Read Online Somewhere Over England by Margaret Graham - Free Book Online Page A

was looking back at the procession now; it was almost past.
    Helen looked up at the grey sky. She must go to the stream and take Christoph. She touched his knee briefly with her ungloved hand. The wind was sharp now and her fingers were becoming numb. She lifted her camera to her eye again and took more photographs because she did not want to think about why she had not thought of going to the stream with Heine.
    ‘You’ll get the backs of all these people,’ her mother protested.
    Helen smiled. ‘I know, Mother,’ she said as she took more and more, glad of her interruption. ‘That’s what I wanted to do, to somehow catch the bowed shoulders of the people, the hats being removed, the sadness against the pomp.’
    ‘Oh really, Helen, you don’t sound like a mother at all. What is this poor boy growing up into. All he’ll know about is camera angles, public meetings, distant views. It’s not right. And all those men cluttering up the house. It’s just not decent, you know. I can’t imagine what your neighbours think.’
    Helen didn’t know either because she did not ask them. She covered the lens with the cap and shrugged, lifting Christoph down, holding him close.
    ‘We do all right, don’t we, my darling? You have lots of uncles and I take you to the swings. And he has his books and toys and his own room when they smoke too much.’ She did not add that these days she too stayed in her own room when the processing was finished for there seemed no place for her. But her work was becoming more popular and it enabled them to help more of those persecuted by that mad Austrian.
    She lifted him into his pushchair, brushing the hair out of her eyes. ‘Anyway, tonight there is no one there, not even Heine. He’s taken three of them to Liverpool to board a ship.’ Helenpushed a way through the crowd for them both and did not see the smile on her mother’s face. The pushchair caught on a lamppost and she heaved at it, pulling it clear.
    That night they sat in front of the fire and Helen enjoyed the clean air, the sound of the gas spluttering and hissing, the click of her mother’s knitting, and for the first time since last winter she too picked up wool and needles and began a jacket for Christoph. They did not talk but listened to the wireless and then they drank cocoa and said goodnight. Helen was glad that she had replaced the hair brushes, stacked away the camp beds and made the spare room her mother’s, just for tonight. As she watched her close the door she realised that this evening she had not been lonely.
    As she lay in bed she felt her limbs relax and grow heavy and again she wondered why she had not thought of taking Heine to Hemsham, to the stream. She watched the clouds gust between the moon and earth, blocking the light and releasing it, and faced now the separateness of their lives. She did not ask for Heine’s company these days because, with a blown kiss, he would refuse. Too much to do. Too many important things to do, he would say. Some other time when it is over. But when would that ever be, Helen wondered, turning over and holding his pillow to her, pushing back despair, breathing in his scent.
    A New York magazine bought Helen’s pictures but addressed the letter to H. Weber, Esquire. Heine was pleased at the news and said the cheque would pay the telephone final demand and the extra food bill which was larger still this time.
    By August 1936 unemployment was falling in Britain but Hitler’s troops had entered the Rhineland and Mosley’s Fascists were pinning up anti-Semitic posters in the East End. Helen left Christoph with Marian and went to photograph these and was hit across the face by one of the blackshirts and called a Jewish bitch. She told Heine as the pain throbbed through her face and he said that now she knew how his friends felt, but that their treatment was much worse, and he did not turn from the letter he was writing.
    She looked at the back of his head and wanted to