Pierre openly consorted with the Germans. He paused, steadied the bag. People grumbled at Pierre’s prices, but they bought from him, even so. No one was so high and mighty that they didn’t do what they could to survive. Filled in the registration cards like lambs. Right, right. Penalised the Jews without a second thought. Shed a tear for the British when they’d been deported. Left. Well, Joe thought, steadying the bag again, and lifting it off its hook, the Irish have lived with centuries of occupation. As many connived with the British as resisted. That’s the way an occupation worked. So why pick on him? Let he who is without sin.

Chapter Five: Dora

CHAPTER FIVE

DORA

London: April 1985

Dora firmed up the soil round the white-currant bush. It’d take a year or so before it matured and she could gorge herself on its fruity pearls. Their housekeeper, Anni, used to sugar the currants into a rich, sweet compote. Along with afternoon coffee and bitter chocolate, that compote had been the taste of home that Dora missed most. You couldn’t get white currants in England, any more than you could get Bramleys in Germany.

It had been years since she’d thought of Anni, squat and square with her short grey hair and floral apron. Anni had lived across the courtyard, in the back building in Charlottenburg. Dora could see it now. The long windows of the art nouveau apartments that lined the inner square, dressed with venetian blinds and demi-nets. She could smell the meatballs and sausages cooking in the kitchens, hear the clatter of the families as they ate. The courtyard was in the shade and Anni’s apartment was always cool. Anni had packed her bags the day she and Vati had to tell her they weren’t Aryans.

‘How could you do this to me?’ Anni had said. ‘After all this time? You never told me.’ Anni never spoke to them again.

This was the first time in all the forty years Dora had been gardening that she’d seen white-currant bushes for sale in the garden centre. She’d bought one straightaway, planting it in a sunny corner in the vegetable patch. A sycamore had self-seeded nearby. She’d need to dig that up before it grew into a monster and strangled the bush. Dora reached for her fork.

Anni’s cousin lived in the countryside near Ravensbrück and gave Anni currants. Dora could remember her coming home with punnets filled to the brim. It was over fifty years since Dora had left Berlin, or thought about that. She’d been in mourning for her father, her late mother’s jewellery sewn into the hem of her coat.