The Hidden Read online

  MARY CHAMBERLAIN is a novelist and historian. Her debut novel, The Dressmaker of Dachau, was published in 18 countries. She is the author of non-fiction books on women’s history, and Caribbean history including Fenwomen, the first book published by Virago Press. She lives in London.

  ALSO BY MARY CHAMBERLAIN:

  Fiction

  The Mighty Jester

  The Dressmaker of Dachau

  Non-fiction

  Empire and Nation-building in the Caribbean: Barbados 1937 – 1966

  Family Love in the Diaspora: Migration

  and the Anglo Caribbean Experience

  Narratives of Exile and Return

  Growing Up in Lambeth

  Old Wives’ Tales: The History of Remedies, Charms and Spells

  Fenwomen: A Portrait of Women in an English Village

  THE HIDDEN

  Mary Chamberlain

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The German invasion of the British Channel Islands began on 30 June 1940 and was completed with the surrender of Sark on 4 July 1940. All but twenty of the residents of Alderney had been evacuated to mainland Britain, along with many men of military age, and some women and children, from Jersey and Guernsey. The islands were not liberated until 9 May 1945. They were the only part of the British Isles to be occupied during the Second World War.

  The governors of Guernsey and Jersey had been recalled to London shortly before the Germans invaded, and their responsibilities handed to the bailiffs, Alexander Coutanche in Jersey and Victor Carey in Guernsey, with instructions to continue administration of the island under the German authorities.

  Between September 1942 and February 1943, residents who had been born in Britain were deported to internment camps in France and Germany. They did not all survive the war. Those Jews remaining on the islands (most, but not all, had been able to evacuate before the German invasion) were also deported in the same period to France and then to concentration camps in Germany or Poland, where many were murdered.

  With no hinterland in which to hide and no assistance from London, resistance in the Channel Islands was limited to protests and acts of defiance. In Jersey there was a clandestine network of safe houses for escaped prisoners, organised by Norman Le Brocq, a member of the Communist Party who also distributed leaflets encouraging mutiny within the German forces. Some individuals engaged in clandestine protests like the ‘V for Victory’ daubings, or secreting notes disclaiming Hitler into German possessions, and a few clergymen protected members of the outlawed Salvation Army church; Charles Rey, the Jesuit priest, used his geological collection to manufacture crystal sets after the confiscation of wirelesses in 1942.

  Islanders charged with resistance were also deported or, after August 1944, imprisoned locally.

  PROLOGUE

  St Helier, Jersey: June 1985

  The chequered marble floor needed a scrub. Her heels clicked as she crossed it, echoed in the hollow house. The vast oak staircase was still there, though the balustrades were dull and dusty, the ruby carpet threadbare on the tread, the stair rods covered in verdigris. To her left was the officers’ bar, where she’d first heard ‘Lili Marleen’ being played on the gramophone.

  Dora opened her mouth. The verses swirled in her head. She knew the words off by heart, even now, after all those years. She walked along the landing, up and into the attics. Her fingers were shaky as she turned the door handle. She was all alone. What if the door slammed behind her and she couldn’t get out? No one knew she was here and her cries would not be heard. But something was drawing her in, churning flashbacks into compulsions. Come closer.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE: DORA

  CHAPTER TWO: JOE

  CHAPTER THREE: DORA

  CHAPTER FOUR: JOE

  CHAPTER FIVE: DORA

  CHAPTER SIX: JOE

  CHAPTER SEVEN: DORA

  CHAPTER EIGHT: JOE

  CHAPTER NINE: DORA

  CHAPTER TEN: JOE

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: DORA

  CHAPTER TWELVE: JOE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: DORA

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: JOE

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: DORA

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: JOE

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: DORA

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: DORA

  CHAPTER NINETEEN: DORA

  EPILOGUE: JOE

  AFTERWORD

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  DORA

  London: a few months earlier, March 1985

  Please forgive this letter out of the blue, but I am trying to trace a Dora Simons, or Simmons, last heard of in 1943 in Jersey. I believe she worked as a midwife…

  It was dated 24 March 1985, written on headed notepaper, the Huntingdon Bed & Breakfast, Bloomsbury. Dora knew the kind of place well. Swirling carpets, nylon sheets, full English breakfast. Cheap.

  Mr Joseph O’Cleary, of La Ferme de l’Anse, St Martin, Jersey, gave me this address…

  Dora folded the letter in two and sat down hard on the kitchen chair. Her chest tightened, making her breathless. She had no idea who Joseph O’Cleary was. It stood to reason that someone else would be living in the farm after all these years, but how he had come to have her address was anyone’s guess. She’d given no one her details when she left. Nor had she met any Irishmen, or if she had, she’d forgotten. Whoever O’Cleary was, he’d got her name wrong. She was Simon. Not Simons. Or Simmons. An easy mistake, if you didn’t know her.

  This could be a hoax. She’d reply and then be lumbered with a subscription to Reader’s Digest or some cookery club that she had no interest in. She received those letters all the time. Congratulations! You have won first prize in our million-pound draw. To claim your prize, take out a year’s subscription to…

  Dora screwed up the letter. Walked over to the sink and filled the kettle. A cup of tea. Just the thing. How very English she’d become over the years, drinking tea through every crisis. She’d grown to tolerate it with milk. She turned on the radio. Something sharp and discordant was being sung. She reached for her cigarettes, eyeing the balled-up paper on the table. Whatever they were playing wasn’t music in her book. No melody, only episodes that jarred, upside down, back to front.

  She opened the letter again and spread it flat, ironing out the creases with her fingers.

  …although, as he indicated, it may not be current. If you are not Dora Simons (or Simmons), I wonder whether you would be so kind as to reply and let me know, so I can eliminate you from my searches.

  She stood up, holding onto the back of the chair for support.

  Yours sincerely, Barbara Hummel.

  The writer gave no clue as to why she wished to contact Dora. It wasn’t a name Dora knew. Perhaps Barbara Hummel was one of the babies she’d delivered. She rarely learned what they’d been called. That all happened later, at the christening, and no one invited the midwife to one of those. Nor was Hummel an English name. More Scandinavian, perhaps. Or German. The English was perfect, but then, she thought, the continent was so much better at teaching languages than England. The continent, as if England was not part of it. As if she was not part of it.

  Hummel could be a married name, of course.

  She’d deal with the letter later: Dear Barbara Hummel. Thank you for your communication dated 24 March 1985.

  Or ignore it, pretend it had never arrived, scrunch it up again and throw it into the bin. It could be a made-up name. It could be a criminal syndicate. What if they blackmailed her? She switched off the radio.

  It was raining outside, and windy with it. The kettle turned itself off with a click and Dora poured the water into the pot. At least she hadn’t succumbed to the teabag. She wasn’t that English. She still used tea leaves, proper leaves that swelled in water and made good compo
st. She’d drain the dregs into a tidy in the sink, then add them to the bucket in which she put her peelings and apple cores and empty it all on the compost once a day. Her garden was her pride and joy. Uncle Otto’d had no interest in it. He’d been glad for Dora to take it on, Save me paying, he’d said. But that wasn’t the reason. He saw it as therapy for her, and he’d been right.

  It had taken her years to knock it into shape. The shrubs were thick and tall now, the herbaceous border lush and colourful and the cherry tree – her father’s favourite fruit – mature and productive, even if the birds ate the fruit before she could. It wouldn’t be long before the cherry blossomed. It always came with the camellias, after the magnolia, a waterfall of pink that filled the garden from week to week. She’d planted clematis and climbing roses, wisteria and hydrangea, and as the season progressed, they spread a floral palette and filled the garden with the sweet nostalgia of scent.

  The daffodils would flower soon, too. Tough, were daffodils. She watched as the wind bent them over and the rain pummelled the buds. The cloudy sky indicated no let-up. She’d have to brave the elements, put on her mackintosh and waterproof hat, her stout walking shoes. She’d be dry enough. She’d shake off the water and bounce right up, like the daffies. Couldn’t abide umbrellas. They took up space and blew inside out.

  Perhaps she could write to this Barbara Hummel and ask her why she wanted to trace Dora Simon. Could she do that without admitting who she was? I am in contact with Dora Simon (please note the correct spelling) who has requested me to ask you why it is you wish to trace her.

  Enough. She was fine. Breathing normal, hands calm, crisis passed. There was nothing to this letter. She twisted it up again and put it in the bin. She pulled her shopping trolley out from the cupboard under the stairs, checked she had her purse and keys and looked into the hall mirror to make sure she looked presentable before she set off.

  Since when had her hair become so white? It was still thick and wavy, but its rich summer colours had long turned to winter. Like an Arctic fox or a mountain hare. Perhaps she should colour it. Nothing too brash, too brassy. A rinse, perhaps, a soft shade that would tone in. Her crowning glory. She kept it in a bun now, away from her face, curls pulled flat and taut. It made her look strict, stand-offish.

  ‘People think you’re hard to get to know,’ Charles told her once. ‘Detached. Forbidding.’

  ‘Easy on the budget,’ she’d said. How could she afford a regular hairdresser on her pension from the university? She could have applied for promotion, but she’d never had the confidence. Been happy to stick at the top of her grade for her entire working life.

  Her heart had died in the war, she knew that. Her body had lingered on, but the years had caught up with her now. She looked old. Would it suit her short? Release the curls? A good cut could last months. She sucked in her cheeks, turned to one side, looked at herself from the corner of her eye. It would take years off her.

  She was rigid in her ways, she knew. Charles told her that all the time.

  ‘Plain stubborn.’

  ‘I have routines,’ Dora said. ‘They’re different.’

  But she’d never had to adjust to anyone else, to accommodate their needs, not after Uncle Otto died.

  She pulled on her rain hat, turned down the brim. Dora paused, eyeing the bin where the scrunched-up paper was. That letter was tugging her back into a place she thought she’d never have to visit again. It made her uneasy. She didn’t like to be discombobulated. Now that was a word. Worthy of German, in its way, with all those syllables. Tipped off balance. She’d kept a tight rein on her life since the war, but restraint was a flimsy prison, its bars soft as a spider’s web. No wonder she wanted to change her hair. Why not get a fake tan while she was about it? Or a facelift? Escape into somebody else. Was she really so forbidding?

  Library books. She checked the shopping trolley. Of course she’d put them there once she’d read them. Habit of a lifetime. She must be getting old. Forgetful. She had strategies against that. She kept herself busy, especially now, after retirement. ‘Never be bored,’ her father used to say. ‘But don’t be afraid to be idle.’ He was full of sayings. She thought of him every day, even though it was more than fifty years since he’d died. That’s how the dead lived on, became immortal. Who would remember her? She had no children of her own. ‘Dust to dust.’ That was what her father used to say. ‘Science gives us the answers. Who needs rabbis and priests?’

  She played bridge competitively, practised compulsively, dealing herself tricks on the kitchen table and going to the club three nights a week. Trips to tournaments in Eastbourne or Scarborough. Choir every Thursday, taking the bus to Tufnell Park. She practised the clarinet, too, bought sheet music from Boosey & Hawkes in Regent Street. Dinner with Charles once a week when he came up from Kent, her place or a restaurant.

  ‘Why don’t we just live together,’ he’d say. ‘You don’t have to marry me.’

  ‘I like things the way they are.’

  And her garden. That was her true joy. Weeding and pruning and cutting and trimming. It looked wild, but it wasn’t disordered.

  La Ferme de l’Anse had wisteria, a gnarled, seasoned plant that hugged the front of the house and crowned in May. She could see it now, the magnificent scented pendants in shades of amethyst and purple. Roses too. Wild pink climbers in the hedgerows, standards in the border, white or burgundy with a heady perfume. She’d never recollected it before. She could feel the sweat under her arms, her trembling legs and hands. She gripped the edge of the table. Steady. Steady. Breathed deep. Pull yourself together.

  Had her unconscious been trying to recreate it? A stem memory? Frail and unformed, now multiplying and morphing like a cancer cell. Was her garden nothing but a memento mori? Of what? A time?

  A love?

  A whole week had gone by. The scene at the front of the house could have been Brighton beach after a bank holiday. Pizza delivery boxes, scraps of tin foil, orange peel, juice cartons. Newspapers. Empty wine bottles. They were now required to put out their rubbish on the pavement, which meant the foxes had first pickings, before the dustmen came. She’d told her tenants again and again not to put unwanted food in the garbage. But they did. This was what greeted her every Wednesday morning. It was always Dora who had to clear up the mess.

  She wore a pair of rubber gloves and carried a large black plastic sack. Scooped up the detritus and the ripped bags, crammed them into the new one. The foxes had been particularly active that morning. Every dustbin had been tipped over, including, Dora saw, her own, even though she was meticulous in making sure there was nothing to tempt the animals.

  And there it was again. Dora picked the letter off the forecourt, was about to ram it into the bag. Pocketed it instead. She’d have one more look at it. She stood up, heard the rumbling of the dustcart, secured the top of the black bag tight. She’d have a word with the dustmen when they came. Ask them to clean the mess in future. What did she pay her rates for, if it wasn’t to clear the rubbish and light the streets?

  When she thought about it, this woman was looking for Dora, last heard of in 1943. So she must only be interested in the time before. La Ferme de l’Anse. She could talk to her about those days. A wartime affair. You know how these things go. Flash in the pan. Whirlwind romance.

  She’d write to this Barbara Hummel after all. Though she may have left the hotel already. It was not the sort of place you stayed in long term. That would be the best of all worlds. Dora would have replied, the woman would never have known.

  Dora smiled, stepped onto the pavement, flagged down the dustmen.

  CHAPTER TWO

  JOE

  Jersey: May 1985

  Joe fingered the halter in his hand. The air was still, save the melody from the fields, the rustle of the grasses as the mice and the beetles scurried about their business, the hum of the bees as they dipped inside the clover blossoms.

  He pulled the letter out of his pocket. It had been sitting there
for a couple of days, forgotten. He was getting absent-minded. It had a Jersey postmark and the sender’s address written on the back of the envelope. B. Hummel, c/o Hotel de France, St Saviour’s Road.

  Dear Mr O’Cleary,

  Thank you for your help. I am pleased to report that I have traced a Dora Simon (not Simons, or Simmons). I am hoping that I may be able to meet her in London next time I visit and will be able to report back more about your friend.

  Dora Simon wasn’t a friend. Not even an acquaintance. It was forty years since he’d pushed himself into the scrum surrounding her that day as she’d crouched on the ground with her dress ripped and locks of red curls lying on the paving stones like boiled shrimps. It was the Red Cross that had given him her details, and he’d kept her address, at the time, meaning to write. But he never got round to it and then forgot he even had her details, until a couple of months ago.

  Still, he was glad to hear that the woman was still alive. He presumed she was well, though none of them were spring chickens anymore. He’d be seventy himself this year. Fit as a fiddle, mind.

  I’ll be back in Jersey in early May. If I may, I’ll drive up to your farm to make your acquaintance.

  Why would she want to do that? He’d written to her once already, c/o the PO box number she’d given in the paper. The photograph is that of Dora Simons, or Simmons, a midwife. Last known whereabouts, Jersey, 1943. That’s what the old man had told Joe. What more did she want?

  ‘No.’ Joe said it out loud. He didn’t want to make the woman’s acquaintance. It was hard enough living with himself as it was. A bit of a recluse, that’s what they said about him. A bit of an eccentric. Well, that suited him fine. He had the farm, he had the birds, he had fresh air and food. He kept himself clean, if not always tidy. His trousers were old and held up with binder twine, but there was wear in them still. His jacket was torn, but he had another for town and a black tie for funerals. He shaved twice a week and that was enough. He didn’t want any more company than he had already. Spying and prying. Busybodies. Ghouls. He did not want to meet a stranger who’d stir up memories.