Read Online The Sixth Lamentation by William Brodrick - Free Book Online
Authors: William Brodrick
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of fine words, the collaborator who’d
betrayed Agnes. But how did he get away after the war? Who on earth could have
wanted to help a man deaf to the cries of children?
She
poured the tea down the sink and made her way back to bed, knowing that a
different person would see the morning. Her old self had closed her eyes for
ever. Lucy glanced at the notebook lying open on the floor. What has happened,
she thought, in my growing up that I can read such things and not even cry?
Chapter Seven
The
first notebook of Agnes Embleton.
3rd April 1995.
Dear Lucy, I have
just seen the face of the man who took away my life, on the very day Doctor
Scott said I was going to die. I sensed that months ago, when the voices and
faces of my youth came back, like rooks coming home. I should have known
Schwermann would turn up as well.
I would have liked to talk to you about me, and my childhood
friends, but I’m not able. Soon I’ll be gone and I do not want their memory to
go with me. The time has come for you to know everything.
10th April.
I’ve often
wondered why the path of my life diverged from what I hoped for, and sent me on
track for what I got. But there’s no point in seeking explanations. There are
no ‘might have beens’. So I look to London, and my birth in March 1919.
My father was French and came to England in 1913 to work in a bank.
He met my mother, who was Jewish, at a work function. She was the daughter of a
regional manager. Within the year they were married, and then I came along.
They used to say I was the second great blessing of their life. The first was
to have escaped the war. My earliest memories are of playing upon Hampstead
Heath, threading daisies, half understanding conversations about ‘The Great War’
. Most of the people we knew had suffered loss, and even now the names of those
terrible battles conjure up a strange remembrance of warm summer days and other
people’s grief. You see, by some miracle (as my father used to say), the war
had passed us by while touching all around us. And so I grew up feeling
protected, as if God had carefully placed us beyond catastrophe. Until my
mother died on 17th August 1929.
From that day my father wanted to go back to France, away from every
reminder of her. I wasn’t surprised because England had never become his home.
He was always making comparisons, which showed he saw things from the outside.
Even the milk was better in France. He began to tell me wonderful things about
Paris, and I would go to sleep seeing bridges, a shining river and tables in
the street lit by thousands of candles. We set sail in early 1931.
I suppose he wasn’t
to know He thought he would simply move back into his old bank. But those were
hard times and no positions were available. I know that now. At the time I
presumed we had landed on our feet. We lived in a nice flat, I did well at
school and I wanted for nothing. I was especially good at the piano and my
father bought me a monstrous upright for Christmas. Each week I went to see
Madame Klein, my teacher, and each week I came home vowing never to see her
again. She was a Jewish widow who lived in a magnificent apartment opposite
Parc Monceau. My father told me she was one of the best piano teachers in
Paris, and had once been a concert performer. That’s as maybe, I thought.
Because every Saturday afternoon I climbed those stairs dreading the scowl that
never left her face. I hated every second. I said she couldn’t even play For
she nursed her right hand and only touched the keys with her left. My father
laughed and sent me back each week. I have never written her name down before,
and doing so makes me pause. I see her now as I saw her then, dressed in black
silk with a vast coiffure of silver hair. She looks at me over quite useless
glasses that seem to be part of her nose, her eyes impossible to read.
Anyway back to my father. I never thought to ask where he worked, or
how he could afford
betrayed Agnes. But how did he get away after the war? Who on earth could have
wanted to help a man deaf to the cries of children?
She
poured the tea down the sink and made her way back to bed, knowing that a
different person would see the morning. Her old self had closed her eyes for
ever. Lucy glanced at the notebook lying open on the floor. What has happened,
she thought, in my growing up that I can read such things and not even cry?
Chapter Seven
The
first notebook of Agnes Embleton.
3rd April 1995.
Dear Lucy, I have
just seen the face of the man who took away my life, on the very day Doctor
Scott said I was going to die. I sensed that months ago, when the voices and
faces of my youth came back, like rooks coming home. I should have known
Schwermann would turn up as well.
I would have liked to talk to you about me, and my childhood
friends, but I’m not able. Soon I’ll be gone and I do not want their memory to
go with me. The time has come for you to know everything.
10th April.
I’ve often
wondered why the path of my life diverged from what I hoped for, and sent me on
track for what I got. But there’s no point in seeking explanations. There are
no ‘might have beens’. So I look to London, and my birth in March 1919.
My father was French and came to England in 1913 to work in a bank.
He met my mother, who was Jewish, at a work function. She was the daughter of a
regional manager. Within the year they were married, and then I came along.
They used to say I was the second great blessing of their life. The first was
to have escaped the war. My earliest memories are of playing upon Hampstead
Heath, threading daisies, half understanding conversations about ‘The Great War’
. Most of the people we knew had suffered loss, and even now the names of those
terrible battles conjure up a strange remembrance of warm summer days and other
people’s grief. You see, by some miracle (as my father used to say), the war
had passed us by while touching all around us. And so I grew up feeling
protected, as if God had carefully placed us beyond catastrophe. Until my
mother died on 17th August 1929.
From that day my father wanted to go back to France, away from every
reminder of her. I wasn’t surprised because England had never become his home.
He was always making comparisons, which showed he saw things from the outside.
Even the milk was better in France. He began to tell me wonderful things about
Paris, and I would go to sleep seeing bridges, a shining river and tables in
the street lit by thousands of candles. We set sail in early 1931.
I suppose he wasn’t
to know He thought he would simply move back into his old bank. But those were
hard times and no positions were available. I know that now. At the time I
presumed we had landed on our feet. We lived in a nice flat, I did well at
school and I wanted for nothing. I was especially good at the piano and my
father bought me a monstrous upright for Christmas. Each week I went to see
Madame Klein, my teacher, and each week I came home vowing never to see her
again. She was a Jewish widow who lived in a magnificent apartment opposite
Parc Monceau. My father told me she was one of the best piano teachers in
Paris, and had once been a concert performer. That’s as maybe, I thought.
Because every Saturday afternoon I climbed those stairs dreading the scowl that
never left her face. I hated every second. I said she couldn’t even play For
she nursed her right hand and only touched the keys with her left. My father
laughed and sent me back each week. I have never written her name down before,
and doing so makes me pause. I see her now as I saw her then, dressed in black
silk with a vast coiffure of silver hair. She looks at me over quite useless
glasses that seem to be part of her nose, her eyes impossible to read.
Anyway back to my father. I never thought to ask where he worked, or
how he could afford
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