On Monday morning, we had bacon and eggs for our farewell-to-Lena breakfast. I was almost too excited to eat. Ma Blackwell supposed this unusual turn of events was because I was upset at Lena leaving, and told me to buck up.
‘I’m making your favourite for tea,’ she also said, in a softer voice. ‘Suet pudding and custard,’ which made me feel awful that I wouldn’t be here to eat it. She’d find out soon enough, though, when Captain Farley got our letter in the afternoon post. Plus, I’d only be gone a few days.
It had already been agreed I could go with Lena as far as the station before heading into school. The train to Brighton was the same one as the ten o’clock to London, only we’d get off earlier to change trains at Clapham 191Junction. Nate was meeting us at the bus stop on the main road.
At nine o’clock, I donned my school bag – swimming costume and hat stowed inside – and fetched my coat. Lena shrugged on her own, picked up her suitcase, and we all followed her outside to the gate. I stood aside, nervous, as Lena said her goodbyes to the Blackwells.
‘You’re a strong, healthy girl now,’ Ma Blackwell told her, holding her by the elbows and peering into her face. ‘So go well, d’you hear me?’
Lena smiled her warmest smile. ‘Ta for everything, Ma Blackwell. And to you, Mr Blackwell. I’ve loved living at Combe Grange.’
Mr Blackwell was brimful of tears yet again. I couldn’t bear it, and went to hug him, but Lena steered me towards the gate.
‘Don’t! You’ll make it worse!’ she whispered.
We stepped out on to the road. The gate clicked shut behind us. A quick glance over my shoulder confirmed the Blackwells were heading back indoors. Linking arms, we set off down the road. Since Nate’s timekeeping wasn’t his strong point, it was a relief to find him already at the bus stop. He looked bigger than normal, like he was wearing four coats all at once.
‘Morning, all!’ he greeted us exuberantly. 192
‘Blimey, how much clothing have you got on?’ asked Lena.
‘Just a couple of extra sweaters.’ He pulled up a trouser leg. ‘And my pyjamas. Couldn’t be seen packing a suitcase, could I?’
I burst out laughing. It was funny, and it helped relax us a bit as we waited.
‘I’ve got sandwiches too, in case anyone’s hungry.’ Nate patted his school satchel, which was so full he’d not been able to buckle the straps.
‘Didn’t your parents wonder why you were making so much lunch?’ I asked, genuinely amazed, because at ours you couldn’t eat a single currant without Ma Blackwell noticing.
‘Told them it was for after training,’ he answered proudly.
Lena glanced at her watch. There was no sign of the bus yet.
‘It should’ve been here by now,’ she muttered, looking up and down the road.
‘It’ll be the army roadblocks holding everything up,’ Nate remarked. ‘I had to cut across the fields. Went past the back of your old house, as it happens.’
‘Oh.’ I felt a pang of sadness. All too vividly I could picture Combe Grange’s empty rooms and outside, the 193quiet stable yard, and Lena’s beautifully polished front door. I dearly wished I’d taken something from the house as a keepsake – a stone from the orchard wall, a window catch, that lovely brass door handle. It was too late now.
Lena, meanwhile, was growing more impatient. ‘Geez, where is that bus?’
Normally, the town bus climbed the valley via a road that skirted Syndercombe. That road was visible from the field opposite, so I crossed over and climbed the gate to see if there was any approaching traffic: there wasn’t. The road was silent. In total contrast, the village was buzzing with activity.
The deadline had passed at two this morning: the village was now officially uninhabited, so I’d expected it to look empty. Yet there were people down there, as small as ants, running between the houses. And the main street, from church to post office, was blocked with army vehicles.
‘You know they’re using explosives left over from the war?’ Nate said, joining me to watch.
‘What on earth for?’
‘To flatten the buildings, apparently. Makes it less eerie, I suppose, when they flood the valley.’
‘Really?’ I was shocked. ‘I think it makes it ten times worse.’ 194
A group had gathered on the other side of the river. From the village side, an army man was waving his arms, as if telling them to keep back. Three other soldiers ran out of a nearby house. It was the last on the street – our old house, I realised, stiffening.
‘Oh no!’ I cried. ‘That’s Combe—’
The explosion blew me backwards. I landed in the middle of the road, surrounded by soil and stones and chunks of white and pink body parts, I was sure of it. I’d scraped my knee and my ears were ringing but, miraculously, I was still in one piece. The pink and white chunks, I saw now, were Nate’s spam sandwiches, strewn across the road. A plume of smoke wafted upwards from the village.
A few yards away, Nate was helping Lena, who’d been thrown against the hedge.
‘Are you okay?’ I called, getting up.
‘Alive, thanks,’ Nate replied. ‘Can’t say the same about my sandwiches.’
Dusting ourselves off, we regrouped by the bus stop. I could feel my knees shaking, and tried my hardest not to think of Combe Grange reduced to a pile of rubble. Lena put a comforting arm around my shoulders.
Just when we’d almost given up hope of making the ten o’clock train, our bus appeared. It was, by Lena’s 195watch, twenty minutes late. Amazingly, it had avoided the village blast entirely. They’d come the coast way, the driver told us, though he was horrified to hear how close he’d been to driving into the middle of the explosion.
‘Glad I was running late, then,’ he confessed.
We clearly looked a bit of a state because, as we climbed on board, the entire bus fell silent. A couple of ladies asked if we were all right.
‘Perfectly, thank you,’ Nate smiled, all politeness.
Once we’d sat down, the other passengers started chatting again – about everything from the price of cabbages to whether Errol Flynn the actor was married. Lena’s fingers tapped impatiently against her suitcase.
‘Come on, come on,’ she muttered.
‘We’ll get there, don’t worry,’ I said, trying to stay calm.
It was now quarter to ten.
Lena checked her watch. And checked it again. It was becoming harder not to be alarmed. The bus was pulling in at every stop on the main road. People got on and off. Money rattled on the counter, the driver chatted, tickets were handed out. Everything seemed to take for ever. Even the bus itself, when it finally swerved out into the traffic, caught every red traffic light, every pedestrian crossing.
We were already on our feet as the bus swung into the station. We ran into the entrance hall. Infuriatingly, 196there was a queue at the ticket booth.
‘I expect we can buy tickets on the train,’ Nate assured us.
Our platform was reached through another door across the hall, beyond which came the squeal of brakes. The train we needed to catch was pulling into the station. We’d make it if we kept running. Lena, though, stopped dead in her tracks.
‘Oh!’ I tumbled into her, banging my scraped knee on her suitcase. ‘What’re you—?’
I looked up. Just ahead of us was a man, tall, wearing a suit and a dark blue turban, and a woman in a tunic and trousers. Lena breathed in sharply. She was staring at the couple – just as the man and woman were gazing directly at her – in such a burning, tender way that made it obvious they all knew each other.
‘Lena,’ I said, confused. ‘What’s going on?’
Lena put down her suitcase.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered to me, to Nate, not taking her eyes off the woman who was now coming towards her. ‘It’s Mata. I’d no idea she’d be here!’
If it had been Ma Blackwell standing there, having got wind of our plan, it would’ve made more sense. Or the Clatworthys. Or Captain Farley.
But Lena’s mother and father? Her dad lived in 197London, didn’t he, and her mum was still in India? They couldn’t be here.
‘If we turn round and run,’ I hissed, ‘we can hide out till later, then catch another train.’
‘Good plan.’ Nate reached down to pick up Lena’s suitcase, but she pushed his hand away.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said again.
My throat tightened with panic. This wasn’t meant to happen.
‘Le-Le?’ the woman said. ‘Come! We must hurry for our train!’
I didn’t understand. Lena couldn’t leave me. I’d go to London with her if she asked, or India. I’d even forget all about the Channel swim.
But Lena didn’t ask.
The woman who was her mother held out her hand and Lena took it. Laughing, shaking her head, staring at Lena in utter amazement, she led her away from us towards the platform. Bit by bit I broke into tiny pieces because I knew this was goodbye. This was the big surprise her father had been planning. We wouldn’t be going to Brighton. Lena wasn’t coming on the pilot boat. Her parents were here to take her home.
Yet in the doorway, Lena hesitated, and I thought, 198for a second, she’d changed her mind, that she wasn’t leaving after all.
‘Nellie, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’ll write to you. I’ll follow it in the newspapers. Just promise me you’ll do the—’
‘Come, Le-Le,’ her mother hurried her on. ‘The train will not wait for us.’
And she was gone. I stared after her, bewildered. On the platform, the guard’s whistle shrieked as the last of the train doors slammed shut.