A Silver Lining Page 15

  Better not try to read his face. And better not drink any more wine, in case a clear head were needed. Thud, thud, thud went her heart, and it was with relief that she saw their waiter arriving with their first course. Now there would be something to do, thank God, other than worrying about what Viktor wanted to say.

  Thirty-Seven

  All too soon they were together in the lounge, coffee on the table before them, no one else around except a couple in the corner who had no eyes for them. Only a nearby mirror seemed to show another couple, but it was just their reflections, Jinny’s and Viktor’s, both looking pale, their eyes dark smudges, even his – but that must have been a trick of the light.

  ‘Mind if I smoke?’ he asked, as Jinny turned her gaze from the mirror.

  ‘You know I never mind. Is this coffee all right for you?’

  ‘Not bad at all. Better than most.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  Watching him light a cigarette, she saw that his hand was trembling. He was nervous, then. Nervous, and unhappy.

  ‘What is it you wanted to say?’ she asked, drinking her coffee, her own hand trembling as she held the cup.

  ‘I – the truth is – I don’t want to say it.’ He drew on the cigarette. ‘Perhaps you’ve guessed what it is, anyway?’

  ‘Just tell me.’

  ‘Jinny – liebchen – I have to go back to Vienna. Quite soon. It’s not much earlier than I would have gone anyway, but I don’t want to delay.’

  Silence descended. The couple in the corner rose and went out. No one else came. Jinny did not speak.

  ‘Please,’ Viktor said at last. ‘Please, say something, Jinny. I know how you must be feeling, I feel so bad myself—’

  ‘I’m trying to take it in, Viktor, what you’ve told me. You’ve made a decision to go home? And that’s yours alone? I thought we were going to make a decision together? Isn’t that what we said?’

  ‘Things have changed. We don’t have the same choices now.’

  ‘Why? All that’s changed is that there’s going to be no war. I’d have thought that’d make things easier for us.’

  He shook his head. ‘Jinny, please, listen. It’s as I said, Mr Chamberlain has not achieved peace, whatever is written on his paper. Hitler has no intention of honouring his promise and, when he’s ready, he will strike. I have to be in my own country when that happens. I can’t afford to be trapped here, where I’d just be interned as a foreigner. You do see that?’

  ‘No, because I don’t know why you’re so sure that Hitler wants war. How do you know? You can’t know!’

  ‘I do know,’ he said wearily, and with a last draw on his cigarette, stubbed it out. ‘I know because my father has told me what his Nazi customers have told him. Hitler has no respect for Chamberlain, he finds him irritating and foolish, and will have no hesitation in going to war with Great Britain when the time comes.’ Viktor stretched out his hand to take Jinny’s. ‘So you see, my dearest, why I must go home.’

  ‘Yes, I see,’ she said quietly, staring down at their clasped hands. ‘You have to go, so you must take me with you.’

  It was Viktor’s turn to fall silent. He withdrew his hand from Jinny’s and ran it over his face as she sat watching, her eyes alight, her lips parted.

  ‘Why not?’ she cried. ‘Why not, Viktor? If we love each other?’

  ‘Oh, Jinny, we do, we do! But there is no way you can come with me to Vienna the way things are. You’d be a foreigner, from a country likely to be an enemy – it would never work out. I could never let you do it.’

  ‘But if we were married? I’d be with you, part of your family—’

  ‘It would make no difference – you’d still be under suspicion. And how would your family feel, if war comes, as it will, and you were living in an enemy country? You could never put them through that.’

  She was silent, coming face-to-face as never before with the difficulties, the near impossibility, of sharing the life of the man she loved in the present situation. If he was right and war between their two countries came about, he would not even be with her in Vienna but in the army, fighting her countrymen and women. She would be alone, regarded as an alien, an enemy, maybe even interned, as Viktor said he would be if he stayed in Scotland. There was no hope, no hope at all, of their being together, whichever country they were in.

  Great tears began to fill her dark, tragic eyes and then slide silently down her cheeks. With a long sigh wrenched up from her unhappy heart, she dabbed at the tears with her hankie and rose to her feet.

  ‘I think I should go home now, Viktor.’

  ‘Of course.’ He leaped up to be near her. ‘I’ll just get the bill and call a taxi.’

  ‘A taxi? What are you talking about? We never take taxis.’

  ‘Tonight, we will.’

  ‘No, I’m taking the tram. You needn’t come, Viktor. I’d like to be on my own, to sort out things out in my head. Where’s my coat, then?’

  His face quite white, he ran after her as she moved to the main restaurant, where a waiter helped her put her coat on and she pulled on her dark blue beret.

  ‘Wait, Jinny, wait!’ Viktor cried, scrambling into his raincoat. ‘I have to pay the bill—’

  She halted, shrugging. ‘Be quick, then.’

  People were staring but it was all right, she was not embarrassing him, they were not having a tiff at the end of their evening as lovers sometimes do. What was going wrong for them went much deeper than that, and it would have been childish not to leave together.

  ‘Thank you,’ Viktor said as they walked fast to the tram stop. ‘Thank you for waiting, Jinny.’

  ‘Thank you for dinner.’

  ‘Oh, God, Jinny, you’re not going to stop me taking you home, are you? I know how you are feeling, and I feel terrible about it, but it’s not the end for us. We’ll write, we’ll keep in touch, and when it’s all over we’ll be really together. Truly together.’

  ‘What are you saying, Viktor? We’re engaged?’

  He hesitated. ‘You know we are. Not formally, maybe—’

  ‘Not formally at all.’

  ‘There is a reason, for that.’

  ‘What reason?’

  ‘Jinny, this isn’t the time or place to talk. Let me come with you now—’

  She turned her head, saw a tram in the distance, and sighed. ‘All right, then, all right. I give in.’

  ‘Thank God,’ he said simply and, when the tram arrived, climbed on with her and sat close on the wooden seating. Both were exhausted and did not speak until they were in Fingal Street, outside the Hendries’ flat.

  Jinny said quietly, ‘Tell me the reason, Viktor. Tell me why we can’t be formally engaged.’

  ‘It’s difficult, Jinny. I don’t want to sound too … pessimistic … but you have to think of the … situation.’

  ‘If you’re talking about the war, that shouldn’t matter.’

  ‘I’m talking about going to war, and—’ He stopped. ‘Look, you must know what I’m trying to say.’

  ‘Going to war and not coming back?’ she asked huskily. ‘Viktor, that’s why we should be engaged. So that I’d always have that, always know that’s what we both wanted.’

  ‘No,’ he said definitely. ‘No, if anything happens to me, I want you to have your own life. A properly fulfilled life, not just a string of memories. That’s why I’m not going to let you tie yourself to me until we can be properly together.’ He drew her into his arms and kissed her gently. ‘So, let’s just think of that happening, liebchen. Being together, making love – and don’t ask me how often I think about that – but secure. In a world without war. That’s what we have to work for, because it’s all that matters.’

  She leaned against him, her tears returning, wondering how she could have thought of not letting him be with her to say goodnight. It was the pain, she supposed, of his deciding to go home without her – it had been so hard to bear, especially when she’d been so happy thinking there could be someth
ing so different for them, now that there was peace. But Viktor did not believe in Hitler’s peace. He was looking ahead to war and going off to fight, even accepting that he might not come back, and working out how things might be for her if he didn’t.

  Thinking of that, she clutched him compulsively, kissing him with all her strength and love.

  ‘I think about making love, too,’ she whispered. ‘And sometimes I’ve wished – I’ve wondered – if we could be together like that. I mean, why not, Viktor?’

  ‘You know why not, Jinny. Afterwards you might think differently, have regrets—’

  ‘No, no, I wouldn’t. If we were engaged.’ In the light of the street lamp, her drenched eyes were tender. ‘It’s not too late, you know.’

  ‘It’s too early,’ he said softly. ‘Our time will come, though, I promise you. One day it will come.’

  After they’d held each other in a vain attempt at comfort, Jinny slipped from his arms and took out her key.

  ‘Would you like to come in for a minute, Viktor? No one’s home yet – there’s no light on.’

  ‘I … maybe I’d better not. If your father were to see me he’d be upset.’

  She was about to say not to worry, but instead smiled a little ruefully and waved at three figures in the distance.

  ‘I see my sisters and Allan,’ she murmured. ‘They must have been out celebrating. But you must still come in.’

  He didn’t, though, and instead, when the sisters and Allan arrived and there’d been laughter and hugs, said he must get back.

  ‘Oh, what a shame!’ cried May. ‘We’ve been over to Allan’s to celebrate – had some of the neighbours in and had a wonderful time. Didn’t we, Allan? Didn’t we have a grand time?’

  ‘With mine the only dissenting voice,’ remarked Vi. ‘Well, I had a grand time too, but shouldn’t have done, really, seeing as I think Mr C. should never have signed that document with Hitler. Giving him everything he wanted! It was disgraceful!’

  At which May said she was calling time on any more of that talk and now they must all go inside and she’d put the kettle on. Did Viktor really have to go?’

  ‘I’m afraid so, but it’s been wonderful to meet you all like this. Jinny, I’ll see you tomorrow?’

  Their eyes met.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ she agreed, and watched as he went down the street until she could see him no more, when she turned to join the others and hoped they wouldn’t notice she’d been crying.

  Thirty-Eight

  Within three weeks, Viktor had gone. The worst three weeks of Jinny’s life, she’d thought them. Until she said goodbye to him at Waverley Station and walked unseeingly back to Comrie’s. It was then she realized that every day ahead was to be like this, filled with the searing pain of loss, and felt her knees almost buckle and her head swim, as though she had some sort of flu.

  That Viktor felt the same – and she knew he did from his anguished face at the train window – gave her no comfort. In a way, it only made her feel worse, for his unhappiness seemed to make it clear that there was no real hope for them. If he could have been cheerful, telling her that this parting was only temporary and they would meet again soon, she might have been able to rally to cheerfulness too.

  But of course, he couldn’t pretend things weren’t as they were, or that his clear-sightedness was mistaken – otherwise they would not have been saying goodbye. Even though they promised to write, and Jinny even said she’d be taking German lessons at evening class, they both knew this parting could be one of sorrow only, for there were no guarantees they would ever meet again.

  How kind folk were, though! Jinny had never imagined her situation would bring such sympathy. Even her father, who was so relieved she was not going to Vienna, had taken her in his arms and said, ‘Lassie, lassie, don’t cry, he’ll be back, eh? If there’s no war, you’ll see him again,’ and she’d sobbed but been so grateful that he should try to help her.

  And her sisters, of course, did all they could, trying to think of things to cheer her, pointing out that Viktor might have got it all wrong and there’d be peace after all, though Vi did not believe it, and May couldn’t stop wondering what she would have done if she’d been left as Jinny had been and her Allan had gone to foreign parts.

  The staff at Comrie’s, though, were the most surprising to Jinny, for she knew there’d always been those who’d prophesied disaster for her if she went out with a foreigner, as well as those who’d teased and laughed, or felt a certain envy, and they might have taken a gloomy satisfaction in seeing her as she was now – abandoned, as it were. Yet that hadn’t been the case at all. They’d all made a point of showing sympathy – from the bakery workers to the shop and café staff – with even Senga strangely showing some heart. Especially when she and Terry, out of the blue, announced their engagement at Christmas, and Senga, showing her ring, had whispered to Jinny, ‘I’m that sorry, Jinny, I am, honestly.’

  At which, Jinny, astonished, almost burst into tears, but with true sincerity wished her and Terry every happiness.

  As for Accounts, her own workplace, it was here that she gained the most comfort. Not from Mr Comrie, who never seemed to want to look at her, perhaps because of feelings of guilt that his nephew had departed. Nor from Mabel, who was always shaking her head as though she’d known all along that something like this would happen. No, it was from Ross that the most comfort came.

  The difference between him and everyone else was that he knew the whole background to her love affair with Viktor, had in a sense been through it with her having always been there, always ready to listen. Sometimes, it was true, he’d felt it necessary to warn her of possible future unhappiness, but usually he’d accepted her love and understood what it meant to her. And now that Viktor had gone, though his love hadn’t died for her, as she’d been able to explain to Ross, if not to others, he knew just how much she was suffering, being now alone.

  ‘You’re so kind,’ she told him once. ‘You understand how I feel, but you don’t keep asking me how I am or telling me I’ll soon feel better or anything. I appreciate that.’

  ‘Well, I know from experience that it’s pointless telling people they’ll feel better one day. They probably will, but it takes time. In your case, though, there is hope, isn’t there? That you and Viktor will be together again one day?’

  ‘Hope? I don’t know. I have a feeling that I’ll never see him again.’ Jinny caught her breath. ‘But it’s much worse for you, Ross. I shouldn’t be complaining to you.’

  ‘Actually, I’m at last feeling better,’ he said, after a pause. ‘I’m not forgetting – I’ll never forget her, but I’m … beginning to live again, you might say.’

  ‘Ross, that’s wonderful! Oh, I’m really pleased for you.’

  She would have liked to know if his pretty cousin, Lorna, had anything to do with Ross’s return to the world, but could scarcely ask that. Perhaps it was just a coincidence, anyway, that he’d been seeing her when he was getting better.

  ‘Teatime!’ cried Mabel, appearing in the office with a tray of cups of tea and a plate of biscuits. ‘I’ll just clear a space on your desk, Ross. Jinny, are you all right, dear? Feeling better?’

  ‘Yes, thanks, Mabel,’ Jinny said with a sigh.

  ‘Oh, dear, poor Mabel,’ Ross said, when she’d gone. ‘She means well, though.’

  ‘You always say that.’ Jinny managed a smile. ‘Look, do you want to OK these bills? I’ve put them in order if you want to look through them.’

  ‘Fine. Let me just ask you, though – how are your German classes going? You finding them useful?’

  ‘Oh, yes, I’m not doing too badly. Don’t think I’ll be able to write my letters to Viktor in German any time soon, though.’

  ‘You do write to each other?’

  ‘Of course. Not every day or anything, but yes, we write. It’s our lifeline.’ She smiled a little. ‘Even though Viktor’s written English isn’t as good as his speech. Sometimes his sentences sort o
f look like German, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘The main thing is you’re in contact.’

  ‘Like I say, we have our lifeline.’

  Thirty-Nine

  At least Jinny had that. A lifeline, made up of Viktor’s letters. And though she didn’t know if she would ever see him again, as Ross had said, she had hope. Hope, and her job, and peoples’ kindness – she could manage. As long as they still had peace.

  And peace they seemed to have. Maybe it really was true that Hitler didn’t want war. And if it were – Jinny hugged the thought – she might have more than hope …

  Until, that is, the news came on 15 March 1939 that Hitler had attacked what was left of Czechoslovakia. Then her hope died – and not just hers. The whole world saw the move for what it was – a beginning and an ending. The ending of peace; the beginning of World War Two.

  For it was plain enough that Hitler would not stop at taking Czechoslovakia. He had his sights set on Poland, who would not give in to his demands on territories, and though Chamberlain had finally agreed that Great Britain would stand up to him, along with France, they had little hope that he would listen to them.

  It was on 1 September that he invaded and bombarded Poland, and it was on Sunday, 3 September that Great Britain, having promised to support Poland, sent Germany an ultimatum. If, by 11 a.m, there had been no end to hostilities, war would be declared. No reply was made; no hostilities were ended. Therefore, at 11.15 a.m, Mr Chamberlain broadcast to the nation that Great Britain and Germany were officially at war.

  Still grouped around the wireless after that fateful message had ended, the Hendries and Allan Forth sat for some time without speaking, only their eyes revealing their shock. Finally, Josh cleared his throat and looked around at his family.

  ‘So, where do we go from here?’ he asked. ‘Back to 1914? The trenches? I canna believe it.’

  ‘There won’t be trench war this time,’ Allan responded. ‘This time it’ll be the turn of the bombers.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ cried May. ‘What’ll we do?’