Out of the Ashes Read online

  “Arnold hasn’t seen Matthew for weeks, and he promised me he would,” Lyn replied.

  Matthew again, thought Marianne. Their actor son’s homosexuality had served to erode their marriage.

  “Why can’t Arnold be like me?” Lyn said angrily. “Be thankful that Matthew is well and happy.”

  Though Matthew had lived for years with his friend, Pete, their relationship more stable than many marriages, Arnold could still not accept it.

  Some of Marianne’s generation of the family, she reflected, preferred to pretend they didn’t know Matthew was gay. Uncle Nat, though, had taken it in his stride. But he had always been a good deal more tolerant than some of his younger relatives.

  Sarah, bemused by the experimental production Matthew had persuaded her to see, when a tour took him to Manchester, would certainly not have guessed why he had remained a bachelor. Moving with the times as she had wisely done with respect to the family, her mind could not have encompassed the possibility of one of its number being homosexual.

  Mercifully, Sarah had not lived to know that Matthew’s sister, Margaret, a nurse at a church hospital in India, was thinking of entering a Holy Order that would cut her off from the outside world.

  While she and Lyn sipped their tea in thoughtful silence, remembrance of two little girls playing on the rug in Sarah’s parlour returned to Marianne. Margaret and Harry’s daughter, Kate, dressing their dolls. Marianne glanced at Kate, who had flown in from Tel Aviv last week and was now deep in conversation with her mother, on her head the kerchief that singled her out as an ultra-orthodox Jewess. How more different could the lives of Marianne’s two nieces have been?

  Thanks to Kate, there was now an Israeli branch of the family. And visiting Kate and her children was a source of joy for Harry and Ann, compensation in some measure for the blow that Howard’s marriage was to them.

  Marianne was noting that Kate was not partaking of the spread, lest it was not truly kosher, when Lyn interrupted her musing.

  “How do you suppose I feel about neither of my children being at the ceremony?”

  “My grandmother wouldn’t have considered it more important than the sick babies Margaret is nursing,” Marianne replied, “and I seem to recall her having a lot of respect for Matthew’s always honouring his professional code that the show must go on. He couldn’t have got here from Australia and back there in time for curtain up tomorrow night, could he?”

  “That alters nothing for me.”

  Lyn’s forlorn expression said more than words. She and Arnold had had no luck with their children and Marianne was filled with compassion for her. Though theirs too was a mixed marriage, they had not subjected Matthew and Margaret to an emotional tug-o’war. Instead, they had agreed to follow their own religions, allowing their children to participate fully in both.

  Nevertheless, on a personal level that was for Matthew and Margaret the religious vacuum on which Marianne had mused a few hours ago. She could remember, when Chanukah and Christmas coincided, seeing the candles lit in the menorah on Lyn and Arnold’s mantelpiece and a Christmas tree ablaze with coloured lights in a corner of the room. Each represented an exciting festival for children, and Matthew and Margaret had enjoyed both. But Marianne recalled thinking that the day would come when it seeped through to them that one was their mum’s festival and the other their dad’s. That they themselves were not part of what either stood for.

  Though Margaret had seemed a self-contained child, even her parents could not have suspected that beneath her quiet exterior was an intensity of feeling which must eventually find expression. When finally she had opted for her mother’s religion, the family was not surprised. Arnold’s parliamentary obligations had led to his renting a pied-à-terre in Westminster, largely removing him from his children’s lives. From Lyn’s too, and that was still the case. He had never yet failed to be returned to Parliament.

  Matthew was now the family atheist, and Marianne had thought that decision an act of cynicism that included paying his parents back for leaving it to him to decide. Nor had she blamed him. Wasn’t it hard enough, sometimes, not to doubt the Faith that was unquestionably your own?

  Margaret, though, had moved on from Lyn’s Protestant beliefs to Catholicism. It had begun with her deepening friendship with Marianne’s daughter-in-law. Had Moira felt she needed an ally in the family? Whether or not, there had to be more to it than that. Perhaps the mystique Catholicism offered. Marianne visualized Margaret’s madonna-like face framed in a nun’s wimple and thought that even Sarah Sandberg’s wisdom could not have come to terms with a great-granddaughter becoming a Bride of Christ.

  “The mistake you made, Lyn,” she said bluntly, “was not making your home in London, when your kids were still young.”

  “Do you really think that would have changed anything?”

  “Well, at least it would have given Matthew the chance to have a real relationship with his dad, like Martin had with Ralph despite their disagreements.”

  Lyn gazed for a moment at the tea leaves in her empty cup. “At the time, Marianne, not uprooting the kids from their schools seemed right.”

  She looked up and put down the cup and saucer. “A bigger mistake I made, and my children have paid for it, was I should never have married Arnold. Or he me, come to that. Whenever I have to make a public appearance with him there’s a row before he gets me to do it. When the Queen visited his constituency and I had to play hostess at the luncheon that was part of it – well, I don’t know how I got through it!”

  “But the Queen comes over on TV as being absolutely charming,” said Marianne.

  “Of course she is,” said Lyn. “It’s me, Marianne. No different now than how I’ve always been.”

  Marianne did not agree with the latter. Well, not when it came to looks. But the lovely fair-haired girl Arnold had brought into the family, distinguishing himself by being the first of its members to marry out, was long gone. In her place was a faded English rose. Unlike Marianne, who looked younger than her years, Lyn’s face bespoke the ravages of time. And her figure was evidence that she had turned to food for comfort.

  But that’s preferable to turning to drink, thought Marianne, as Leona’s mother had years ago. Or to the tranquillizers Harry’s wife was prescribed to help her accept her German daughter-in-law. Was Ann still taking them?

  Marianne was thankful that work had always served as her own therapy. Had she not had to meet the deadline on her next novel, she might after Ralph’s death have found herself resorting to all three of the comforts upon which she had just mused, such was her sorrow.

  “Arnold should’ve married someone like Shirley,” Lyn went on. “A woman who wouldn’t have to dress specially for the part, and look all wrong when she does, like I do.”

  “You’ve never looked less than presentable to me,” Marianne replied, “and I like the dress you have on today.”

  “Arnold doesn’t. The first thing he said, after he’d pecked my cheek, was that I hadn’t made much effort for the occasion and how does that look for him!”

  At least they were on speaking terms again. “Well, my brother’s the family bigwig, isn’t he?” she said with a laugh.

  Lyn managed to smile. “That’s certainly how he sees himself, though we have names more well-known than his to boast about. You and Laura, and Matthew haven’t done too badly. And now Shirley’s getting a millionaire for a son-in-law the whole town will know it, she’ll make sure of that!”

  “But,” said Marianne, “she’ll have a fit when she finds out that Jake is her generation, not Laura’s, and I have to say I myself am wondering if it will work. Laura’s going to have to put her liking for discos and all that behind her.”

  “But she’s starting out with a big advantage,” said Lyn. “What I mean is – well, how could I have known that the boy I fell in love with when I was a Wren would turn into the man Arnold became?”

  Arnold was then an officer on a minesweeper, one of the war’s unsun
g heroes, and Marianne remembered how proud of him she was. And how handsome he had looked in his uniform. But the war had lent a glamorous aura to all who served in it. Even Harry, missing in action for so long the family had believed him dead, had not looked his nondescript self when clad in khaki.

  Harry’s son returned Marianne to the present, raising his voice above the hubbub of conversation. “Would everyone mind being quiet for a minute? I’ve got something to tell you.”

  And from the expression on Howard’s face, it wasn’t good, thought Marianne.

  “If it weren’t for one aspect of it, I’m sure you’d be pleased,” he said when he had his relatives’ attention. “Christina hasn’t gone to Munich to visit her parents. She’s left me.”

  A moment of silence followed, and Marianne saw Howard’s mother pale. Then Harry bellowed, as only he could, “I’m not having my grandchild brought up in Germany!”

  “Then perhaps you’d like to go with me to try to get Ben back,” said Howard.

  “What do you mean try? Ben is your son as well as Christina’s!”

  “And she’s as entitled to have him as I am, isn’t she, Dad?”

  Harry’s reply was, “Look what you’ve done to your mother!”

  Ann had begun weeping hysterically. “Why did you let her take him?” she sobbed to Howard.

  “As a matter of fact I didn’t,” he revealed. “I believed it was just going to be her usual Christmas trip. That, like always, she’d be back in January –”

  “And I might as well tell you now,” Harry interrupted, “which I refrained from doing before, that for people who were in the Hitler Youth Movement, for whom Mein Kampf was their bible and their Führer their god, to celebrate Christmas – well, it makes me want to throw up!”

  “Only my father-in-law was in the Hitler Youth Movement,” said Howard. “My mother-in-law was too young. But leave it to you to exaggerate, Dad!”

  “What’s to exaggerate?” Harry retorted. “And while we’re at it, why don’t we mention Christina’s great-uncles? The ones who were in the SS?”

  “One of them is dead now,” Howard answered.

  “And that happening to the other one can’t come soon enough for me,” Harry said. “But meanwhile he’s still alive and kicking, and before I know it I’ll have a half-Jewish grandson telling me there wasn’t a Holocaust, accusing me of exaggeration, like you just did. Like Henry was saying before, the neo-Nazis are spreading their poison in Europe. And who do you think is putting them up to it –?”

  “They don’t need putting up to it,” Henry cut him short.

  “But what’s left of the old lot must be rubbing their hands with glee,” Harry declared.

  Howard thumped his fist on the table, causing the cake dishes and crockery to reverberate. “Let’s not turn my personal problem into a political discussion! This is harder for me than for any of you. But fool that I am, I waited to discuss it with the family before making a move. I’ve had a letter from Christina telling me she wants a divorce –”

  “The sooner the better,” said Harry.

  Kate, who was trying to comfort her mother, interceded. “If Dad wouldn’t mind my saying so, his desire to get rid of his German daughter-in-law is irrelevant right now.”

  “I agree,” Nathan asserted his seniority. “What matters is getting little Ben back.” He turned to Leona and Frank. “What is the legal situation from Howard’s point of view?”

  Before the lawyers of the family had time to utter, Marianne said quietly, “Oughtn’t the first consideration to be the possibility of a reconciliation? I was always under the impression that Howard loved his wife.”

  “Trust my sister the novelist to take a romantic attitude when common sense is called for!” Harry snorted.

  Again Howard banged on the table. “Of course I’m still in love with Christina. And if it weren’t for the bloody past we could’ve been happy ever after.” He managed to calm down. “But there’s little chance of us getting together again. When I called Munich to speak to Christina – the day I received her letter – she refused to come to the phone and her father hung up on me,” he said miserably. “I’ve tried several times since and the same thing happened.”

  “But don’t let it get you down,” said Frank. “Leona and I are accustomed to encountering that sort of thing in the early stages of a marital separation, including the parental interference that sometimes goes with it –”

  “But none of us, thank God, is accustomed to dealing with Nazis!” said Harry.

  “The Schmidts are not Nazis!” Howard yelled at him. “Would I have married their daughter if that’s how they’d come over when I met them?”

  “But with Germans one can never be quite sure, and that’s the trouble,” said Henry, unhelpfully.

  Arnold then had his say, pompous as usual. “Nonsense, Henry. Utter nonsense, if I may say so. And if Britain had taken that attitude since the war, refused to trust Germany and Germans, we would now be the laughing stock of Europe.”

  “But that isn’t to say that there aren’t elements in Germany, as elsewhere, biding their time and laughing behind their hands,” Henry countered. “If you’d like some evidence of that, Arnold, I’ll be pleased to ask one of my contacts to send it to you.”

  “I’m standing here with a broken heart and they’re discussing neo-Nazis!” Howard exclaimed.

  “You do want Christina back then, no matter what?” Marianne asked him.

  His reply was brief and crisp. “It wouldn’t work, Marianne. She said in her letter she couldn’t live feeling herself an enemy in the camp.”

  Poor Christina, thought Marianne. Try though the family had – even Harry and Ann – to be warm and natural towards her, an invisible barrier had remained. Would it have been any different with any Jewish family? Yet Howard had loved her enough to take that chance. And she had borne him a child.

  “I suppose my son is blaming us for this,” Ann said while drying her eyes.

  Howard went to kiss her. “No, Mum. I brought it on myself.”

  “On all of us,” Harry said roughly, “and as if how you disgraced us wasn’t enough, your mother and I now have to worry about our only grandson being where he is. You’ve got to get him back, Howard.”

  “Try offering Christina money,” Shirley suggested.

  “Coming from you, that idea doesn’t surprise me!” Howard snapped. “Would you have taken cash in exchange for Laura?”

  “Probably not,” Laura chimed in, “though there must’ve been times when she’d have paid it to get rid of me. If my wedding wasn’t looming up, Howard, I’d offer to go with you to Munich –”

  “Thanks, but all I need with me is a hothead like you. I guess that cuts my father out, too –”

  “Well, I couldn’t guarantee it wouldn’t end up with fisticuffs,” said Harry. “You should have someone with you, though.”

  Nathan exchanged a glance with Marianne.

  “All right, Uncle Nat,” she said. “I agree that it had better be me.”

  Chapter 4

  On the plane to Munich, Marianne surveyed her nephew’s set profile. How old would Howard be, now? Thirty-five, she reckoned. A year older than Martin, to whom he bore no physical resemblance though they were first cousins.

  Marianne’s son was the image of his father and now Ralph was gone, Martin’s smile, the way it crinkled his face, and his lively hazel eyes, brought back for her Ralph at Martin’s age and how happy they were together.

  Later all had not gone smoothly. Her own success and Ralph’s failure had not been the recipe for a perfect relationship. Marianne’s belief in herself as a writer had never flagged and eventually she had made it. Ralph, on the other hand… Though his paintings were good they had, to the end, lacked that certain something that could make an artist’s name.

  Though Marianne had long known it, she had kept her doubts to herself, and worked steadily at her typewriter as her own career escalated. Ralph, coming home each evening from t
he ad agency where commercial art served to provide him with a living, had resumed work on one of the canvases this gallery owner or that would try to sell.

  When a sale was made Marianne was happy for him. His spirits would briefly soar. But afterwards depression would set in. Then the day came when he told her he would never paint another picture. That it was time he stopped fooling himself and had decided to set up his own ad agency, in partnership with a man he knew.

  Marianne had afterwards watched her husband’s new affluence, his allowing himself to go with the tide of a commercialism he privately despised, change him into a different man from the one she had married.

  By then their son was at Oxford and they had moved from their small flat to a spacious home in Hampstead, which Ralph had thought more suitable for entertaining the business friends he had rapidly accumulated.

  Marianne could remember having to swallow her distaste for some of those whom he had brought home – men for whom money was their god, their wives seeming no more than the decorative appendages necessary to enhance their image. And Ralph’s expecting me to dress for the part, she recalled. In order not to let him down, she had gone out and bought herself some suitable outfits. And if Lyn were here now, Marianne would have said to her, “What makes you think you’re the only woman whose husband expects her to play a role?” Wasn’t that, give or take the details, what being a wife meant? And if you loved your husband you did it even if it went against the grain.

  As for Lyn’s saying that she couldn’t have known what Arnold would turn into – who did, when they and the object of their affection were young? You couldn’t know then what life would turn you yourself into, for it was life that did the changing: the opportunities of whatever kind that came your way, or didn’t, the lifts and the let-downs, the chance meetings that could dictate a twist in your path, with happy or catastrophic results.

  Marianne glanced at Howard, who had not spoken a word since they boarded the plane. His chance meeting with a German girl on a ski-slope had, despite the opposition of both their families, led first to happiness and later to the catastrophe neither could have envisaged.