Natalie had tried to find Hugo Caplin three times before and three times she had failed.
The first was in 1952. She’d thought about him often before that. He was always somehow there, buzzing in the background, but in 1952, he came into focus. He was part of the Olympic team, rowing, in Finland. She saw the name in a newspaper, knew it was him. She contacted the British Olympic Association but didn’t hear anything back. Whether they passed on her message to him was anyone’s guess. It was better to think they didn’t.
The second time was when Patricia went on a skiing trip to Austria in February 1967. While she was away, over those terrible ten days, Natalie ignored the advice of friends and went through the telephone directory. She had nice but ultimately fruitless conversations with a Hugh Caplin, a Harriet Caplin and a Heather Caplan.
Then, about five years ago, while she was driving on the motorway to Norwich, she thought she heard his voice on one of those radio show phone-ins. It was a replacement presenter, and they were talking about refugees. The replacement presenter, who had a pleasant, melodic voice, said, ‘And now we have Hugo Caplin from London. Hugo, what do you have to say?’ Natalie had pulled onto the hard shoulder to listen and after he’d spoken, she called right in, surprising herself with her efficiency, and the radio people told her they would try to reach him but even as they said it, she had a feeling she was going into the pile of ‘crazy callers’.
She was ready to try again. She knew it would probably be her last chance but this time, Patricia might help. Guilt is a powerful thing. It can sink you but when used properly, it can propel you to great things. And Patricia was feeling guilty, because Natalie had told her some time ago she was feeling poorly, yet Patricia didn’t take her to the doctor for some weeks. Patricia now thought that if only they’d gone sooner, things might have been different. She didn’t say it aloud, but Natalie saw it written all over her face. Patricia had thought her mother was a hypochondriac. Natalie was a hypochondriac, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Poor Patricia.
Natalie was in a care home now, but it was a nice home in Westcliff-on-Sea and her room overlooked the estuary and there were different views at different times of the day. In the morning, you might have mudflats, flat land, all the way to beige factory chimneys; after lunch, the sea might be blue, green and pulsing gently at the sand; and by late afternoon, you might have a vista of a dark grey sea pummelling the sea wall, tipping over it and making puddles on the pavements.
They did a good variety of events in the home too – it wasn’t just staring out the window. Karaoke, knitting, and Natalie’s favourite – ‘chair-based exercise’. There was a debating club, which was dominated by the same men who always sang Neil Diamond songs at karaoke, and there was scrapbooking, which Natalie was sniffy about at first, until she discovered it was mainly flicking through old Hello! magazines and cutting out pictures of the Queen and Princess Margaret. There was something surprisingly warm and collegiate about life there. It reminded Natalie a little of the lounge at work. And if she was too tired for company, Natalie watched The Sound of Music, ignored the Baroness and had vivid dreams about Captain von Trapp.
It was a Jewish care home and the security was tip-top: a code, followed by a buzzer to which you had to declare yourself, then a second door that opened automatically. Natalie had been told off twice for letting people in without checking who they were first. One more time and she’d get a warning. Patricia said it was the best place in the area, and Patricia did nothing by halves. She’d have gone through the paperwork, interrogated the staff, tested the emergency cords, before committing Natalie there.
Natalie had had to stop driving and that was painful, but Patricia’s children visited once a week. Sundays were Anthony, Tuesday afternoons were Sharon. It was Sharon who noticed that the elevator was manufactured by a company called Schindlers. It was Anthony who christened it ‘Schindler’s lift’. If the great-grandchildren had too much homework to visit or were being ferried between tennis classes, guitar lessons, or bear-making parties, they sent home-made cards. We love you, Gigi – it was short for Great-Grandma.
Natalie had made new friends: nearly-bald Maisie, who was originally from Poland, and nearly-blind Andrew from Finchley. The staff carers were from all over the place, which Natalie enjoyed; she liked finding out about their lives. There was a German boy whom Natalie was very fond of. Patricia snorted, ‘He’s not a boy, he’s twenty-five,’ but he was a child really. They all went some way to compensate for the losses she had incurred by moving into the home.
When the doctor said there was nothing to be done, Natalie found herself staring at the calendar behind him, a mixture of filled squares and squares left blank, and she realised nothing applied to her any more. She was all the blanks. There would be no more filled-in squares, but it was not too terrible.
Patricia was speechless in the consulting room and not a lot made her speechless. Finally, she found her words: ‘Not even tests?’ Even Natalie understood they were saying ‘no point doing tests on this one’, but Patricia didn’t get it, refused to get it, and kept arguing the case.
‘If only I had made an appointment last month,’ she kept saying.
Her dearest girl, Patricia, was sixty-three now. A grandmother, but she’d always be Natalie’s little girl. The girl who saved her.
‘Hindsight is a wonderful thing,’ Natalie said. But she was thinking, it isn’t, really, no, it isn’t.
A few days after the diagnosis, Natalie said to her daughter, ‘I want you to try to find Hugo Caplin for me.’ She tried to imagine Hugo as a man of… what? Eighty? She was never very good at visualising what was not right in front of her.
‘Really, Mum? I don’t think it’s a good idea.’
Natalie knew Patricia wouldn’t like it.
‘Does everything have to be a good idea? You find him, ask him – he can decide what he wants.’
Would he come? He probably wouldn’t want to see her. He probably hated her.
‘If you must,’ said Patricia reluctantly. ‘I’ll look into it.’
Patricia was a person who kept to her word, which was something Natalie had always admired about her ever since she was a little girl. It was probably the way Mama had felt about Natalie once. As the pains in her stomach that had drawn her to the doctor tightened and deepened, she looked up at Patricia, who was staring at her, looking quite afraid.
‘You’ll have to be quick.’
Natalie had heard that English people were less punctual than Austrians, so she was surprised when a middle-aged woman galloped over and grabbed her suitcase from the platform floor before even a porter had appeared. The woman was wearing a charming hat that looked like the kind of boat you’d make from folding paper. Although it wasn’t made of paper, obviously, it was made from something midnight blue and furry. She had a thrown-together, careless look and a friendly smile.
‘Natalie? Is it Natalie Leeman? Oh, I am so pleased to find you here.’
Instead of kissing her, the woman shook Natalie’s hand up and down. Ah, Natalie thought gleefully, this is England. People are more reserved about kissing here.
‘It is I,’ Natalie responded delightedly. ‘That is me. I am Natalie Leeman. And these are my first steps in London.’
The woman had rosy crab-apple cheeks and small, kind eyes. She explained the refugee agency was exceedingly busy – as Natalie could surely imagine – so she had volunteered to collect her herself. Natalie couldn’t imagine, but she agreed politely. The woman grabbed Natalie’s suitcase – Mama’s honeymoon suitcase – and set off at quite a pace. Natalie followed her through the station past one ticket office, several commuters with briefcases and a crocodile of schoolchildren.
The sky was white-grey and sunless, and rain came down in fat droplets. For the first time, Natalie was glad that Mama had insisted on the less attractive but sturdier leather shoes and the warmer coat-for-all-seasons.
The woman continued talking as they walked. ‘I’m Mrs Sanderson. Beverley. And I’m so sorry but my German is very bad.’
‘It’s ordinary,’ Natalie excused her breathlessly, then said the line she had been going over and over on the train. ‘I need to practise my English like a hole in my head.’
At that, Mrs Sanderson gave Natalie that lovely smile again. ‘Right then!’
Natalie told Mrs Sanderson that she admired her furry hat tremendously, and Mrs Sanderson told Natalie that indeed, it was her favourite. She also said Natalie had good taste, a phrase that threw Natalie slightly. She had no idea what she – or the hat – would taste like. She decided it was a colloquialism, so she committed it to memory.
She should have mentioned the weather first. Natalie’s etiquette book said to do so immediately with English people, so she quickly announced that she had anticipated the weather to be much more pleasant – it being April and all the best poems being about how lovely April in England was.
Mrs Sanderson admitted she was constantly surprised by rain. ‘A sensible person would always carry an umbrella on their person – unfortunately,’ she said with a sigh, ‘I am not a sensible person at all.’
Realising that this was the much-fabled English sense of humour (Chapter 5 in her etiquette book), Natalie laughed loudly so Mrs Sanderson would know she appreciated her effort.
Natalie saw her first policeman. He was wearing a fun hat like a singular breast. There were cars, much like those at home, and trams, which were a different shape and colour to those at home – they even sounded different. And trees, again much like at home; but the paving stones were a different shape and size, and dirtier, yes, it was grimier, and the people, their clothes, their hairstyles and hats were different, but not remarkably so. There were more puddles here perhaps. If you looked for similarities, you would find them easily enough but if you looked for differences, you’d find them too.
There were fewer horses and carriages, less granite, less magnificence maybe, but there were, surprisingly, street sellers, and occasionally cafés with long colourful awnings. Rachel had warned Natalie the English hardly drank coffee in cafés and Aunt Ruth had advised that she didn’t go anywhere called The Rising Sun or The King’s Head because these were public houses or, ‘places of ill-repute’.
Then, a beautiful sight. A bright red, brighter than you can imagine, double-decker bus passed in front of them. You could go upstairs and the conductor went after you to give you your ticket.
‘Well I never!’ Seeing one in the cold light of day was quite different from learning about them in a textbook and Natalie was awestruck. Laughing, Mrs Sanderson grabbed her hand. ‘You’re going to love it here, Natalie, I’m sure.’
Only three days previously, Natalie had been so firmly planted in Vienna, she might as well have had her feet buried in concrete – and it seemed incredible that she was in London now. Only two nights earlier, her family had held a farewell party for her. There were speeches, dancing, drinking, cousins, more dancing. Natalie tasted slivovitz for the first time; she wanted to like the ‘adult’ plum brandy so much, but would it be immature to say it did nothing for her? Even her younger sister Libby had been made to wear a frock, although from the moment she was buttoned up at the back, she had begged Mama to be free of it again. Her older sister Rachel Goldberg was glowing as though it were her party. She was just back with Leo from their honeymoon to the Italian lakes and she was full of the utter majesty of it and preferring to talk to the aunts and uncles now and not the cousins. Leo Goldberg was his usual self, expounding on the merits of some obscure composer. Rudi Strobl, Natalie’s neighbour and private English tutor, hadn’t come because he was on a university field trip. He had never missed a field trip in his life, and he wasn’t going to start now. It was awkward when people asked her where he was: Natalie could see that, for some, his excuses didn’t add up.
Uncle David, who had a good memory, said, ‘Still planning to be a translator, little one?’
He had laughed the first time she told him and told her that in five years’ time, everyone would be speaking Esperanto. This time he slapped her on the back: ‘Good plan.’ She was about to tell him of the idea she had to translate the children’s book Making an Elephant out of a Mosquito by Kurt Brunner from German into English but mid-question, he drifted over to the sideboard to ‘help’ Mama decant the whisky. Later, after all the helping had been done, and his nose was rose-petal red, he re-approached her. She braced herself for Esperanto but he said gruffly, ‘Your father would have been very proud. Pauly was fearless too.’
Between inhaling her American cigarettes, Great-Aunt Mimi said, ‘I don’t see why you don’t go to Palestine,’ while Great-Uncle Ben said, ‘Stay and get a good education here. You’ll never catch up if you don’t.’ Great-Aunt Mimi and Great-Uncle Ben never agreed on anything.
That night, once the relatives had gone, shouting and laughing into the moonlit street, Mama had followed Natalie up to her bedroom. As Natalie got changed into her nightdress – ‘Look away!’ – Mama knotted her fingers together tremulously and sighed.
‘It’s not for ever, Mama.’
‘You will be good, won’t you, Natalie?’
‘Good?’
This was quite the departure, since Mama had spent almost the entirety of Natalie’s childhood telling her to ‘be herself’. She had never told her to be good before. Not once. Not even when Natalie had that ‘antagonism’ with a now-retired teacher in kindergarten.
‘I didn’t mean anything by it.’ Mama said. She had tears in her eyes, which she wiped away resolutely. Parties always made her cry. She gave Natalie a big smile. Papa used to say that Mama had a smile that launched ships. Mama would reply, ‘Sank them, more like!’
‘It’s such an adventure. I’m so proud of you, Natalie. You’re going to learn so much about the world.’
‘But, Mama, be good? Really?’
‘Well, if you can’t be good, be careful,’ Mama said lightly, kissing her on the forehead. ‘No really, sweet pea, just be yourself.’ She smoothed down Natalie’s quilt – she hadn’t done that for years; Natalie wouldn’t usually let her – then smiled tenderly at her.
‘The English won’t know what’s hit them.’
Now Mrs Sanderson led Natalie to a fine-looking black motorcar, with a roof so shiny you could have skated on it. When Natalie realised that Mrs Sanderson was going to drive it herself, she was even more delighted. Natalie had long encouraged Mama to learn but Mama was too anxious, and Natalie had encouraged Rachel to learn but Rachel just said that since Leo could, brilliantly, what would be the point?
Natalie wanted to learn to drive as soon as she could. Now she wondered if it mightn’t be part of her job?
Mrs Sanderson set off on the wrong side of the road. After a few seconds, when she still didn’t pull over to the right, Natalie let out a surprised ‘oh.’ She really was in England. They did drive on the wrong side of the road here.
Mrs Sanderson said, ‘You did very well, that long journey all by yourself,’ which made Natalie feel prickly. The border checks had not been onerous, both train and ship were quite comfortable and an elderly woman on the way to Manchester had shared her dried sausage with her. And she was not a child, she was nearly seventeen, for goodness’ sake. Still, it was nice to be complimented so Natalie said, ‘It was straightforward, even though I sneezed every time the train went through a tunnel.’
Mrs Sanderson explained that she was a lecturer at university. Her subject was philosophy. Natalie had never met a philosopher, and this filled her with excitement. What greater introduction to English life?
‘Fantastic! I love to read… philosophy.’
No sooner were the words out of Natalie’s mouth than she realised this was an abject lie. She didn’t, hadn’t, never once had read philosophy. Why had she said that? Her mouth always ran away with her. Rachel said it was her biggest fault.
‘Wonderful!’ said Mrs Sanderson, more pink-cheeked than ever. ‘And which philosophers do you read?’
Natalie could backtrack or push on. She chose to push on. ‘I like… Richmal Crompton…’ She began explaining the many-layered pleasures of her Just William books. Mrs Sanderson was so kind; she just nodded and didn’t point out that children’s writer Richmal Crompton wasn’t in the philosophical canon just yet.
After she had gone on about William and Violet Elizabeth Bott for what seemed like for ever, Mrs Sanderson interrupted. She managed to do this delicately somehow, so that it was more of a nudge than an interruption:
‘So, Natalie, won’t you tell me about your family in Vienna?’
Keeping in mind Rachel’s advice before she left – You don’t have to tell everyone everything – Natalie launched in. Rachel was the family musician: violin, viola and superb at everything really; she was also the family beauty. Men literally fell over when they caught a glimpse of her (it had happened at least twice). Libby was the youngest, a proud sportsgirl, running mostly the 400 and 800 metres – and the relay – and wasn’t that unusual in a girl? Mama, Dora Leeman, the family matriarch, was a wonderful storyteller. Kind and forgiving, and with a smile that would launch ships or sink them…
It sounded too pat, too pigeon-holed somehow, so Natalie added, ‘But actually my family are wonderful at everything they do. They are complete all-rounders.’
She gulped. Now that just sounded immodest, which was not good etiquette either (Chapter 8 – ‘Things that offend the English’).
Mrs Sanderson said, ‘I’m sure they are,’ giving Natalie that warm feeling that someone liked her. ‘And your father?’
‘He died four years ago.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s not your fault.’ Natalie used the sing-songy voice she always felt obliged to use when the subject of Papa came up.
‘But tell me, Natalie, didn’t your sisters want to come to England with you?’
‘Oh… well, Rachel has only recently married Leo – only two weeks ago. And you should have seen the magnificent wedding, he’s from a very distinguished family – Mama says they are actually the poshest people she’s ever met. They play in the orchestra together, you see, he’s brass, and there will be tours and…’
She was doing it again. Rachel, who was a master at keeping herself to herself, would want to kill her.
Mrs Sanderson had driving glasses, straight at the top, curved at the bottom. When she came to a stop because of traffic – there were horses ahead – she looked over them curiously.
‘You know, there are wonderful orchestras in London.’
‘Ye-ss.’ Where was this conversation going? ‘I imagine there are.’
‘And Libby? She could have come, couldn’t she?’
‘Well, she’ll be representing our district soon. She’s awfully fast. You wouldn’t think so if you looked at her, she looks just like a little rat, really. No, not a rat, um, or a pretty rat, do you know what I mean? And she’s… she’s just turned things around at school. It would be a shame to have her… go through more upheaval. She does struggle with her schoolwork, you see. So we want to keep things… simple for her. She’s always said the letters swim. I’ve never seen swimming letters. Have you?’
‘I haven’t.’
‘And she used to be quite the bed-wetter so…’
There. She had done it again.
‘But the discrimination?’
So, that was what Mrs Sanderson was getting at.
‘We haven’t noticed anything new. It’s not like Germany. We have so many things in common with Germany, but we are quite a different country as well, you know. And it’s forbidden for Germany to try and unify with us and we wouldn’t want to anyway… well, I wouldn’t want to. Some people would.’
Natalie thought of her Great-Uncle Ben, family maverick. He might.
She continued. ‘Anyway, you see my family are not even very Jewish. We don’t do anything. We don’t go to the shul even on high days or holy days. Papa disagreed with organised religion. He was…’ Natalie trailed off. Rachel really would be shaking her head by now. You told her what? Blabbermouth.
‘A communist?’
‘A social democrat. He worked very hard for social justice. That was kind of his religion. And Mama is the same. No, she is worse… she doesn’t even believe in God at all!’
‘But aren’t you worried?’
Should she be more worried?
A couple of months ago, someone had attempted to paint a swastika on the optician’s shutters, but a little run of paint had dripped off each point, it was a mess. Everyone gathered in the street and had agreed it was awful, awful that it would happen here in Vienna! Of all the places! and they decided unanimously it had been kids. Just kids. Kids like to shock, that’s all. For a while, Natalie had kept an eye out to see if she could catch the perpetrators, but she soon forgot.
‘If it gets too bad,’ she started again, ‘we’ll reconsider. But we are confident that it will pass. I’ll be back next year so I’ll see how it is. These things happen. We were a powerful empire and then we were not. We had a royal family and then we did not.’
Natalie knew she sounded much older than her years. She continued, feeling quite profound.
‘There is deprivation, unemployment and homelessness now – possibly more than before – but it won’t always be like that. It’s like our Ferris wheel in Prater Park – we rise, we fall. It’s what we have come to expect.’
Natalie looked at Mrs Sanderson for approval. No matter what Rachel said, people do love to share information. Mrs Sanderson, however, continued to frown at the road ahead. Perhaps she did not agree but was too polite to say? Natalie decided to take control of the conversation and to steer its subject to the thing she preferred talking about.
‘I do have a special friend back home, who I’m going to miss awfully.’
Mrs Sanderson’s expression softened. She eyed Natalie indulgently. ‘Ah, a special friend? A boyfriend, you mean?’
‘He’s not quite a boyfriend as such. His name is Rudi Strobl. S-T-R-O-B-L. It’s a strange spelling, right? Nothing has happened between us yet. We haven’t declared our feelings as such. But is it odd to say that I feel we are together? No, that’s wrong. We’re not together, quite clearly we’re very far apart, never further, but in my mind, it is as though he is mine and I am his.’
That wasn’t exactly it, but it was the best Natalie could come up with. This was her third language after all. Perhaps it could be explained better in the more romantic French?
‘I think I know what you mean. I had a sweetheart like that once.’ Mrs Sanderson patted Natalie’s cold knee. ‘And it was wonderful.’
‘Oh, it is!’ Natalie thought of the time he kissed her over the kitchen table, so soft, so adorable, and the way he shook his head, ‘we shouldn’t…’ just as Libby had come bowling in.
‘How do you know this Rudi Strobl then?’
‘I know him very well,’ Natalie told her, misty-eyed. ‘Maybe better than anyone else in the world.’
Mrs Sanderson cleared her throat. ‘I meant, how did you meet?’
‘Oh! Not only is he one of my neighbours but he’s also been helping me improve my English.’
They were old friends. They used to shine their torches into each other’s bedroom windows, late at night when the moon was high in the sky and back when the age difference – only three years – didn’t feel so large. But then, overnight it seemed, Rudi grew up, and became a student at the University of Vienna. For a couple of years, they didn’t see each other much. Her torch remained ready on the top of the closet, but he never flashed the light over at her. Recently though, Mama had paid Rudi to tutor Natalie. He was a scientist, a biologist, but he was skilled at languages too, and over the last six months, a fondness – dare she say, an intimacy? – had grown between them while they were knee-deep in dictionaries.
Rudi had pushed her about England. He had a theory that a translator must have lived in a foreign country to be taken seriously. You had to get under its skin. Put it under the telescope. And Natalie intuitively knew that if Rudi was ever to take her seriously then she would have to live in a foreign country too. Rudi had lived in France as a boy and he rhapsodised about it. It wasn’t just Paris that he loved, he said, it was coming back home and seeing it all with fresh eyes: you look around and see what you have and— Natalie knew she would feel the same.
He and Mama used to talk about England sometimes, after their lessons, when Mama was looking for her purse. One time, Natalie had gone into the hall, where they were talking so animatedly it sounded like they were arguing; but when they saw her, they laughed. ‘We were agreeing,’ they protested. ‘We both think England would be fantastic for you!’
Mrs Sanderson started the car again.
‘And does your mother approve of Rudi?’
A question only a mother would ask.
‘She likes him.’ Natalie decided she wouldn’t mention that, with the exception of Rachel who knew everything, her family had no idea that feelings had ‘progressed’. Rudi wasn’t Jewish – Mama didn’t mind that, she always . . .
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