I didn’t ask Mutti what she was doing that foggy morning, and I didn’t ask her who she had been following. I couldn’t find the right words without sounding as though I was accusing her of something terrible. And I couldn’t admit that I had followed her. We had always been such a close family, we had always trusted each other, but secrets had started to seep into the gaps between us. And now, like water freezing in the cracked surface of a stone, those secrets were growing colder, harder, starting to force us apart.
The very next morning, Pa and Mutti sat us both down at the kitchen table and told us that we needed to have ‘a serious conversation’.
My stomach cramped with guilt – Am I in trouble? I always feel like that when a grown-up says they need to talk to me about something serious. It happened a lot at school: the headmistress, Mrs Baron, could make me feel quite sick with one of her penetrating stares. It was usually Mags who was in trouble, not me, but I’ll bet Mags has never had a guilt-cramp in her life.
‘We’ve been reading about the programme for evacuation,’ Pa said, putting his hands down flat on the table.
‘Evacuation?’ I looked from him to Mutti.
Mags wasn’t looking at either of them; her eyes were fixed on the window, and the cold, grey, drizzly world outside our cosy kitchen.
‘Yes,’ Mutti said. ‘Children are being sent away from their homes to different parts of the country – to places that are safer.’
‘We know all about it,’ I said. ‘Mrs Baron told us at school. We’ve even got two new children from London in our class. They came a couple of months ago.’
‘That’s right, Pet,’ Pa said. ‘Right now, the government say that the Kent coast is considered to be safe. But it’s possible that this area too may need to be evacuated in time, and we wanted to discuss it with you first. The government have already evacuated children from London and other big cities . . .’
‘But this isn’t exactly a big city, is it?’ Mags interrupted, her eyes still fixed on the window.
‘Let me finish, please, Magda,’ Pa said calmly. ‘And they will need to evacuate children from anywhere that becomes a target for attack. If things change, we need to know that the two of you can be moved quickly to a safe place inland.’
Inland. Even the word made me feel panicky and claustrophobic. It’s a feeling that might be difficult for you to understand, unless, like me, you’ve grown up by the sea. I can’t bear the thought of being boxed in by buildings, shut away from our enormous skies and the clean salt-washed air and all the colours of the sea.
‘If the princesses are staying put, I’m sure it will be fine for us to stay too,’ Mags said airily. We had heard something on the wireless about the royal family deciding to keep Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret at home rather than send them away to Scotland or Canada. Trust Mags to remember that.
‘Magda,’ Pa said in one of his strictest voices. ‘Firstly – though this may be hard for you to believe – you are not actually a princess. Secondly, you haven’t even thought about it properly yet. Don’t fly off the handle so quickly. This could be a chance for you to visit a beautiful part of the country, like Devon or Cornwall – lots of evacuees are going there – down in the southwest.’ He took a pencil from his top pocket and sketched out a rough map of the country on the front cover of yesterday’s newspaper. I watched the shape growing on the page, corralling all those words about the war within its familiar borders.
I love maps. It is, I think, quite natural to love maps when you grow up in a lighthouse. I got a gold star in the first geography lesson I ever had at school: I found the work so easy, so natural, because the maps and the smooth-rolling surface of the globe made perfect sense to me. It was the world seen from above – the blue of the sea, the green of the land, the jigsaw-edges of the coastline: the whole world looking exactly as it does from the top of our lighthouse.
As Pa’s map of Britain took shape, he told us about Dartmoor and Exmoor and wild ponies and golden beaches with rocky coves. I tucked my knees up on the kitchen chair and stretched my jumper down over them. I gazed out of the window into the drizzle, thinking about galloping across different clifftops, exploring new rock pools and caves. I imagined watching the sun setting over the sea instead of rising from it.
‘Will the other children in the village be going too?’ Mags said. ‘I mean, will everyone be going?’
‘We don’t know yet,’ Pa said. ‘But if our coast becomes dangerous, it would certainly be the most sensible thing.’
‘What would happen to our school?’ I asked.
‘Well, in most cases so far, the school teachers have accompanied the evacuees. I think normal school would probably be closed for a while . . .’
I couldn’t help grinning at this – No school! Mags indulged me by pulling a silly, excited face.
Pa shook his head at us.
‘Girls, this is very important,’ Mutti said, ‘Please!’
My insides lurched as I realized that my mother was trying not to cry.
‘Sorry, Mutti,’ I mumbled. She looked so fragile all of a sudden. Pa put his hand on her shoulder.
‘I just . . . I really do think we need to be prepared,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t bear to be parted from you both, but . . .’ She trailed off, and her eyes settled on Mags. ‘It’s not just about the risk of attack, my darling, is it?’ We looked at her, waiting for the other reasons, but none came. She twisted her hands together, took a long, trembling breath and turned towards the window. Did she know something we didn’t know? I wondered if it could have had anything to do with her sneaking out of the cottage so early in the morning – following a mysterious figure across the misty clifftops. Something has happened that has made her think we will be safer if we leave Stonegate.
‘You think we should go, don’t you, Mutti?’ I said.
She nodded, and so did Pa. That made me feel very odd indeed – both our parents saying that they wanted us to go and live somewhere else. I felt I was about to cry too, but I couldn’t tell if it was because I was feeling sorry for myself, or if it was because Mutti was so upset.
‘But we wouldn’t know the people we were staying with, would we?’ Mags said then. ‘They could be anyone at all, couldn’t they?’
‘Well – someone with a spare bedroom who wanted to help others. You will find that most people are kind, Mags,’ Mutti said, blotting the tears from her eyes with Pa’s handkerchief.
‘And what happens when they discover that we are half-German, Mutti? Do you think most people will still be kind to us then?’
There was a leaden silence. My chest tightened. We looked at Mutti, and Mutti looked at Pa, fresh tears welling up in her eyes.
They had not considered this.
The logs in the kitchen stove crackled. The drizzle outside thickened, running down the kitchen window in thin grey worms of water.