This Was a Man (The Clifton Chronicles #7)(118)

From their lofty position, Giles and Karin watched a flood of people flowing downstream to freedom, while the guards, who only the night before would have shot anyone attempting to cross the border, just stood and stared, unable to comprehend what was happening all around them.

Karin was finally beginning to believe that the genie had escaped from the communist bottle, but it took her another hour to summon up the courage to say to Giles, ‘I want to show you where I lived.’

Giles found the descent from the wall almost as difficult as clambering up it had been, but with the help of several outstretched hands, he somehow managed it, though he needed to catch his breath once his feet had touched the ground.

Karin took his hand and they battled against a one-way stampede of human traffic as she led him slowly towards the border post. Thousands of men, women and children, carrying bags, suitcases, even pushing prams laden with their life’s possessions, were heading in one direction, leaving their old lives behind, clearly unwilling to consider returning in case they should find themselves trapped once again.

After they’d passed under the red and white barrier and left the West, Giles and Karin joined a trickle of citizens who were heading in the same direction as themselves. Karin hesitated, but only for a moment, when they passed the second barrier and found themselves on East German soil.

There were no border guards, no snarling Alsatians, no thin-lipped officials to check that their visas were in order. Just an eerie, unoccupied wilderness.

There were also no taxi queues, as there were no taxis. They passed a little group of East Germans kneeling in silent prayer, in memory of those who’d sacrificed their lives to make today possible.

The two of them continued to weave their way through the crowds that were melting away with each step they took. It was well over an hour before Karin finally stopped and pointed towards a group of identical grey tenement buildings that stood in a grim line, reminding her of a past life she’d almost forgotten.

‘This is where you lived?’

She looked up and said, ‘The nineteenth floor, second window on the left is where I spent the first twenty-four years of my life.’

Giles counted until he reached a tiny curtainless window on the nineteenth floor, second from the left, and couldn’t help recalling where he’d spent the first twenty-four years of his life: Barrington Hall, a townhouse in London, the castle in Scotland in which he spent a few weeks every summer, and then of course there was always the villa in Tuscany should he need a break.

‘Do you want to go up and see who’s living there now?’ he asked.

‘No,’ said Karin firmly. ‘I want to go home.’

Without another word, she turned her back on the towering blocks of grey concrete and joined those of her countrymen who were heading towards the West, to experience a freedom that she had never taken for granted.

She didn’t once look back as they walked towards the border, although a moment of anxiety returned as they approached the crossing point, but it quickly evaporated when she saw some of the guards, jackets unbuttoned, collars loosened, dancing with their newly made friends, no longer from East or West, now simply Germans.

Once they had passed under the barrier and were back in the West, they found young and old alike attempting, with sledgehammers, crowbars, chisels and even a nail file, to dismantle the 800-mile-long monstrosity piece by piece. The physical symbol of what Winston Churchill had described as the Iron Curtain.

Giles unzipped his bag, took out the hammer and handed it to Karin.

‘You first, my darling.’





EMMA CLIFTON


1990–1992





49


‘IT’S THAT TIME OF the year,’ said Emma as she raised a glass of mulled wine.

‘When we all throw our toys out of the pram,’ said Giles, ‘and refuse to join in with any of your games?’

‘It’s that time of the year,’ repeated Emma, ignoring her brother, ‘when we raise a glass in memory of Joshua Barrington, founder of the Barrington Shipping Line.’

‘Who made a profit of thirty pounds, four shillings and tuppence in his first year, but promised his board he would make more in the future,’ Sebastian reminded everyone.

‘Thirty-three pounds, four shillings and tuppence, actually,’ said Emma. ‘And he did make more, a lot more.’

‘He must have turned in his grave,’ said Sebastian, ‘when we sold the company to Cunard for a cool forty-eight million.’

‘Mock you may,’ said Emma, ‘but we should be grateful to Joshua for all he did for this family.’

‘I agree,’ said Harry, who stood, raised his glass and said, ‘To Joshua.’

‘To Joshua,’ declared the rest of the family.

‘And now to business,’ said Emma, putting down her glass.

‘It’s New Year’s Eve,’ protested Giles, ‘and you seem to forget you’re in my house, so I think we’ll have a year off.’

‘Certainly not,’ said Emma. ‘Only Lucy will be spared this year.’

‘But be warned, young lady,’ said Harry, smiling at his great-granddaughter, who was fast asleep in her mother’s arms, ‘your reprieve is only temporary.’

‘That is correct,’ said Emma, as if Harry hadn’t been joking. ‘The time has come for everyone to tell us their New Year’s resolutions.’