What’s In A Name?

A father makes a sacrifice in this powerful short story by Sylvia Steele, set at the outbreak of World War II.

They’d tried to protect their children for so long, but Charles’s story needed to be told . . .

THIS country is at war with Germany.” The voice of Neville Chamberlain left a stunned silence in our parlour. It was broken only by my father stumbling to switch the wireless off and leave the room without a word.

I watched my mother put out her hand to him, but he merely brushed her shoulder as he passed.

A strangled gasp from Evie broke the silence.

She was trembling, and I worried that the weeks of uncertainty would prove too much for her.

Talk everywhere had been of war.

In our home it had been more of whether Evie’s fiancé would be conscripted before their marriage and our father’s refusal to attend the wedding.

“I can’t bear it, Lydia. I’m going to lose him. Eddie will have to go!” she cried.

“Hush, dear, that won’t be for some time, and you have your wedding to look forward to.” I tried to pacify my sister as my mother’s eyes continued to follow my father’s departure.

Father’s actions had left my sisters and me with many unanswered questions.

It seemed an age before I could voice my thoughts.

“What does it mean, Mother? What is wrong with Father? Is he ill?”

We had all spent the past few months asking the same questions.

As the eldest of four, I worried about the changes in my father.

Where was the man who loved to listen to our fears, always ready with a hug?

My mother was staring into the fireplace, her hands clasped in her lap, her body as if sculpted in marble.

There was a strange look about her. I felt a tingling of fear, but I stopped from hurrying to her side.

“Why is Father being like this, Mother? What changed him?” Evie jumped to her feet, her cheeks red and damp with tears.

“I’m getting married tomorrow, and he refuses to come. What kind of father behaves like that?”

I looked away as I heard the pain in her voice.

“Well, the wedding will go ahead – war or no war!” Evie grabbed our sister Bella’s hand, and the pair rushed from the room.

My mother seemed oblivious.

There was an unusual brusqueness in her tone as she spoke for the first time.

“Lydia, will you prepare the dinner, please?”

I laid my hand on her shoulder, feeling the tension beneath my fingers. She didn’t look up.

I had never heard such sharpness in my mother’s voice before and tears were gathering in my eyes as I left the room.

****

Left alone, Margaret remained in her chair, her hands clenched as she tried to control their trembling.

“What changed him?”

Evie had asked.

It was a question Margaret had seen in the eyes of the other children as their father spent more and more time alone in his greenhouse at the bottom of the garden, returning to the house without a word or a smile.

Was it time to talk to the children, she wondered.

Her mind refused to let go of those moments when she feared for their lives.

She could still hear the noise that had erupted on that foggy November night in 1914.

She had since heard it many times in her head.

The clang of hobnails striking the cobbles as the angry mob marched nearer to their home like a swarm of angry wasps, their voices striking fear into her heart.

“Go home, foreigners!

You are not welcome here!”

They were her neighbours – people she had lived amongst for many years.

She had wanted to shout that she was not a foreigner – to cry out that Charles had lived and worked in London for 20 years.

He was a good man, and he was proud to live and work here.

But what did this mob understand, or care, about the cherished piece of paper that granted him his British citizenship?

The shattering glass of Muller’s butcher’s shop window beneath

their flat and the scorching heat from the flame torches held her in a state of panic.

She had been unable to draw her eyes away from the unbelievable scene until she felt Charles pull her away from the window.

She buried her face in his shoulder.

As they stood entwined, she could feel his body quivering but knew not whether it was in anger or fear until she heard his whispered words.

“I should never have brought this to you, my darling.

“It is me they are angry with. My life will never change.”

“We will get through this, Charles. I don’t want you to change! You have done nothing wrong!”

“I know, dear. But this is a country at war.”

“But such hostility – I thought they were my friends!” Margaret sobbed, unable to hide her sadness.

“I feel we must get used to their dislike, my dear. It is aimed at me alone. I fear we may have to separate until this is over.”

Stunned, Margaret pulled away from his arms.

“No, Charles! I will go nowhere without you.”

The crowd was dispersed by the arrival of the constables with raised truncheons, backed up by the mounted police, but the scene was not so easily erased from her mind.

Her brother Frank had arrived next morning and persuaded Charles to move away from the city and into a cottage in Sussex.

“You must make a new start, for the sake of the children.

“There’s a job on my friend’s farm waiting for you,” he had said.

They had moved many times. That was until Charles, now in his fifties, had taken on this cottage in Buckinghamshire.

Nowadays, he spent his days tending the garden. It was work that he had always found peace in.

Margaret wrapped her arms around herself to stem the tremors.

Tears threatened at her eyes as she recalled Evie’s words, spoken with such resentment.

“What father behaves like that? What changed him?”

Margaret was reminded of her own concern. She, too, had witnessed the changes in her husband.

He’d always been loving and gentle, responsible for the plants in the garden of the large house near to the place she lived with her parents and sister.

He’d only recently arrived in the London suburb, and he had told her of his life as a horticulturist in his native German home.

In his stumbling attempt at his new language, he had described the farmland around his village.

“But there was no work for me there any more,” he said.

“There was no longer a place for a man who wanted nothing more than to till the land.”

There was sadness in his voice as he spoke of his decision to emigrate.

Charles’s family became his life.

He’d remained a gentle man, with no harsh words and only hugs for the children he adored.

Margaret straightened her shoulders as she made her way to join the family.

It was time to tell the children of the sacrifices their father had made.

It was time to explain the reason he’d shunned neighbours, and his refusal to meet their friends, his decisions to take himself off to his greenhouse so that no-one would question his foreign accent.

And now, the country was once again at war.

Their father had made his decision.

No-one would deride them for their father’s origins, his name – it was better that they thought him odd; inhospitable.

It was time for a family talk. Margaret wiped her eyes, preparing herself to face her daughters before entering the kitchen.

****

“Look, Mother, it was on the doorstep. It’s so beautiful, isn’t it?”

Evie couldn’t disguise the joy in her voice.

“And here’s just a little note: For a darling girl on her wedding day,” Evie read aloud. “Do you think they are from Eddie?”

Margaret saw the colour rising in Evie’s cheeks as she spoke of her fiancé.

“It’s your father’s writing, dear. He’ll have gathered them this morning.”

She struggled with the lump rising in her throat, looking away from the disbelief she saw mirrored in their faces.

“Will you call your father for supper, Lydia, please? I think there are things we want to say to all of you before Evie’s wedding tomorrow.”

The End.