She also understood how stifled he must feel at Barkston Gardens, confined as he was to a classroom of a few square metres overlooking a garden with a fence around it. He had travelled thousands of kilometres only to end up here, in the home of a white woman who made him acutely aware of the loss of his mother. Too bad then, forget about writing a letter, he would simply go back to Élisabethville, where else was there to go? Living in a bedsit on a busy London street would be the end of him. It was a week since he had moved in, and already his head was bursting. The dreams he had at night were wearing him out, he could hardly get out of bed in the morning. It was only the thought of seeing Miss Kate that kept him going, he had told her in a roundabout way.
This afternoon he was early. Kate saw him from the window. The rain had stopped. He was wearing an old army shirt, no jacket or jumper. A Negro. People noticed him, some stared. The gardener paused in his labours to call out to Matteous, she could not make out what. The bell rang, two short bursts in rapid succession, and she flew to the door. But at the third word he tried to write he put his pen down and slumped forward, head down on the table. His eyes were closed: this was no act of protest, it was defeat. He was stumped, the thoughts arising in his head were impossible to cram into words on paper. Miss Kate should let him go, he wanted to go home, not that he knew where that was, because Élisabethville was an empty place and his village had been razed to the ground. It was true that the Belgian officer had saved his life, but if it hadn’t been for Miss Kate he would have been found with a rope round his neck long ago. Would she please let him go, please, Miss Kate,
Kate stared at the curls on Matteous’s dark nape as she listened to his lament. She heard his sorrow and his homesickness and his confusion. Nobody could learn to write in a single week; it might be a year before that letter of his was ready to be sent, the letter that would restore his life to him; it was too soon to give up, and why go back now, not knowing who or what awaited him there? He could come and live with her until the war was over. And they would go on practising until he couldn’t get it wrong, he would master the skill, that much was certain.
She laid her hand on his shoulder as a promise. Kate’s eyes, too, were closed. And so they shared a moment of darkness as they sat at the table.
Somewhere in the back of her mind she heard footsteps in the stairwell, then the sound of a key turning in a lock. Was that her front door? Matteous had just left, promising to return the following day. Hardly had she relinquished her musings than she saw him. Oscar. She was thrown into confusion to find him standing in her room, then fear struck as she thought of Emma. She grabbed him by the arms. What was the matter, why hadn’t he said he was coming to London?
“Emma is fine. It’s Operation Barbarossa, they’re going to invade Russia, Kate, in just over a fortnight from now.” Oscar’s tone was brusque. Her bewilderment grew by the second, what was he talking about, how did he know, what was he doing in London anyway? A curious anger overcame her. She should have been glad to see him, but his sudden appearance had the opposite effect. Invade? It was he who had invaded her home – Operation Barkston Gardens.
She found herself resenting the fact that Oscar had let himself in with his own key. For the past eighteen months she had been living there on her own, and his arrival had broken the magic circle she had drawn around herself, shattering her hard-won equilibrium.
The doors to the balcony were open. Oscar could smell the warm, damp weather that had been forecast on the radio. He was leaning in the doorway to the balcony. That she should be annoyed by his surprise visit was the last thing he expected. She had gone to her bedroom, saying she needed to change out of her hospital clothes. An excuse, he thought: she wanted to compose herself, did not wish him to see her upset.
What he had failed to tell Morton or anyone else, he had told her without a moment’s hesitation. The information which had obsessed him for the past week, which he had agonised over day and night without reaching any conclusion, was safe with Kate. Her reaction would be the same as his, she would do the same, she would accept his judgement and understand and tell him it was alright and to stop tormenting himself.
Kate’s face was pale. She did not look at Oscar when she joined him by the door to the balcony. She strove to control her emotions; he saw her pursed lips.
“You must inform the English, Oscar, or our government, or the people who need to know such things. You know who they are.”
She spoke in measured tones, plainly, with utter conviction that it would be the simplest, most obvious action to take.
