Somewhere Over England by Margaret Graham Page A

turning from her only when Chris called.
    ‘Catch,’ and the ball hit his arm.
    Heine had wanted to help too.
    Her mother’s telegram arrived the next day.
    ‘Return immediately. Stop. I am unwell. Stop. Mother.’

CHAPTER 5
    They arrived in the Avenue at midday on the 30 December having travelled almost without stopping. It was cold. A heavy mist coated the trees, the last few skeletal leaves hung like rags and the houses looked grey.
    Her mother was sitting up in bed eating a lightly boiled egg, which, she said, a neighbour had kindly cooked just a moment ago. Helen just looked at her, at her pink cheeks bearing no trace of illness, at her permed hair tucked into a hairnet.
    ‘Just a touch of flu, after all,’ her mother said and her smile was the same as it had been when Helen came out from the cupboard.
    Helen turned, and left the room, straightened the pictures on the stair wall, placing her feet carefully on each stair, concentrating on this, not on her anger which was so intense that she felt sick. She walked into the kitchen where Heine was lighting the gas under the kettle. There was a smell of sulphur from the match, a smell of gas from the front ring.
    ‘Stay in here,’ she said. ‘Whatever you hear, stay in the warm.’ She smiled at Heine, at Chris, but did not stop and explain.
    She returned upstairs, made up the spare bed in that bleak room and then told her mother that she would stay for three days so that the neighbours did not have to boil eggs for her and watched the smile increase.
    ‘Heine will stay with me and you will move to the spare room, as you felt Father should. There is no room for Heine unless we use your bed.’
    The smile disappeared, the eyes were dark, and Helen was glad. She took her arm and led her without speaking, without listening to the harsh voice. She helped her into the bed and now she spoke again.
    ‘Should I hang a damp blanket to contain the germs?’ she asked. ‘Would that be wise, Mother?’
    She left her then with the anger hanging in the air between them.
    In the front room on 31 December, she and Heine saw in the year of 1939 with mulled wine, praying that peace would endure, that somehow Hitler could be stopped without great carnage; that hostility would not blossom in England towards Germans and Italians. That in Germany, God was with Heine’s parents.
    As they drank quietly together Heine touched Helen’s hand and said, ‘Your mother is widowed and lonely. We have our lives before us and one another. We should be generous, my darling. Ask her to join us, please.’
    She said nothing, just looked at the fire and the flames which lurched round logs and coal. She did not want her mother down, she did not want to see in the New Year with her in case, somehow, she tainted it with her presence.
    ‘Please,’ Heine said again. ‘There is enough bitterness and pain throughout the world without continuing a feud within our own family.’
    So Helen helped her mother down the stairs although she was not fragile enough to need help. She eased her into a chair, handed her a glass of warm wine, feeling the heat from her own as she sat and watched her mother smooth her satin dressing gown and sip with pursed mouth. Yes, all right, Mother, she thought as she sipped her own wine, tasting the warmth in her mouth. All right, I shall do as Heine says and be generous tonight and in the future, but I will never let you spoil any part of my life ever again.
    In January the gas mask drills which had been desultory for the past year took on a new urgency in the schools, and in Germany Jews were banned from cinemas, theatres and concerts. They were banned from being vets, pharmacists and dentists and so the refugees continued to pass through Helen’s flat.
    In February her mother complained that she earned too much from Ernest’s pensions to claim a free air raid shelter and Helen said that she was not in one of the priority target areas anyway, as she, Heine and Chris