I shook my head, avoiding a direct lie. ‘I think she’d been walking a long way, she seemed exhausted but she was so big and strong I was half afraid of her.’ That much at least was the truth.
‘What language did she speak?’
‘German,’ I said at once.
Michael came into the room just then and put his arm around me.
‘You don’t think Meryl was harbouring this woman voluntarily do you father? After all the spy nearly killed her.’
Herr Euler regarded me for a moment, taking me for being a bit slow. He shook his head, convinced by my story.
‘It’s a pity you didn’t see which direction she came from, we might have found some useful information and some equipment. She must have been dropped by plane, that’s what usually happens.’
‘I was so busy trying to catch the chicken I didn’t notice anything till she was there beside me.’
‘Strange she should come here when you were at home,’ he said.
‘Who would know I’d be here?’ I asked. ‘In any case, I was expecting Michael to join me, remember?’
He nodded, accepting the sense of this. He clicked his heels. ‘I must go, my car is outside, my driver is patiently waiting for me. Take care, daughter-in-law. Take great care.’
When Herr Euler’s car drove away I looked at Michael and shrugged. ‘How could I know she was coming?’ I decided to confide in him. ‘She was Welsh you know. Spying for our side.’ I began to cry and Michael hugged me and kissed me. ‘And remember if I hadn’t come in when I did she would have killed you.’
He scooped me in his arms and as I pressed my lips to his, he kicked open the door and carried me upstairs to bed.
Forty-Three
‘I can’t believe my sister is working for the Germans.’ Hari had been welcomed back warmly by the colonel. He was sick but he was staying on, at least for a few days, while he brought her up to date with what had been happening.
‘She’s married to a German, that says it all doesn’t it?’ The colonel was pale, his lines graved deeper into his face. He needed to retire; he knew it and Hari knew it.
‘But Michael lived here in Wales from the time he was ten,’ Hari protested. ‘He wouldn’t work for the Germans even though…’ she broke off. How did she know what Michael would do now he was in the Fatherland? He had married Meryl, hadn’t he, after promising himself to her?
‘We’ve had intelligence—’ the colonel looked at her shrewdly—‘that Michael Euler is flying German planes against us. What more proof do you want?’
Hari put her head in her hands. The colonel’s voice was hard. ‘Face up to facts, girl, they are both traitors to this country and your job is to pull in any messages you can to try and trap them.’
Hari lifted her hand. ‘I know.’ She took a deep breath. ‘You go home now, Colonel Edwards, you look very tired.’
‘I am very tired. Sure you can manage?’
‘I can manage.’ She looked up as he stumbled to his feet. ‘And you can trust me, I give you my word.’
‘If I didn’t know that I wouldn’t be handing over to you.’
He left the office and Hari put on the headphones. She thought of her friends in Bletchley Park and wished she was there with them. A voice came over the air; she caught just enough German to take in the message. Quickly she wrote it down. As soon as her shift was over she would have to send any important messages to the hall in case they had been missed by the radio officers there. And she would ask the girls to listen out to any unusual coding from a strange ‘fist’ as they called the mark of the individual radio operator. Her sister maybe.
A wave of nostalgia washed over her, she wished she was back in the Park with all her cheerful friends; at night in the boarding house they’d been like schoolgirls, eating at midnight, putting beetroot juice on their lips in the evenings when they went out dancing, rubbing cheeks to make them red; it had all been such fun. Now that she was back home she had time to think about Michael and her sister, their betrayal of trust, and she felt nothing would ever be right again.
She didn’t feel like going straight home after work so she called on Kate. Little Teddy was crying, stumbling round the kitchen on plump legs. Hilda was slumped in a chair looking old and drained.
‘Kate, how are things?’ Hari sat close to Kate and held her hand. ‘How are you feeling, baby moving yet?’
‘Not yet,’ Kate said softly. ‘I hope it never moves. I don’t want it, Eddie doesn’t want it, only Stephen wants this child.’ She put her hands over her sightless eyes.
‘We saw Stephen, he wants to keep in touch. He’s doing well, car, everything, but he sounds so sad. Oh what a horrible mess my life is. Why did I give in to the men, let them do, well… you know.’
‘You were young, you only wanted to help and comfort the boys because that’s all they were before the war got them, boys!’ Hari squeezed Kate’s hands.
‘Don’t think of the baby as a burden, it’s your child remember, yours, you’ll love it when it comes.’
‘I hope to God and all the saints you’re right, Hari, because I don’t love it now, that’s for sure.’
Hilda stirred herself from her half daze. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’ She rested her hand for a moment on Kate’s shoulder. ‘You can’t help what the Good Lord chose for us, girl, this baby was meant to be, you can’t change it and I for one will love it whatever it is.’
Hari marvelled at Hilda’s forbearance: a child was coming into her world, into her home and she was accepting it with good grace. She seemed to read Hari’s thoughts.
‘Stephen is a good lad. He worked and kept us all while Eddie was missing; he generously kept my Eddie’s son, gave him his name, fed and watered the babe; we owe him a debt for that and don’t you forget it, any of you.’
‘She’s right,’ Kate said, ‘I’m a horrible pig, I must pull myself together and stop feeling sorry for myself.’
Hari hugged her and kissed her soft cheek. ‘Night, dear Kate, I’d best get home, if I still have a home after the air raid this afternoon.’
Kate held on to her hand. ‘Any news?’
Hari knew what she meant.
‘They’re both safe,’ she said gently. ‘That’s all I know.’ How could she tell Kate how her sister was betraying her country?
She walked home in the darkness, instinct leading her through the familiar streets towards her house. Good thing she hadn’t let it yet or she would be homeless. She felt her way inside, into the passage and shone her torch into the darkness. She closed the door on the world and followed the beam of light towards the stairs. She paused; should she make some tea, should she light the fire and stay up and read a book or listen to the gramophone?
She shone the beam of light up the stairs and crawled fully dressed into bed too tired to light the fires. Her stomach heaved as she thought of Michael lying with Meryl, making sweet love to her.
Her heart turned over. How could she still love him now after all he’d done to her? And yet she did, she loved him with all her heart and soul. And now, now he was married, to her sister, and he was nothing more than a traitor to her beloved country. Hari didn’t know what upset her most, Michael’s betrayal of their country or the betrayal of her love.
Forty-Four
I didn’t think I could love Michael any more than I already did but once we were lovers I realized what closeness really was. He possessed me and I possessed him. He became part of me, one flesh, and at last I knew what that meant. And if I felt a pang of guilt and pity for my sister it soon passed, it was a different life now, a different world.
When he was leaving the farmhouse to return to his squadron he held me close. I breathed him in, the smell of him, the faint scent of the grass and the flowers and the fresh air. And beneath it all the musk, the scent of love and of passion—even as he pressed me close I could feel his arousal.