Christopher Priest - The Separation

I have been trying to put the vegetable patch into shape. The one thing that seems clear is that Britain will run out of food as soon as the war worsens and the U-boat blockade begins to be effective. I worked outside all afternoon with B until it started to rain, but the soil up here on the hillside is shallow and full of stones. I can’t see how anything will grow, unless it’s grass or moss. Mrs Gratton and her peculiar middle-aged son Harry live in a house along the lane from us and they seem to grow vegetables pretty well. If I see Harry I’ll ask him what I’m doing wrong.

Last night I had another of my dreams about my brother, Jack. I dreamt that he came to visit B and me at the house, that while he was there I walked away on my own and when I returned he had gone again. I often wish that Jack and I could settle our differences, as I miss his companionship. I know the arguments would only start up again, though. I don’t judge him - why should he judge me?

Tomorrow: more job interviews. One is for a porter’s job at a hospital in Buxton, which I think I can get. It has not been so easy finding jobs. Britain has gone over to a total war economy. All businesses, large or small, are making guns, shells, planes, engines, uniforms, boots, or any of a million smaller components or parts. There seems to be no part of British life that is not touched by war.

April 13, 1940

I belatedly discovered that the hospital in Buxton has set aside two wards for injured servicemen, so I had to turn down the porter job. B was furious with me when she found out. I found it so difficult to explain, even to myself. I sympathize with her sometimes.

April 19, 1940

Against my better judgment I wrote a letter today to the Foreign Office, asking them if they can help trace B’s parents. She believes that they must have arrived safely in Switzerland as planned, but they have been unable to let her know because of the war. I suspect the reality is much darker than that and I worry how B will react if she hears the worst. I have seen stories in the newspapers of Jewish refugees on their way to Switzerland, only to be intercepted by the SS or to be refused entry by the Swiss border guards. Of course I have never let B see these stories.

Her parents made their first attempt to escape at the beginning of 1937, but something went wrong and they returned to Berlin. Because they had many good friends in Berlin they were able to stick it out until things took a turn for the worse last year. They made a second attempt to flee to Switzerland, but nothing has been heard of them since.

I am concerned that writing to the British government will draw attention to B’s origins. There is such an intense anti-German mood in the country that it amounts to hysteria. Already young men of German birth who live in Britain - including many who escaped here because of the Nazis - have been rounded up and interned somewhere: out of temptation’s way, as someone nastily put it. Now the politicians, and some elements of the press, are talking about what to do with the rest of the German nationals: older men, but also the women and children.

April 29, 1940

When I came in this evening, wet through from the drizzling rain, after the long bicycle ride up the hill from Macclesfield, B showed me something that had been pushed through the letterbox while she was out at the village shop. It was a large brown envelope with my name written on the front in childish capitals. Inside was a white feather.

B had opened the envelope. She said she burst into tears when she realized what was in there.

My father warned me that something like this was likely to happen, but what really troubles me is that it must have come from someone in the village, someone we know, perhaps even a neighbour. Few people outside the immediate vicinity of the village know anything about me. I have been trying not to dwell on the mystery of the identity of the sender, but I can’t help it. It is the first event of the war which has made me angry, made me want to do something about it.

I went out into what we hope one day will be our vegetable garden. I kicked at some stones, felt violence rising in me like a mad drug. I was ashamed of myself afterwards.

When it was dark I walked down the lane to the telephone box outside the shop and tried to speak to Jack at the phone number Dad had told me was the RAF station’s. The man who answered would not say where Jack was. I could imagine what that might mean.

Afterwards, walking back along the dark lane, the drizzle settling on my hair and shoulders, I did wonder if it might have been Jack himself who had sent the feather.

Now, while I am writing in my notebook, I feel my hatred of war rising all over again. This time the anger is against the effect war has on men’s thoughts. The effect it has on my thoughts.

May 3, 1940

I have a new job and that has been my main concern for the last few days. For all that time the news from the war has been almost too horrible to bear. Every night on the wireless it seems there is more bad news. There have been losses on both sides, huge losses. Ships have been sunk, aircraft have been lost, men have been killed and wounded, civilians have been uprooted from their homes. The British troops are giving up in Norway at last. It is not their fault. The blame lies with that menace Churchill, the man who was responsible for the disaster in the Dardanelles in the last war. History will go on repeating itself so long as warmongers lead us.

I can’t help feeling we are being told only part of the story.

My new job is with the British Red Cross, in a building in the centre of Manchester. My first task there is to compile an inventory of the surgical materials, dressings and medicines they hold in stock. This is part of a national effort by the Society, so that should bombing of the cities begin, or if there is an invasion, the Red Cross will at least know what stocks they hold.

B says that she has had one answer to the postcard she placed in the Post Office window in Macclesfield: a child of eight needs violin lessons once a week. I am relieved that B will at last be doing something she loves and is good at, and that takes her out of the house for a few hours.

So far, we can be thankful that few civilians have been affected by bombing. There are rumours that bombs have been dropped on the Orkney Islands, but it is impossible to find out about casualties. Because of the Royal Navy base up there, secrecy obscures everything.

Another envelope with a white feather has been shoved through our door, this time while we were asleep last night. I managed to conceal it from B and later put the feather in the chicken run, where I hope she will not notice it.

May 4, 1940

This being a Saturday I had to go to work in the morning but I was home again after lunch. B and I attempted more work on the vegetable plot. This time we made progress because during the week B arranged for a local farmer to deliver some dung. We scooped it on to the patch and dug it in.

Late in the afternoon a number of twin-engined aircraft flew low over the hills, their engines making a loud, throbbing noise. We assumed they were British by the slow and unaggressive way in which they were being flown, but neither of us could identify them for sure. B is terrified by the thought of German aircraft coming anywhere near her. I still cannot even begin to imagine what she suffered while she was in Berlin. I know that she is in constant dread of finding out what happened to her parents. I can give her no hope beyond the blandest kind of reassurance.

I am becoming obsessed with the belief that the war must be ended as soon as possible. Europe, which has been driven mad by Hitler’s ambitions, must come to its senses. I feel a steady fury about the ineffectual way I am living my life. Still I count the rolls of bandages and lint dressings. My mind says that Europe needs soothing ointments to heal its wounds, but increasingly my heart seeks a terrible revenge against the men who are conducting the war.