One man obsessively writes menus of ever-more-exotic meals he will eat after the war. These are pinned up on the foot of his bunk for everyone to see, like sharing posters of film stars or dirty postcards.
When the parcels don’t arrive on Tuesday, Bill and Izzy are down to their last two tins—one of marmalade and one of Spam. Tucker stops by their bunk and points at the Spam. Izzy shakes her head furiously, but Bill holds her arm. “We’ve got to,” he whispers. She’s only considering her own stomach, when I’ve got her life to worry about, he thinks.
The smirk on Tucker’s face as he takes the Spam is as bad as their hunger. They spread marmalade thinly on dry bread. Its bitter taste seems fitting.
The following morning Ralph comes into the hut with the worry lines etched deeply between his brows, and holds up a hand for silence. “Sorry, everyone. No parcels again today. Hopefully Friday. Try to make it last.”
Bill looks at Izzy with consternation. They have nothing for the next three days but the bread ration, some marmalade and the lunchtime skilly. He doesn’t blame the Nazis for their hunger; he blames Tucker. He tries to tell himself it’s only three days; he can go without much food for three days to protect Izzy.
• • •
As Bill and Izzy are leaving the washroom the next morning, with Bill carrying the newly scrubbed empty apple tub in his arms, Tucker suddenly appears from round the corner of the hut, falling into step with them.
“Morning, all,” he says cheerfully. The tall guard is a few meters away, watchful as ever. Bill knows that’s why Tucker has chosen this place to talk to them. His grip on the apple tub tightens with anger.
“Bit of a bugger about the parcels,” continues Tucker. Again Bill doesn’t reply, but speeds up to get away from him as soon as possible. Tucker lollops alongside, just out of Izzy’s sight line.
“So I was thinking,” says Tucker, “you’d better give me your bread ration, till the parcels come.”
Bill stops dead and drops the apple tub.
“You fucking bastard,” he says, squaring up to Tucker.
Tucker retreats a step, smiling and batting his cow eyelashes. Izzy grabs Bill’s arm and pulls him back.
Tucker laughs. “Or I could just tell the goon now.”
He turns toward the approaching guard, who calls “What’s going on here?” hardly able to keep the eagerness out of his voice.
“Nothing,” replies Bill, and the tall guard stoops over them, a little breathless, staring close into each face.
Tucker turns to him and clears his throat. “Just that—”
Bill interrupts. “You can have it.”
“Just that Cousins here is a…”
“I said, you can have it.”
“…Chelsea supporter. I can’t stand Chelsea supporters.”
He smiles at the guard and turns to walk away, sure Bill won’t try anything here.
The guard peers closely at Bill and then at Izzy. Blood rushes into Bill’s face as he bends to pick up the apple tub, heavy even when empty. He’d like to hurl it at Tucker, but he doesn’t.
“It’ll be all right,” he says to Izzy as they walk away. He hopes he sounds convincing. “We’ll give him half, not all the bread. We’ll go a bit short today and tomorrow, but there’ll be another parcel on Friday, and if we get one with fags, we can give him those instead.”
It’s odd how he can tell that she’s seething with him for not refusing. She doesn’t need to speak—there’s something about the way she holds herself away from him and doesn’t look him in the eye. But what can he do?
That night they split their remaining bread ration and leave half at the end of Bill’s bed for Tucker. They fall asleep with their stomachs empty.
Fifteen
I wake each morning hollowed out by hunger, with terror couched heavily in my chest. I lie for a moment, letting the panic wash over me and then force it down, control my breathing, until my heart rate slows to something like normal, and I can raise my head to face the day. Bill can see my fear, but he smiles. “Chin up.” And his eyes are so full of love that I forgive him for letting Tucker blackmail us. I know he’s trying his best to protect me. We have to prepare ourselves to confront whatever may come, side by side. I try to leave the frightened Izzy in her bunk and take Cousins out into the compound.
A very particular worry has begun to haunt me. My last period began a week before our marriage, and we were on the run for ten days. I am regular as a clock at twenty-eight days. I suppose there’s a small chance I could be pregnant, but Bill was so careful. At best I have a few days before a red stain spreading over my trousers gives me away. Then Tucker’s threats will be like hot air.
To my surprise this doesn’t send me into a depression. It’s quite the opposite. Life has never felt so precious. I watch Bill covetously as if trying to feed on every movement of his head, his lovely hands. I see the leaves on the birch trees beyond the wire beginning to turn yellow, or a jagged streak of gold above a black cloud, or my head jerks up at the waterfall notes of a blackbird’s song. Everything is brighter and sharper than I’ve ever seen it, as if I’m saying a long good-bye to life.
Common sense tells me that I have only a few days left to live, but another part of my brain holds onto a thin hope that maybe I can get through this, and perhaps there will be a life for me and Bill after the war. I make up my mind I must live “as if,” or I might as well hand myself over right now. So all the long, long day and evening, I concentrate hard on listening to the conversations around me, trying to improve my English. In the endless hours in the hut, I eavesdrop as the men play cards or talk about everyday things: lice, socks, parcels, food.
Often the speech I hear about me is too fast to follow and I can’t say, “Stop please. What means this ‘bollocks’?” I have no way of knowing which words are acceptable in company and which only among soldiers. How would it sound if I went to take tea with English ladies and spoke like a prisoner in a barrack room?
Bill continues to read Great Expectations with me. It’s a very long book, and I’ll never discover how it turns out, because I have so few days left. But I let him rattle on about his own great expectations of our life in England after the war.
“We’ll get a little house, in the same road as my mum and dad and Flora so they can help you get settled. Of course we might have to live in the pub to start with, but there’s plenty of room and an indoor toilet. How funny it’ll be to have you in my bed in my old bedroom!”
Tucker passes the end of the bunk as Bill’s talking. Behind Bill’s head, he licks his lips in a slow, revolting way, and my stomach rumbles with hunger.
On Thursday I devour my lunchtime skilly and potato like our farm dogs when we feed them. Gone in seconds. My stomach grinds and clenches, and there’s nothing to distract me from thoughts of food. I thought I’d known before what it felt like to be hungry or weighed down by boredom, but I had no idea. So much I didn’t know.
Now that Ralph has encouraged Bill to leave me with him and Max, Bill’s always asking if he can “pop off for a jiffy” to play the piano or have a game of football or watch the cricket. I’m pleased that he can escape the horrible hut, but if I’m honest with myself, I also resent him being busy and occupied and taking his mind off hunger.