth. He is father to two daughters who between them claim the greater part of his affection. He could, he recognizes, lose a number of things in his life. But to lose his daughters? Jack is filled with panic by the thought.

  And then there’s Ruth. What has his wife done to warrant his desertion? Jack’s view of Ruth has changed over the course of their marriage. At first he was flattered by her faith in him, drawn by the reassurance of normality that she seemed to offer. He used to smile and shake his head when she said that he was tied on for success. “After all,” she would argue, “why be a weaver when you could be an overlooker? Why be an overlooker when you could be a foreman? The sky’s the limit, Jack.”

  As always, Ruth draws her inspiration from the Bible. The parable of the talents. After the war she persuaded Jack to attend night school classes to learn more about textiles. When he brought home his diploma she framed it and displayed it prominently in their front room. And it’s been nonstop push since then. Ruth’s constant striving for more success is wearing him out. She is never satisfied. It’s all a long way from the life Jack had visualized back in Egypt when he wrote proposing marriage. He’d believed then that together they would create a stable life, an antidote to the terrifying flux of his years of fighting abroad. But seventeen years have passed and with them any notion of partnership.

  In the headlong rush that is Ruth’s ambition there are casualties. Intimate conversation being one and physical affection another. He is at first frustrated
, disappointed by the lack of physical union, then troubled by guilt. He suspects that he is being unreasonable to expect Ruth (a woman permanently distracted by what she views as the fatal illness of her younger child) to find time for sex. In her silent rejection of his advances Ruth gathers a certain martyrdom to herself. And it would have continued that way had her demands for a new house not suddenly increased in intensity. Thus reduced to only two topics of marital conversation, imminent infant death and financing the purchase of a semi, Jack has taken avoidance measures. He seeks distraction in work, completing eighteen-hour days only to discover, when he finally collapses into the marital bed, that he has the energy to be angry. Nevertheless he continues, working all the overtime he can get. On Saturday mornings he brings home parts of faulty loom drives to mend over the weekend. He already earns more than all his friends, but a weaving shed wage will never buy his wife all the things she wants. Living with Ruth is hard work and Jack’s life had looked set to continue that way until a week ago when the letter arrived and everything changed.

  Every night since, Jack has dreamed of Crete. Sleep has allowed him entry to the happy illusion that he is back in the inn, drinking and dancing, that Eleni is once more so close that he can feel her pulse. Despite the bitter knowledge when he wakes that it is not reality but imagination, he can’t stop thinking about her. He wakes immersed in a past that he had hoped to forget and now can only partially remember. He bears the daylight despair of a man fully alive only in his dreams. A man impatient for the privacy of sleep that brings with it the prospect of seeing her again. And still he feels cheated, as if he had reached out for the dancing figure of Eleni and, when the music stopped, found Ruth in his arms. As if his life is stranded here, on Blackpool beach, when he should be in Kalivis running a taverna, looking after Eleni and bringing up his son.

  Ruth finds him staring into space when she returns and she is forced to nudge him with her foot in order to get his attention. “Here, Jack. Give me a hand with this tea before I drop the lot.”

  Jack gets up and, taking the battered tin tray from her hands, places it on the sand while she disentangles her shopping bag and the brown-paper parcel from her wrist. “There was a right crowd at the tea van. I must have queued for at least twenty minutes. I’m gasping.”

  Ruth unbuttons her raincoat and pours a stream of milky tea from the chipped white pottery jug into the two similarly battered mugs. Sugar is added separately with an outsize teaspoon from a green egg cup. Taking tea on Blackpool sands is a bit rough and ready. The proprietors of the tea van ensure the return of their crockery and trays by sticking a shilling on the price, refundable with the return of the tray. This has proved to be something of a money spinner since the majority of carefree holidaymakers are not prepared to queue again with the loaded tray for the sake of a bob. Thus the sands are dotted with abandoned trays harvested at the end of the day by local lads at sixpence a time. This is business Blackpool style.

  “Where are the girls?”

  “Oh, they’re on the prom. I gave Helen a couple of bob for the slot machines.”

  “How long have they been gone? You know that Elizabeth shouldn’t walk too far.”

  “Around ten minutes,” Jack replies, keen to avoid an argument. “I’ve barely had a chance to look at the local paper.”

  Ruth passes him a mug of tea. “Well, you should see the prices of semis they’re advertising in there. They’re sky high. Best part of £2,000. Anyone would be hard pushed to afford a prewar semi let alone a new one.”

  “There’s plenty of money in Blackpool. Still, you wouldn’t have all the shops if there wasn’t,” Jack remarks, eyeing his wife’s shopping bag.

  But Ruth persists: “You could buy a semi at home for the cost of a terraced house here.” Jack presses his lips closed and turns to the cricket scores. Ruth tries another tack: “You’ll never guess who I saw in town. Cora!”

  “Hmm.”

  “You know, Cora Lloyd.”

  “Ah.”

  “She was supposed to be having a fortnight in Spain, but they’ve had to cancel. They’re staying in St. Anne’s for the week. Anyway we went for a cup of tea and she was telling me that Ronald has been up to his ears at work arranging mortgages for couples wanting to buy one of those new semis they’re building at the Boundary. You know, the ones we’re interested in.”

  This is wishful thinking. Jack is resolutely not interested in either taking on a mortgage or buying a semi. Their terraced house was bought outright for cash. Jack fires Ruth a warning glance. He has made his feelings known in the past and will do so again if she doesn’t let the subject drop.

  Ruth meets his gaze with studied indifference. “Cora says at this rate there’ll be none left by the time we get round to looking.” Jack refuses to rise to the bait. He takes another mouthful of tea and returns to his perusal of the cricket scores. “I mean, it’s not as if we don’t have the deposit, is it?… Jack? Are you listening?”

  “What?”

  “I said we have enough to put down for a deposit.”

  “It’s got nothing to do with the deposit. It’s the fact we’d be taking on a loan and interest that it would take twenty-five years to repay. I’ve told you what I think and I’m not going to get into another argument now.” From the look on his face it is obvious that he is in no mood for further discussion.

  Ruth is unaware that Beth has stolen one of the comics from the Residents’ Lounge. Beth has hidden the comic up her dress and only the elastic in the ruched bodice lies between her and immediate discovery. Mother and daughter have climbed the stairs to the second floor before the comic begins to slip. Beth is forced to fold one arm against her chest in order to prevent the paper from continuing its downward slide past her knickers and on to the floor.

  “What’s the matter with you, Elizabeth?” her mother asks. “What’s the matter with your arm? Are you hurting?” Beth nods. “Is it your chest?” Ruth tries to keep her voice calm but when Beth nods her head again she is filled with anxiety. “Do you want to stop and rest, or shall I carry you?”

  Beth shakes her head and carries on climbing. This secrecy is vital. Ruth disapproves of children’s comics. She will be angry if she discovers the contraband inching its way towards Beth’s knickers.

  Progress up to the girls’ room is slow as many of their fellow guests are on their way down for afternoon tea. Mother and daughter regularly pause and stand aside to let people pass. Hotel guests invariably say hello and smile at Beth, but she refuses to speak or even meet their eyes. Mrs. Clegg’s pity for the child has translated itself into the urge to share her concerns with other guests. Adults now watch Beth with either a lurid fascination or outright pity. The salesman’s “wife” has bought her a little Welsh doll to play with. Beth dislikes dolls in general, but she reserves a special hatred for this particular doll, for its red lips and rosy cheeks that mock her. Beth’s privacy is daily invaded by bending adults who stroke her hair, or big men who boom and push sixpences into her hand. Sadly, her mother, who invariably witnesses these monetary exchanges, collects the sixpences. Every time they pass the statue of the crippled boy outside the post office they stop and press the latest sixpence into the slot at the top of the boy’s head. Beth is drawn to the statue. The boy has leg irons, but this is of little interest. The real excitement is the big brown dog sitting at his side. The dog has friendly eyes, his mouth is open and she can see a big pink tongue that might lick her hand if he were real.

  Eventually they reach the room. Ruth walks over to the window and closes the curtains. Beth pulls out the comic from its hiding place and pushes it under her pillow. When Ruth turns back from wrestling with the curtains she sees that Elizabeth is already out of her dress and lying in bed, still as a corpse, with the covers pulled up to her chin. Ruth is gratified by the sight. This proves that she is right about Elizabeth needing rest. Ruth checks her daughter’s forehead for signs of fever (the first sign of polio and thus of constant concern to Ruth). Satisfi
ed that Elizabeth’s temperature is normal, she kisses her daughter, tucks her in as tightly as possible between the thin white sheets and lavishly darned gray Utility blankets, and switches off the light before leaving the room.

  Beth waits for some minutes before moving, listening to her mother’s retreating footsteps. Once the sound has died away she begins the struggle to free herself from the binding of bedclothes. This involves a degree of wriggling before she can worm her shoulders free, followed by some sharp twisting and turning. Once her arms are released it’s relatively easy to pull aside the sheet and blankets. Despite this Beth is gasping for breath when she finally sits up and puts her feet on the floor. Triumphant, she reaches for the comic.

  Her favorite story is about an orphan who is adopted by a cruel family who ignore her and are unkind. The orphan doesn’t realize it, but really she’s a princess who has been hidden away to keep her safe. One day a prince comes to the door and claims her, and she leaves the nasty house and moves to the palace where she belongs. Beth is entranced by the story. She reads it again and again, and traces the pictures with her finger. She is interested in becoming an orphan. More exciting still is the prospect of living in a palace like the Tiger Woman. But the Tiger Woman is pretty. Beth sits and mulls the problem over. She is already growing her nails into claws, but Beth’s lips aren’t as red as they ought to be. In fact, they’re not red at all. Mrs. Clegg said she thought they looked a bit blue at breakfast. Beth sighs and bites her lips hard, the way she has seen Helen do before she walks into the hotel dining room. But there may be a better solution. Beth opens the drawer in her bedside table and takes out a circular box. The label says,