A Small Person Far Away by Judith Kerr

Author:Judith Kerr [Kerr, Judith]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 1989-02-04T13:00:00+00:00

Wednesday

Max could not have slept well either, and they were both bad-tempered at breakfast. They had to wait for their coffee, for the little breakfast room was filled with six or seven guests who must have arrived on the previous day, and even with the help of the adolescent girl, the proprietress was too disorganized to serve them properly.

“When do you expect to leave then?” Anna asked Max coldly.

He made an impatient gesture. “I don’t know. But I’ve got to get back to Greece soon. For God’s sake,” he said, “nobody there speaks a word of English, Wendy doesn’t speak a word of Greek, and she’s got a ten-month-old baby.”

She said nothing for a moment. Then resentment rose up irresistibly inside her and she said, “It’s just that I don’t see why it should always be me who has to cope.”

“It isn’t always you.” He was trying to attract the proprietress’s attention, without success. “You know perfectly well that even during the war when I was flying, and later when I was working my guts out in Cambridge, I always came home. I came whenever there was a crisis, and I came whenever I could, apart from that, just to lend moral support.”

“You came,” she said. “But you didn’t stay.”

“Well, of course I didn’t stay. I was supposed to be flying a bloody aeroplane. I was supposed to be getting a First in law and make a career and be a prop to the family.”

“Oh, I know, I know.” She felt suddenly tired of the argument. “It’s just – you can’t imagine what it was like being there all the time. The hopelessness of doing anything for Papa, and Mama’s depressions. Even then, you know, she was always talking about suicide.”

“But she didn’t actually do anything, did she?” said Max. “I mean, this is a bit different.”

She had a sudden vision of Mama in her blue hat, her face wet with tears, saying, “I couldn’t go on. I just couldn’t go on.” In a street somewhere – Putney, she supposed. Why did she keep remembering it? And was it something that had really happened or something she had imagined?

“Anyway,” said Max, “if you really want to go back to London, you’ll just have to go. Though I wouldn’t have thought a few days would have mattered either way.”

“Oh, let’s wait and see,” she said wearily. “Let’s see how Mama is this morning.”

Max had finally managed to catch the proprietress’s eye, and she hurried resentfully over to their table.

“All right, all right,” she said. “You’re not at war here, you know.”

While he ordered the coffee and rolls, Anna made a mental note of the expression – a bit of Berlin dialect which even Heimpi had never used. A German at the next table tittered at the sound of it. Then he smiled at Anna and pointed to his newspaper. “Rule Britannia, eh?” he said. She looked at the front page and read the headline: Englischer Angriff in Suez.

“For God’s sake, Max,” she said.

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