The Last Telegram. Liz Trenow

swing. Swing heil!’ Kurt and Walter raised their arms in mock-Nazi salutes and repeated ‘Swing heil! Swing heil!’

      Mother’s eyebrows raised in alarm.

      ‘What that all about?’ I shouted to Kurt.

      ‘American jazz. Banned by the Nazis,’ Kurt shouted back.

      ‘Why is it banned?’

      He shrugged. ‘Stefan plays it for – what do you say?’

      Stefan stopped playing and swivelled round. In the sudden stillness his voice was firm and clear, ‘We play it because it is not allowed.’

      ‘Who’s we, Stefan?’ John asked.

      ‘Swingjugend.’

      ‘Until they were arrested,’ Kurt said, almost under his breath.

      ‘“Arrested”?’ I repeated, failing for a moment to understand the full import of the word.

      Stefan glowered at him. ‘They just gave us a beating. As a warning.’

      It was such a shocking image none of us knew what to say next. My mind whirled, trying to understand. How could the police – or was it soldiers? – be so violent against young boys, just for playing music? The sense of menace seemed to seep into the room like a poison.

      Mother spoke carefully, ‘Are you saying that the police beat you and put you in prison, Stefan?’

      Stefan nodded. ‘The SS,’ he said. ‘But we were not in prison for long. It was just a warning.’ He paused and then went on, ‘That is why I had to leave Germany.’

      ‘You poor boy,’ she murmured. ‘No wonder …’

      ‘Were you all members … of this group?’ I stuttered.

      ‘Only Stefan,’ Kurt said. ‘We do not know about it till he tell us.’

      ‘There is no Jugend where we live,’ Walter added.

      ‘Perhaps we make our own group, here in Westbury?’ Kurt smiled, and the tension in the room started to settle. ‘Can he play some more?’

      Stefan looked at Father, who nodded.

      This time we listened quietly. It didn’t seem right to dance. Trying to make sense of what the boys had told us, I began to understand why this music was so important for Stefan. The baby grand had never known such spirited, emphatic playing. It was an act of protest and defiance, seeming to drive the menace out of the room.

      After a few minutes he stopped, and we all applauded and cheered. As Stefan straightened up from a mock-formal bow, I saw for the first time his face fully illuminated with happiness.

       Chapter Six

       Finishing is the final procedure in the long and complex process of transforming the silkworm’s gossamer into a perfect piece of woven silk. Dependent on the type of fabric required, finishing can include dyeing, boiling, tentering, drying and pressing in a variety of ways to achieve an extraordinary range of characteristics: firmness, fullness, dullness, lustre, softness or draping quality. For certain technical applications, such as parachute silk, finishing is critical in determining the final porosity of the fabric.

      From The History of Silk, by Harold Verner

      I was sitting in a deckchair in the garden on that warm May evening, refreshing my tired feet in a bucket of cool water, a gin and tonic in my hand and reading the latest edition of True Romance while horned stag beetles bumbled around me in the dusk. I should have been content, but I wasn’t. I was desperate for some romance of my own. Though fabled for having one pub for every thousand residents, Westbury offered few opportunities for meeting people, and John seemed to spend more and more time in London.

      Robbie’s intimately whispered promise to ‘see you very soon’ rang hollowly in my ears. He hadn’t been in touch for three long months, not since the meeting at the mill. I’d stopped trying to be first to the telephone each time it rang, and had given up rushing to meet the postman. I was lonely and my social life was at a standstill.

      So when I heard the raunchy toot-ti-toot of a car horn I didn’t waste any time putting my shoes on, and sprinted round to the front of the house barefoot. John was already waiting on the front step.

      ‘Nice motor,’ I said, as a low-slung dark blue sports car drew up.

      ‘It’s a Morgan, spelled M-O-N-E-Y,’ he whispered back.

      The car scrunched to a halt on the gravel. Robbie looked just like a Hollywood leading man in his fur-lined flying jacket and a white scarf of what appeared to be parachute silk. His long absence was instantly forgiven. He pulled off his leather pilot’s helmet, pushed himself up and swung his legs over the door.

      ‘My new baby. What do you think?’ He seemed extremely pleased with himself.

      ‘Beautiful,’ we chorused.

      He pumped John’s hand, ‘How are you, old man? Long time no see.’

      He lifted my fingers and kissed them with mock formality, eyes flirting, then looked down at my bare feet. My toes felt suddenly vulnerable.

      ‘Hello Lily. Love the red nail polish, terribly erotic – I mean exotic.’ He grinned with easy familiarity. ‘How’s tricks, one and all?’

      ‘Not bad, not bad,’ said John. ‘Like the Morgan.’

      ‘Little beauty, isn’t she? Fancy a spin? There’s room for both of you, if Lily doesn’t mind sitting sideways in the back.’

      The smell of Castrol on the warm evening air promised adventure. As Robbie shimmied the car through the twisty lanes, each bend brought a new aroma; a greenstick bonfire, hay drying in the field, pungent piggeries, water mint, wild garlic and the sweeter notes of bluebells and cow parsley.

      We pulled up at the pub and while Robbie went inside to get the drinks John and I sat on a bench by the river, watching an anxious mother duck shepherding her ducklings and listening to the calls of coots settling in the reed beds.

      ‘I wonder why he’s popped up just now?’ John said. ‘We’re still waiting for him to sign that parachute silk contract, you know? It’s been a while.’

      ‘Are you going to ask him?’

      ‘Watch and learn, Sis,’ he said, tapping the side of his nose.

      Robbie arrived with the drinks, and for a while we made small talk. ‘Been doing much flying lately?’ John asked.

      ‘She is no more,’ Robbie said, pulling a sorrowful face. ‘Had a bit of a prang.’

      ‘Golly. You crashed it?’

      ‘I’d been out for a spin – lovely evening, bit like this. I was just coming into land when out of nowhere comes this ruddy great removal van toddling along the edge of the field,’ he said smoothly. ‘Managed to avoid it but the wheels clipped a hedge and next thing I knew we were doing a somersault. Fine in the air, that kind of thing, but not so clever at ground level. Ended up with her nose half buried in a ploughed field and me hanging upside down in the straps.’

      He demonstrated leaning out of his seat, chest parallel to the ground, arms gripping an imaginary joystick, mock terror on his face, making us laugh. It seemed like a bit of a lark. We expected a jokey punch line.

      ‘What did you do?’ John asked.

      ‘I felt this wet in my hair. It was petrol, dripping out of the tank onto the engine block. So my mind got made up sharpish. I jumped for it and ran away across the field. There was a ruddy great whoomph and the whole thing went up. Guy Fawkes would have been proud. That was the end