Free The Sea House by Esther Freud Page B

balancing a towering box of cake. ‘We shared the house. The Gaus, they had one half, and we lived in the sunnier side of it, behind a dividing door.’
‘Didn’t you wonder,’ Elsa asked, ‘if they moved into your rooms once you were gone?’
‘Elsa!’ Klaus looked at her. And Gertrude laughed.
‘The strange thing is’ – Max shook his head – ‘I never once thought of it till now.’
‘Well,’ Gertrude suggested, ‘maybe that was the agreement. They just rented out those rooms for the summer.’
‘We always thought of it as ours…’ But Max had never dreamt about it. And his parents hadn’t sacrificed themselves to keep it for his return.
‘And how about you, Elsa?’ Gertrude was asking. ‘Was your house near by?’
‘There were Nazis in the hills at Kloster,’ Klaus answered for her. ‘And nudists in the south. Vitte was the only place for a nice artistic family like Elsa’s.’
‘Nudists?’ Gertrude was amazed.
‘We were discouraged from going,’ Max cut in. ‘But all the same…’
‘Well…’ Gertrude shook her head. ‘It must make Steerborough seem rather dull.’
‘No. Not at all.’
Max wondered if Elsa had seen the carriage of drunken men, their insignia blazing as they rattled through Vitte in their cart. His mother was playing Boccia with two friends and he was sketching, shading the heavy balls as they thudded to the ground. He was rubbing with his pencil to create the sprays of dust. And then the cart had stopped and the men were leaning out. ‘That boy’ – they seemed to be falling half out of their cart as they pointed at him, sitting on his step – ‘that is a rather Jewish-looking boy.’ Max turned to his mother just in time to see her face flush red.
‘It was a sort of idyll,’ Klaus was telling Gertrude. ‘With no cars. Just horses, bicycles and boats.’
‘Do you remember the people always searching for amber on the beach.’ Elsa was laughing now. ‘And then the poet Ringelnatz put up a sign, “Amber. Lost on beach. Please return to Ringelnatz.”’
‘Yes,’ Max smiled. ‘Yes.’
‘And twice a day the steamer came.’ She was talking just to him. ‘There was Swanti , and there was Caprivi .’ Elsa said their names so tenderly, like long-lost friends.
‘ Swanti and Caprivi ,’ Max repeated, remembering how he’d waited at the harbour to see which one it would be.
‘We were going to build a house there when we were first married,’ Klaus said. ‘We even chose a spot for it and drew up plans.’ There was a silence while the four of them looked at their plates. ‘But who needs Hiddensee when we can be here? For that one thing, we can be grateful. Thankyou, Adolf, for forcing us to Steerborough, where the sea is infinitely more refreshing, the summers full of… shall I say suspense?’ Klaus raised his glass. ‘Herr Hitler, I thank you again.’
Max stared at him.
‘How about some coffee?’ Gertrude stood up, although it wasn’t her place to provide help.
But Elsa was collecting dishes. ‘No, no, I’ll bring it.’ And she disappeared into the house.

12
    Everywhere Lily looked now she saw Grae. Without the car, she supposed, he was bringing his work home. The back garden had turned into a workshop. A workbench was permanently set up and lengths of wood and half-finished constructions were propped against the shed. He wore the same checked jacket and the same hat through sun and rain, and one evening when she went out to fill the coal scuttle he offered her a box of kindling for the fire. Soft white ends of wood that needed to be burned. The rain was falling, it was starting to get dark, but he carried on sawing and measuring, never breaking his stride even when Em and Arrie called to him, hungry, from the back door.
It was May bank holiday and Nick was driving up. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘I’ve got a pen. How do I get out of London?’ Lily stood in the phone box and weighed the pebble in her palm. It was brown and unexceptional, probably