The Penalties of Love Read online

  Day passed day and the prisoners of war from the Home were told that there would be a good chance that they would be allowed back into Germany very soon as a new government was meeting in Berlin, but strange though it may seem, I wasn’t interested in returning to Germany and in my mind I hoped to remain at work in St. Bernard’s hospital and make another visit to 56 Billington Crescent... as soon as possible...

  When another of my half days off from the hospital came in about three weeks after my last one, as I had hardly left the hospital on the last couple of free days I had, I decided to go into Inverness again and hope that perhaps a certain lady would be in the café where I last saw her and sure enough, she was. Whether that was a chance meeting of fate or just something that I should recognise and accept as something from heaven, I will never know, but my approach was a little different on this occasion. I saw her sitting at the same table where I had seen her last and I hoped she might look across, but she kept looking into the pram and talking to her baby. I looked again until she changed her manner and in a second, I knew I had caught her eye.

  She smiled, which surprised me and I smiled back and then I moved nearer to where she was sitting and started to look into the pram to tell her how lovely I thought the little baby to be and this gave her more pleasure as I felt it might. After which I thought it might be a good idea to ask her if she would like to come with me for a walk, as I thought the countryside outside Inverness was rather beautiful and reminded me very much of my own country Germany where we had such lovely forest, very much like Inverness. Happily, Anna thought that might be a good idea and I offered to push the pram which brought another broad smile to her face.

  We walked for some time in silence and I was hoping for something to say when she took the issue and started to tell me how happy she had been on her wedding day as her then husband, Frank had been so attentive and told her how lovely she looked in her beautiful white wedding dress with her magnificent bouquet of white roses, but then she stopped and pulled a face, telling me that she could not understand how happy she could be one minute and utterly miserable the next... all because of the way her husband had treated her.

  “He came home to dinner one day and told me that he was leaving me as he didn’t want us to have a baby together and that he was in love with someone else.”, she said in a sombre voice and I squeezed her hand gently and told her how sorry I was for her.

  She then told me that it was really no surprise that he should say something like that as she had been suspicious for some time that there was another woman in his life as several times when she answered the telephone a woman started to speak and then cut off suddenly. It happened so many times that on one occasion she asked the lady who she was and was surprised at the answer she received. “My name is Holly, but who are you?”

  It was at this point, she realized that her husband had never told this woman that he was married, but he was an idiot to have given her his telephone number... unless of course, she was the type of woman who would go to any length to get what information she wanted on a man that she thought was in love with her.

  Anna and I talked together for quite some time, discussing the weather and how the wind had suddenly blown up and that we should soon be getting back to the café and Anna asked about the prison camp. I told her it was a typical male Home where every man wished he was with his wife or his sweetheart except for the very few who thought they would be happiest with another male companion..

  Anna smiled at this and we stopped talking and stood still for a little while.

  It was at this point that Anna invited me home to her house for tea and I could have walked on air as we set off for 56 Billington Crescent.

  I met Anna Scot many times in the next few months whenever I was free from hospital duties and in that time, I knew that we were getting closer as time went by and most of the German prisoners who were with me in the Home had gone back to Germany and I presumed had been able to restart their lives again with family commitments. Only Joshua, an old mate of mine from my army days did not want to return to Germany and his reason was also divorce. He had been married for fourteen years and had two children and yet his wife had written to him to tell him that she was leaving him FOR ANOTHER WOMAN... and Josh cried on my shoulder for hours... I had hopes of staying In Inverness with Anna as my wife and with the possibility of having a family together and with this thought at the back of my mind, I decided I would go back to Billington Crescent and make my proposal, feeling that the future would be secure for both of us but particularly for Anna.

  I had been assured by the Matron and hospital management at St. Bernard’s that I would be able to take up more responsibility for my work which was still regarded as a ‘Nursing Orderley’ and return to my university studies in medicine in Scotland.

  I knocked on the door at 56 Billington Crescent with my large bunch of red roses only to be met by Anna’s mother who stood with one foot in the doorway as if she didn’t want me to enter.

  “May I speak to Anna please?” I asked but my request was met with a scowl.

  “She doesn’t live here anymore and why do you want to see her?”

  I was rather surprised at the attitude of Anna’s mother as she had met me before and her attitude then was quite amiable, but before I could say another word, she snapped at me again .

  “I don’t know what you want, but I think you have been here before, haven’t you?”

  Again I was taken by surprise and asked again if I could see Anna, but her mother tightened her lips before she told me that if I wanted to see Anna, I would have to go Glasgow as she had moved to an area in that place, “You must realize that she does not want to be pestered by any young man as she has been married before and that never worked out, so will you please go away and leave us alone.”

  I was about to speak again when she slammed the door in my face, but within a second she appeared again.

  “You have an accent, haven’t you? Where do you come from?” she shouted and when I told her I was a German, she looked shocked .

  “Oh my God,“ she screamed and slammed the door again.

  When I returned to the hospital, I met Nurse Vickery and I asked her if she knew anything of Anna’s move to Glasgow, but she shook her head and continued to chew her gum. Nurse Moor was the same. Nobody knew anything and I knew I would have to return to Billington Crescent and brave the battle that I knew would go on there, but I had to know where Anna was living in Glasgow and if necessary I would go to visit here there.

  When I did arrive at Billingon Crescent, again I could see a face looking at me from the bedroom window upstairs and after a few seconds the curtains dropped and a voice screamed at me from inside the front door. “Clear off... We don’t want no bleedin’ Germans here.”

  I hung my had as if in shame for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but I was a German from birth and I could never ever change that now. I returned to the hospital in defeat and thought there was never a chance that I would ever see Anna Scot again and I had decided a few years later that I was wasting my time in waiting when the task was impossible and I decided I would be best to return to Germany, but I had already done a full year’s revision course at the university in Inverness. Life was becoming so complicated and I felt I would be a ‘nursing orderley’ all my life and that becoming a doctor was an impossible dream, when one day in 1927 when I was buying a medical book from a bookshop in town. I bumped into Nurse Moore. She told me that she had hoped to be married by this time but that the bridegroom had vanished into thin air and she was fortunate that at least she wasn’t like Anna Scot who became pregnant BEFORE THE EVENT...

  I took Hannah Moore for a coffee and explained to her the importance of such a café in which we were sitting and she laughed, but she had recently bought an old Austin car, thinking it would be suitable if she was going on a honeymoon but now with her disappoin
tment, she suggested I should take the car if I could do what she couldn’t now do and I was pleased even if I did not know how to drive.

  Hannah Moore suggested I could learn and insisted in giving me the car; a present as a possible “wedding present” assuming I was still anxious to be with Anna Scot, I still had hopes, but they were very far way.

  “So you are still living in hopes,” she said and giggled as she spoke, “So there’s no chance for little old me then,” she went on and it was my chance to giggle when I told her there was not a chance in hell... I am afraid... She shrugged her shoulders and raised her eyebrows before she spoke again.

  “You are living in yesterday’s world... Haven’t you heard or even seen Anna Scot lately when she is living right here in Inverness.”

  I gulped my coffee and nearly choked.

  “What do you mean, have you seen Anna lately... here in Inverness?” I screamed and Hannah Moore laughed again.

  “She is in Inverness, you silly boy. I saw her only last Friday, but she had bad news, I am afraid.”

  I sat in silence for a moment thinking that perhaps Ann Scott had met someone in Glasgow and the marriage problem had hit her again, but Hannah Moore put her hand on my knee.

  “She has lost her little baby boy. He died of jaundice a little while ago and that is why she has come back to Inverness. “He was only two or three years of age, I think.”

  In that moment, I panicked and asked Moore if Anna had returned to her address with her mother and sister in Billington Crescent and she nodded. “I suppose so as there would be no place else to go, would there.” I immediately, if somewhat rudely jumped from the coffee table and ran out into the street and within half an hour I was banging at the front door of 56 Billington and demanding to see Anna, but all I could hear was a loud voice telling me to clear off as no Germans were welcome at that address, but as soon as the voice had spoken, the door opened and I was face to face with the woman I loved do much.

  Chapter Five

  The Reunion of Joy

  “Where have you been,” I called out, “and why did you go away when you must have realized how much I loved you... and still do?”

  Anna started to cry as she threw her arms around me and mumbled her apology.

  “I had serious doubts, my darling... Not about you, but about marriage and now I am in a worse state than I have ever been.. I had to come back to Inverness. I couldn’t stay in Glasgow after my little boy Oliver died so tragically. I put my arms around Anna and guided her out on to the pavement... “Come with me. Let us go to the café. I have much to say to you and I won’t take any negative answers. I am STILL in love with you.”

  We literally RAN to the café and sat down very happily together, but I knew there was a sadness in Anna’s heart due to the loss of her little son and I thought if I told her about the car that Hannah Moore had given me, that would help to brighten her up and it did but she was surprised to hear that I couldn’t drive when she told me that she could drive and had been driving since she was seventeen, I thought at least with one of us driving, we would be able to get about if we ever had a family and after some little time, Anna dried her eyes and threw back her shoulders as she put the car aside and reverted to the tragedy of losing her little son... “I was so happy with him as a little boy,” she said through her tears, “and he seemed to be growing up in a normal way, but one morning I saw some marks on his back and neck and I rushed him to the Royal Infirmary where they told me that he had jaundice. Wasn’t it strange that although I have been a nurse for nearly sixteen years, I had never ever seen a case of jaundice.” she said sadly.

  I stared at Anna when she said that and realized she must be about thirty years of age and I had always regarded her as a ‘little girl’ I was nearly 36 and after a long talk with ‘arguments’ on both sides, we decided we could live together in a flat if we could not get married as I knew Anna’s views on marriage. St. Bernard’s had several flats for nurses and doctors who worked long hours at the hospital and I had already considered this possibility when I was back at university. The Matron was a little surprised when I expressed my plan as she had supposed I would eventually return to Germany as nearly all of the other prisoners had done, but she agreed to help us to get ‘married’ and I told her that fact was still to be considered.

  We settled in Inverness for four years together and I was extremely happy, but we never discussed this matter with Anna’s mother or her sister and never went back to Billington Crescent ever again. I had notified my brother Eric who had been in the army with me, but who had never been taken prisoner and went home to look after my mother and other sister in Duisburg Hochfeld, near Berlin. My sister Hermenegild hated the name she was given and called herself Hazel when she found a young man who fancied her and told her he would love to marry her and take her away to Quebec in Canada as he felt sure that Germany would not be a very good place to live in within a very short few years, and the only reason we could think he would have that feeling was because he was a journalist for a large newspaper group in Berlin and we thought he might have thoughts that were totally alien to ours. Hazel did go to Canada with her journalist beau and the last we heard from her was that she had two children and was hoping for a big family. Eric was happy thinking as I was living with Anna that we were married as that would have been the normal thing to do if Anna felt different to her ideas on marriage and I lived in hope, but Eric had no thoughts about marriage or a relationship himself as his ideas about life were totally different to mine. I had always wanted to become a doctor, but Eric had various ideas of what he wanted to do with his life... and he moved from ideas like becoming an actor to taking up politics and then changing his religion to suit some young lady who was a devoted protestant. I had never felt a problem with being a Jew myself and hoped that Anna’s opposition to marriage was not because I was a Jew, as I had never thought about that ever before and anyway we could get married in a registry office and that would have meant we would have been recognised and accepted by the State, so we continued to live together living in hopes and with great joy, Anna became pregnant and we had TWINS. That was in 1932... There was Adam, the little boy and Freya, his twin sister. Life was eternally glorious and happy for us and I knew within a very short time that Anna had totally forgotten the sadness and unhappiness of her life before we met. I knew that she totally loved me as I loved her... and we had thoughts of being together for ever and having more children... but sadly, Anna had three miscarriages and it was obvious that we would never have any more children, however at this time, I had become a doctor and was studying to become a surgeon, so financially we had no worries in keeping a nice home and a suitable place for children to grow up with a very great friend behind us, The Matron of St. Bernard’s.

  Chapter Six

  A Meeting with Jenny Vickery

  I got a shock one afternoon when I had just completed my shift at the hospital when I literally did bump into Jenny Vickery and it was quite a little while before I was sure it was indeed she. I recognised the face, but the hair had gone blonde. The way she walked was easily identifiable, but there was an additional little swagger and I stood still for a moment to verify what I was seeing as Jenny came up to me smiling and throwing back her shoulders in what I took to be a triumphant affair, until I realized that she was pregnant. I smiled at her and she stopped walking, but there was something in her manner that made me think there might be something wrong. We smiled and I reached out to touch her hand, but in that moment, she started to cry.

  I put my arms around her and she responded which was an attitude that I found strange from Nurse Vickery. She was always very forthright and predictable, but in the moment I had her in my arms, I knew that Jenny Vickery was in trouble.

  “MURDERED HIS WIFE” she said... “LOVE... What is love?... Hans, I am afraid and I am worried but there is nothing I can do about it. I thought I was in love, but I�
��ve buggered everything up and now I am having his baby and he has committed suicide.”

  The confusion made me look at her twice before I hugged her again and told her I could listen to anything she wanted to say, but she cried all the more. We sat down in a seat in the park just a few miles from the hospital and she dried her eyes and began to tell me that she had fallen in love with this man without knowing much about him, but he told her how beautiful she was and how he could make her a film star and all that stuff, which reminded me of what my lovely Anna had gone through. However, this man whom she called Herbert had a title of some sort... or so he told her and Jenny Vickery imagines she was set up for life with love and wealth in her life, until the police arrived at the flat where they both lived and arrested Herbert. Jenny could not understand what the arrest was about until the police had taken Herbert away and returned to the flat to say that Herbert had MURDERED HIS WIFE AND BABY SON... and Jenny simply collapsed.

  “How can anyone be deceived like that,” she said, “I truly loved him and would never have believed all that if the police hadn’t come back to the flat to tell me, and I understood that I WAS HIS WIFE... or soon to be with the baby that we shared together.”

  Jenny stroked her hair and a smug expression came over her face.

  “He told me he liked blondes and I did this for him.” she said “and I was to be in Holywood in a film that he was directing... LOVE... I don’t believe in love any more.”

  I felt very sorry for Jenny Vickery as she snuggled closer to me and broke her heart and I realized in that moment exactly what she meant. Her deception was cruel, but if the police had not arrested Herbert when they did, how would Jenny’s life have turned out then?