My Name is Eva An absolutely gripping and emotional historical novel - Suzanne Goldring Page 0,72

transparent silver, mystified. Then Eva said, ‘What is it?’

‘The scales of the carp. Do you not do this in your country?’

Eva pulled a face and shook her head. ‘No, we just kiss under the mistletoe.’

The girls held out their hands and let Irene slip the scales onto their fingers, then they looked at each other, burst into giggles and simultaneously slid their hands inside their sweaters. Sally said, ‘And to think I was really hoping for scent for Christmas this year.’

‘Not too much aquavit this early in the evening, I hope, girls?’ Brigitte popped her head round the door. ‘I could hear you two laughing down the corridor.’

‘Come and join us,’ Irene beckoned to her. ‘You must have a good-luck token too, my dear.’ She offered another carp scale on an outstretched finger.

Brigitte took it, then looked at the other two girls. ‘Pop it down your titties,’ said Sally. ‘That’s what we’ve just done.’

They burst into giggles and Brigitte obediently reached into the sweater she wore under her nurse’s uniform. ‘I’ll be needing some luck before the end of the night,’ she murmured. ‘We’ve got two mothers vying to have the Christmas baby, so I’d best get back and see who wins.’ She turned on her heel and left, leaving a faint whiff of carbolic soap.

‘And I have another gift for you both as well,’ Irene said, reaching behind her chair to bring out two sheepskin hats. ‘With the warmest thanks from all of us.’ Sally and Eva took the thick fleeces and pulled them over their hair and ears.

‘It really is Christmas at last,’ said Eva and then she began, in a timid, wavering voice, to sing a carol she knew from childhood and all around her other voices picked up the same tune, some singing in their own tongue, others in German, so ‘Stille Nacht’ harmonised with ‘Silent Night’ until they all ended on the one quiet note. And in that single moment of peace Eva glanced outside, hoping that tonight would indeed be peaceful, with no revenge-hungry Poles taking shots to pierce the celebrations.

‘Happy Christmas,’ Sally said. ‘Now let’s show them that the British know how to have a good time and sing them all some of our best carols.’ They broke into ‘Ding Dong Merrily on High’, followed by ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’, and toured the barracks arm in arm, singing at the tops of their voices.

52

25 December 1945

My darling Hugh,

How I wish you could be here to share this special Christmas with me. It has given me such hope and joy to see the happy faces all around me. They have suffered so much, but they are so brave and so optimistic. And the children, the dear children, are delighted by the smallest treat.

If we had been able to have children, my dearest, I would have wanted to spoil them with wonderful toys, but now I can see that we don’t need much at all to be blissfully happy. There are sad stories all around me, but people are determined to make the most of life again. They are alive and they are celebrating with all their hearts.

God bless my darling. I hope you are celebrating Christmas in Heaven with the Angels in your realm of glory. We had so little time together and only one Christmas in our marriage, but I treasure the memory.

All my love for ever,

Your Evie

Ps I love you

xxxxx

53

Eva, 23 April 1946

Trains for Home

Eva and Sally pushed their way through the crowds of people boarding the train, carrying battered cases and bundles tied in shawls. Girls with ribboned braids twisted around their heads twirled as they danced along the station platform, their embroidered skirts billowing above starched white petticoats.

‘They all look so happy to be leaving the camp,’ Sally shouted above the clamour of the brass band trumpeting a triumphant farewell.

‘You’d think they were all going off on holiday,’ Eva yelled back, her voice competing with wheezing concertinas and the deep, stirring voices of the men singing their country’s traditional songs.

Hundreds of the camp’s Polish residents were finally going home. They were travelling to their homeland by train, but a train that was more comfortable by far than the ones that had forcibly brought them into Germany several years earlier, to work in punishing, life-shortening conditions. Polish flags fluttered from all the boxcars under garlands of fresh spring greenery cut from fruit trees, the bright new leaves and emerging pink and white flower buds an optimistic sign of faith in