Friday was cooler that the rest of the week had been – the white clouds looked as if they had been combed upwards by the stiff breeze. I put on my smartest dress and brushed down my old black coat.
Mrs Baron and Michael were waiting in the church porch when we arrived. I noticed that Michael’s gaze followed my sister from the church gate, all the way through the churchyard. I looked at Mags, trying to see whatever it was that he seemed to see. She was wearing a coat of Mutti’s. With its belted waist and buttoned collar, and her hair all up with pins, I suppose she did look a bit more grown-up than usual.
They greeted us and Mrs Baron gave us both a little hug and a pat on the back. She’s not such a bad old stick, I thought, remembering how angry Mags had been with her in the wake of the ‘Peacock and the Pied Piper’ incident. She isn’t an old dragon at all. She just wants us to be safe.
‘I need to talk to you afterwards, please, girls,’ she said, readjusting herself after our hugs and tucking a strand of hair back beneath her smart black hat. ‘I’ve got a bit of good news for you.’
Good news? To do with being evacuated? Did we really have to talk about that today?
Mags looked away, stony-faced. I tried to smile politely at Mrs Baron as we turned to enter the church, but I suspect my face may have been grimacing.
It was cold and dim inside, as gloomy as a tomb. Daylight struggled through the stained-glass window behind the altar – wine-red and bottle-green. We shuffled into our pew near the front. I hadn’t been to church for ages – not since before Mutti was taken away – and the familiar smells swirled around me like the rising tide: old hymn books, cold stone, dust and candle wax. The air was heavy with stillness and quiet prayer.
The church filled up quickly – the whole village was there, I think. Someone started playing the church organ, and I was relieved; the quiet, respectful muttering was starting to make me nervous. My best dress was not warm enough for the chill of the church, and I found that I was somehow shivering and sweating at the same time. My fingertips had gone all pale and waxy, as if I didn’t have enough warm blood in my veins to reach them. I didn’t want to look at poor Sam Bright’s coffin. It was so close to me that I could almost have reached out and touched the newly hewn wood. I kept thinking that it could so easily have been my sister in there.
I made myself fold my hands in my lap and I looked up into the vault above us. I thought, as I had many times before, that it looked exactly like the upside-down hull of a ship. Perhaps Noah’s ark had capsized and we were all the poor creatures drowning in the flood.
Then the vicar walked up the central aisle and stood in front of the altar. The organ stopped and we all stood up. There was a moment of silence. The vicar spread his hands and opened his mouth to welcome us, but he didn’t say anything – he just stared at the back of the church, his mouth a perfect O. The entire congregation turned around to see what had taken the vicar by surprise.
A man had come through the church door. He walked up the aisle towards us, starched and upright in a patched old suit and boots that shone like black mirrors. It was Spooky Joe. What was he doing here?
He must have attempted to tame his wild white hair; it looked exactly like the combed clouds in the sky outside. He nodded stiffly to a couple of people as he walked in, his jaw set tight and serious. The muttering began again, but it was a different sort of muttering now.
He sat down on the other side of the aisle, just behind the Brights, and stared straight ahead. Then he nodded slightly to the vicar – just a downward shift of his mouth and a dipping of his hooded eyelids – and the service began.
We sang one of my favourite hymns and two others that I didn’t know very well. The vicar spoke about those who had given their lives to help others, and those who risked their lives now as the war continued. He spoke about light and darkness, about fighting together and the importance of standing up to the evil in our world. He said some nice things about Pa’s work as a lighthouse keeper, and he spoke about Sam Bright being the best batsman on the village cricket team. Bright, I thought. Sam Bright, and my Pa and his lamp – both of them shining in the darkness. Mal Bright and his wife Sarah stood together in the pew opposite ours, his arm around her shaking shoulders. Sam had been their only child.
‘The two men we say goodbye to today were nothing less than heroes,’ the vicar said. I saw that there were tears running down my sister’s cheek and, instinctively, I linked my arm through hers. She didn’t pull away from me.
Heroes? I thought, and I felt Pa’s terrible secret flutter in my chest like a trapped bird. No, Pa was a traitor. But I will never tell. I will never tell anyone what I heard through the speaking tube that day. My ribs ached under the strain of it. You need to be strong, Pet. You just need to be brave and strong.
Outside the church, Mrs Baron was waiting for us, hovering near the memorial for the Great War. Michael wasn’t there – he must have gone home already.
‘What’s the good news?’ Mags demanded, buttoning up her coat. We were still some way down the path from Mrs Baron, and I had the feeling that my sister was going to make a scene. ‘Do we really have to talk about it right now, Mrs Baron?’
‘We’ve found space for you with a nice family in Wales,’ the headmistress replied, beaming at us both as we drew nearer. She seemed to be ignoring my sister’s second question, and the tone of her voice too. ‘Well, they’ve got room for Petra, and they think you, Magda, should be able to lodge at a nearby farm.’
‘We’d be living in different places?’ My sister had never been what you’d call protective, but I thought there was suddenly something fierce and maternal in her voice. On reflection, it was probably just fierce. This was Mags, after all.
‘Nearby, we hope. We can’t promise, but lodgings for you nearby do look possible.’
‘I see. Well, given that we don’t really want to go anywhere at all, it sounds far from ideal, Mrs Baron.’ Where had this grown-up voice suddenly come from? ‘We’ll talk about it when we get home,’ she went on. ‘And we need to discuss the supervision of the lighthouse with the coastguard too. I’ll let you know our decision next week.’ Mags started to steer me down the path towards the gate.
But the expression on Mrs Baron’s face had changed. ‘I’m afraid that won’t do, Magda.’ She stepped to the side so that she was standing in our way. I felt my sister’s arm twitch as she fought the urge to give our headmistress a shove. ‘It’s not up to you to decide, you see,’ she went on. ‘I’m so sorry, but I have had to make the decision for you. Of course, I’d like to be able to take our time over this and pick somewhere perfect for you both, but we don’t have the luxury of time. You’re both minors and you are currently living in a very dangerous situation with no adult supervision – the lighthouse could well be a target, for German bombers or even saboteurs. We cannot risk something terrible happening to the two of you in your mother’s absence. And as you have no other family . . .’
At that point Spooky Joe walked past us, his eyes fixed on the churchyard gate.
‘Good morning to you, Mr . . .’ Mrs Baron began, but he just waved dismissively, as though swatting away a housefly – and kept walking.
Mrs Baron blinked. She was used to being treated with respect. Her face flushed hotly beneath her neat black hat. There was to be no reasoning with her now; with his one, cold gesture, it seemed that Spooky Joe had sealed our fate.
‘The bus leaves just after five o’clock this afternoon. You’ll have to catch the London train at Dover, and then change again in London on to the overnight train to Wales. I’ll telephone ahead to make sure someone is there to meet you in the morning when you get to Wrexham. Right now, you need to go home and pack. I’ll give you more details when I meet you at the bus stop. Five o’clock sharp, please.’
We walked home in silence.
The morning’s flock of white clouds had been shouldered out of the sky by a herd that were fatter, darker, angrier. The wind whipped at the sea, and a cold salt-spray stung our eyes as we made our way back up the cliff path to the Castle.
‘What are we going to do, Mags?’ I said. ‘Are we really going to pack our bags and go to Wales like Mrs Baron said?’
When my sister looked at me, there was a wild look in her eyes that made my stomach go all cold. ‘Over my dead body,’ she said.