Read The English Girl for Free Online Page A

I know you would.’
    I want to ask Anneliese more about why they don’t show these films in Vienna – but she beckons to the waiter.
    I reach for my purse.
    ‘No, I’m paying,’ she says. ‘You rescued my hat, remember? You’re my good fairy … We’ll do this again?’
    ‘Yes, I’d love to.’
    I take the tram home, happy, thinking about Anneliese. She’s everything I long to be, walking so lightly through life. So assured and bold and knowing: a woman of the world. I shall model myself on Anneliese. I shall buy a shapely little suit and a scarlet lipstick, like hers. I shall dream extravagant dreams, as she does.
    As I step off the tram at Maria-Treu-Gasse, I suddenly recall where I think I saw Leni Riefenstahl’s name. It was in an article I read in my mother’s
Daily
Mail
, about Hitler’s rallies in Nuremberg. I feel briefly uneasy. But I’ve probably misremembered, and I push the thought from my mind.

7
    Marthe calls out to me from the laundry room.
    She’s stacking clean linen napkins on shelves in front of the hot-water pipes. As I watch, she unfolds one, then folds it again, to make the crease perfectly straight. I see how red and raw her hands are.
    ‘So, my dear, how was the lesson?’
    Tears prick at my eyes as I think of it. But I don’t feel entirely comfortable telling Marthe how I feel, when I scarcely know her.
    ‘It was difficult, really. But then I’ve only just started…’
    ‘Yes, of course, my dear,’ she says. ‘You need to give it time.’
    She turns on the tap at the sink and rubs soap all over her hands, washing them fastidiously. In the slice of light from the window, I can see all the grey in her hair and the sharp little lines in her face. Briefly, I’m aware of a sadness that seems to hang about her, like a scent of dying flowers.
    ‘Now, this is what I was thinking, Stella. Lukas goes to kindergarten in the mornings. So I’d like you to give him his English lessons in the afternoons.’
    ‘Right.’
    She shakes the water drops from her hands. She examines her fingers and dries them; then she turns on the tap and starts to wash them again.
    ‘It won’t be every afternoon,’ she says. ‘There will be times when I’m out visiting, and I’ll sometimes take Lukas with me. Usually on Mondays. But whenever he’s home, I want him to spend the afternoon with you.’
    ‘Yes, absolutely,’ I say.
    It sounds as though my duties won’t be too onerous.
    ‘But today the weather’s so beautiful. And I was wondering whether you’d like to take him for an outing? So you could get to know one another?’
    ‘Of course. That would be lovely. Where should we go?’
    ‘Lukas likes the Prater,’ she says. ‘There’s a funfair and a Ferris wheel. All the children enjoy it.’
    She tells me how to get there.
    The Prater is a vast, bright park, busy with women and children: boys dressed like Lukas in shirts and short trousers, playing with bats and balls; girls in pale cotton frocks, skipping, doing handstands; nannies and mothers gossiping on benches. A wide avenue leads towards the funfair.
    ‘This is the Hauptallee,’ Lukas tells me, rather proud that he knows.
    The avenue is bordered by tall horse chestnuts, their leaves all gilded with autumn, a few bright leaves spiralling down. Everything looks so foreign to me – even the birds and animals. The rooks have tatty grey waistcoats, and there are small black squirrels scrabbling around in the grass, quite different from the familiar red squirrels of Hampshire. The wind has dropped since this morning, but the leaves of the chestnut trees whisper and sigh in a little movement of air.
    Lukas is quiet. He looks yearningly at some boys playing ball, but he holds very tight to my hand. I know he doesn’t trust me yet; and he’s almost too anxious to please. I’d like to see him careering around, grubby, his shirt hanging loose. A bit less dignified and solemn.
    We come to the funfair, with its kaleidoscope of colours,