The Very Thought of You Read Free

the one shadow lurking over her day: she had no bathing costume.
    Anna had seen the newsreels about evacuation, and they all showed children travelling westwards, to the seaside, to Devon and Cornwall. She longed to join them, but feared that with all they had spent today a bathing costume would be one item too many to ask for.
    “But how will I swim?” she blurted out.
    Roberta paused to hear her child’s fumbled request, and knew at once that she must keep this afternoon intact, not scupper her daughter’s hopes. Back to the lifts they went, and up to the sporting department. With abandon, Roberta spent two shillings on a blue striped bathing costume, and saw her daughter’s face shine with pleasure. It was more than she meant to pay, but it perfected the afternoon. Then they set off for the underground station, united in satisfaction.
    As Anna skipped ahead, Roberta rejoiced in her daughter, knowing that she was bright and resourceful, with an uncluttered face easily lit by smiles. That tiny gap between her front teeth gave her a frank charm.
    They clattered down the station steps, Anna always in front. A train rolled in and opened its doors, and passengers stepped past them. Suddenly, on the half-filled platform, Roberta found herself brimming over with love for her straw-haired child.
    “Anna—” she said, and Anna turned, her eyes bright and clear. In that instant, Roberta sensed the spontaneous riseof her daughter’s soul, which had flickered to life in her eight years before. She reached out for her daughter and held her fast in her arms. For a moment, they could feel each other’s heartbeats.
    “I love you, my darling,” said Roberta, stroking her daughter’s hair.
    Anna looked up at her mother with unblinking eyes.
    In the years to come, she would remember that fragile day, its touchless light, their quiet elations.

2
    Warsaw, 1st September 1939
    Inside the Warsaw Embassy, Sir Clifford Norton had been up most of the night; now he watched a pale-blue dawn that was serenely oblivious to their troubles. Vaguely, he realized that the last summer of the decade was over.
    All night his staff had been working in shifts, everyone engaged in these final frantic negotiations to stave off war. Typists had been rattling away, telephones ringing, messengers coming and going, even his wife had been there with her small portable typewriter, encoding and deciphering telegrams.
    Danzig
,
Danzig
,
Danzig
was the word on every letter and report. The Polish port had rapidly grown from a place to a principle, Norton refected, as Hitler demanded its release into the Reich. Now they were facing a diplomatic deadlock, and the embassy was on emergency alert. But at this early hour, some of the staff were still napping on camp beds, and Norton was alone in his office waiting for the next round of telegrams from London.
    Suddenly craving the new day, he pushed his curtains right back until he could feel the arrival of daylight, subtle, spreading, now obscuring his desk light. The brightness cheered him; there was still a time for spurious delight.
    The eerie disquiet of these last summer weeks had been contagious. Warsaw was gripped by a strange
Totentanz
, the restaurants overflowing with odd gaiety and the hotels thronged with journalists firing off telegrams and spreading rumours. The shops had run out of sugar and candles, and the Poles had been burying their silver and crystal in gardens and parks.
    The telephone on his desk rang, startling him. 5.45 a.m. It was the Consul in Katowice.
    “The Germans are in. Tanks over the border at 5 a.m.”
    The news struck Norton distantly, as if it was a piece of history which might roll past him if he stepped aside. This was the moment they had all been waiting for, yet it had never seemed inevitable.
    Norton had not yet put on his shoes. The floor beneath his feet seemed to push upwards, hard. He felt as if he were living in the third person. He put down the telephone and spurred