Nothing really amiss
As summer hands over to autumn, the sky beams bright above the rooftops of Paddington Green Children’s Hospital, red brick with red terracotta dressings over three storeys. In the entrance, a sculpted mother and children are set in a Dutch gable.
Donald Winnicott leans forward slightly as he speaks, his fingers locked in front of him on the table in his office, the corners of his mouth upturned in an expression of kindness, the lines around his eyes permanently crinkled as if from a lifetime of intense listening.
‘Before I commit to seeing Tommy, I thought it important that we meet, and determine that we are both comfortable. I know that Tommy has previously seen Anna Freud, an associate of mine at the London Clinic of Psychoanalysis. He is six years old?’
‘That’s right. We were seeing Anna for over a year.’ She swallows her anger that Anna could not, or would not, help her son.
Winnicott nods. ‘You may or may not be aware that we are currently in the process of redefining various approaches within the practice of psychoanalysis. Roughly speaking, we are now three separate factions. There are the Freudians, the group to which Anna belongs, the Kleinians who follow the work of Melanie Klein, and those such as myself who belong to the Independent Group.’
‘I wasn’t aware, specifically,’ Edith says. ‘But you come highly recommended.’ She thinks of Anna’s words: There is nothing I can do for Tommy, his outbursts, his anger. All I can do now is try to refer you to Donald Winnicott. If anyone can help Tommy, it’s him. I’ll prepare a full file for him, ensure that none of the work we have done over the past year is wasted.
‘Generally, I don’t do private practice work. I’m currently employed in my consultant paediatric work; the children’s evacuation programme is keeping me very busy,’ Donald Winnicott tells her, from the other side of his desk. ‘But from what I read in your letter, and Anna’s file, Tommy’s situation – and yours – relates very distinctly to my work. I have great respect for Anna Freud – how could I not, when her family has done so much for our profession? But I fear that under Miss Freud you were perhaps not getting the right approach. I believe that she doesn’t understand the need to defend the instincts of the ordinary, devoted mother against the threat of intrusion from professional expertise.’
Edith looks up to meet his gaze, as Winnicott continues, and feels herself blush.
‘In my opinion, there is no better place for a child than the nurturing environment provided by his or her parents. When I work with patients, I am not just working with the patient but with the mother. It is my opinion that the foundations of health – mental and physical – start with the ordinary mother in her ordinary loving care of her own child. A child is the culmination of his or her experience.’
‘Yes,’ Edith nods. ‘You see, the war … poor Tommy, it has affected him so very gravely.’
‘It is to be expected. The impact of such trauma at a young age cannot be underestimated. If we look at the experience provided and demonstrated by the mother in a child’s early years, and extend the impact of that experience to new external forces as they grow – be it people or events – we see how, if a child is not held and supported properly, he or she can be damaged.’
Edith closes her eyes, letting her head drop. ‘It’s not just the war.’ She pauses. ‘When he was a baby, his father, Alexander, and I argued, a lot. We have just divorced and we haven’t lived together for many years – though we are civil with one another – but those early days affected Tommy, I am sure.’
‘Just as it affects you,’ Winnicott says. ‘You are a devoted mother – I can see that; if you weren’t then you wouldn’t be here. You love your son and you have tried to do right by him, but you believe that, unwittingly, you have inflicted damage on him.’
A lump forms in Edith’s throat as she tries to swallow.
Winnicott shifts further forward in his chair. ‘And you have. You are imperfect and flawed, because to be human is to be imperfect and flawed. Your son is searching for security that is lacking in both his family life and the world at large. In order to provide for him what he needs, there is work to be done.’
He reaches across the table and takes her hand, lines forming at the edges of his eyes as he smiles.
‘It will involve empathy and imagination, but together, I believe, we can do it. Give me two years, and I will get to the bottom of Tommy’s situation.’
Her voice breaks when she tries to speak. ‘Thank you.’
Light trips along the rooftops over Paddington, following Edith as she walks from her meeting with Donald Winnicott.
On the corner of Church Street and Paddington Green, she instinctively turns towards St John’s Wood and home before changing her mind. She has the rest of the day off, a rare moment to herself, and so she wanders in the direction of the museums, enjoying the light breeze as she meanders through the residential streets of Tyburnia, before cutting into Hyde Park.
Even from a distance, she recognises Lydia by her streaks of copper-red hair that blaze in the sun. She wears an emerald-green belted overcoat with large buttons and a rounded collar. Looking up and catching Edith’s eye, she smiles.
‘What are you doing here? This isn’t your neck of the woods.’
‘I was taking in the sunshine. I thought I might head to the Victoria and Albert Museum—’
‘You’ll struggle to get through. A bomb hit Our Lady of the Victories on Kensington High Street last night; all the roads around it are closed off. This weather, isn’t it glorious?’
‘It is—’ Edith manages before Lydia interrupts.
‘I just stopped to have a sandwich in the sunshine on my way from Portobello Market. They’re introducing antiques and my father sent me to do a recce. He’s training me up to take over the family business, you see. He’s rather progressive like that – personally I think Stefan’s furious that he isn’t priming him.’ She pauses. ‘But he has his own work.’
Smiling, as if a splendid thought has just occurred to her, Lydia links her arm through Edith’s. ‘You have a good eye, you should come with me. I have a couple more shops to attend.’
‘Oh, but I was going to take some pictures—’
‘Perfect. We’ll head to Mount Street first, and then on to M. Harris & Sons on New Oxford Street if we can be bothered. It will be fun. You’re at a loose end – perhaps we could go for a drink, afterwards, if we can find somewhere that will let us in.’
Edith thinks of the cost of Tommy’s treatment and shakes her head. But Lydia continues. ‘On me, of course … Stefan is having cocktails at the Connaught with a friend. It’s been spruced up by a Swiss hotelier, it’s nowhere near as tired-looking as it was. Oh, come on, Edie, you’ll simply love it.’
John Sparks Ltd stands at 128 Mount Street. Inside, stark white walls are offset by tall intricate vases displayed on pedestals, an austere wooden chair set in front of a pleated curtain. It is cold inside the gallery, and Edith folds her arms in front of herself, feeling the eyes of the proprietor watching her as she leans in to inspect a statue of a camel, its head tilted back, mouth agape, as if howling at the sun.
‘Don’t worry, they know me here,’ Lydia says, sensing Edith’s unease. ‘I come all the time. Here, and M. Harris, and Harold Davis on King Street, are the best dealers of their kind. The man who owns this shop also has a premises in Shanghai, which allows them to source objects directly from China,’ she adds, leading Edith through the archway and into a second room, further stocked with antiquities.
‘And your father only buys Chinese works?’
‘Pretty much. His theory is that it doesn’t necessarily matter what one collects, but the important thing is to collect one thing, and to stick with it, rather than buying lots of different things.’
Edith smiles. ‘I like that.’
‘Yes,’ Lydia replies, considering her, a thought stirring in her eyes. ‘I can see why. There’s a single-mindedness about it that suits you. You always seem to know exactly who you are.’ She laughs. ‘Though I’m damned if I do.’
‘Do you ever miss home?’ Lydia asks, as they walk along Mount Street, turning right into the public gardens and sitting on a bench, taking in the afternoon sun.
‘Vienna isn’t my home any more; the city I grew up in no longer exists,’ Edith replies, smoothly, tucking her legs under the seat, not meeting Lydia’s eye. ‘How about you? Or do you consider yourself an Englishwoman? You speak both languages perfectly. It must be confusing to be two people at once.’
‘I’m not confused,’ Lydia says, and then she frowns. ‘Well actually, you might be right. I grew up between England and Germany, so wherever I am I always feel like I’m in the wrong place; trapped between two worlds, neither of which really exists in the way I think of them when I’m not there. It’s not so much that I have two heads, but almost as if I have two sides to my head.’
They sit in a silence a while, before Lydia speaks again.
‘Do you ever think of what happened to Maks?’
‘Yes,’ Edith says. ‘Often.’
‘It’s funny how we keep bumping into one another, after so long. It happens, though, doesn’t it, people’s lives intertwining, almost as if drawn together on some subconscious level. Sometimes even without one knowing it.’
Edith takes a cigarette from its tin and offers one to Lydia. Accepting, Lydia reaches into her pocket and draws out a box of matches, and strikes.
Leaning into the flame, Edith inhales and then looks away as she exhales, towards a couple seated side by side on the bench sharing a sandwich from a piece of greaseproof paper. ‘I was at the hospital, today, seeing a doctor about my son, Tommy. That was where I had come from when I bumped into you.’
Her already pale skin seems to whiten further as Lydia exhales a lungful of smoke, coughing slightly. ‘I’m so sorry, I had no idea he was ill.’
‘Don’t be. It was a good thing: I met with a doctor who can help us, finally. Tommy has suffered with his nerves as a result of the bombing. But Dr Winnicott is very sure he can help us.’
‘That’s wonderful, Edith.’
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘It is.’ Her eyes brim with tears, suddenly, and she turns away, lifting the front of her wrist to dab at their corners.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Lydia says, leaning forward to comfort her. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’
‘You haven’t.’
‘Where is Tommy now?’
‘He’s being looked after by my mother.’
‘And what of his father – you two don’t live together?’
‘No.’ Edith pauses. ‘I’m not sure that we ever did, not properly. He went to Spain eighteen months after we came to England. He’s back now, living with another woman, in Birmingham.’
‘That’s horrible.’
Edith shakes her head.
‘You’ve obviously never been to Birmingham,’ Lydia says and Edith laughs.
‘We are not suited to one another in that way, anyway. It is a cordial arrangement: he comes and visits Tommy – and I take Tommy there, occasionally.’
Lydia’s amber eyes narrow. ‘There’s someone else, isn’t there? You wouldn’t be so forgiving if there weren’t.’
Her mind drifts, catching on an image of Arnold Deutsch, beside her on the bench under the maple tree, and then it moves on, to Broda, and Edith half-smiles. ‘Nothing formal.’
Secret Intelligence Service file on Engelbert Broda
P.F.46663.
Engelbert Egon Ernst August BRODA.
Born: 29th October, 1910 at Vienna.
1st wife: Hildegard nee GERWING (Austrian).
[SECTION REMOVED]
In 1932, BRODA was National Leader of the German Communist Students in Berlin and at Berlin University in 1933.
On 10th April 1938 BRODA arrived in this country from France to attend meetings of the Faraday Society at Bristol University and to talk to chemists at London University. He was followed shortly afterwards by his wife Hildegarde on 23.5.1938 whom he had married on 12.9.1935 in Vienna.
BRODA’s stay in this country was extended for three months u...
