Chapter Four

‘STEVE!’ JENNY, ENCASED in a yellow oilskin cape with a hood, had been all round the village searching everywhere she thought the twins might be and, drawing a blank, had decided to cycle to Attlesham Station in case the boys had decided to try and board a train. Halfway there she had seen the tall, uniformed figure of her brother striding towards her. ‘Does Mum know you’re coming?’

‘No, I thought I’d surprise her. Anyway, I couldn’t be sure I’d get away. Where are you off to?’

‘I’m looking for the twins. They’ve gone off again and Mum is worried. You didn’t see them skulking about on your way, did you?’

‘No. Do they often run away?’

‘Not run away exactly, but they do go missing for hours at a time.’

‘Nothing new in that. I used to do it myself when I was their age. I always came home when I was hungry.’

‘Yes, they are probably at home now.’ She turned the bicycle round and he put his bag on the carrier and took it from her to wheel it to towards home. ‘Couldn’t you get a taxi from the station?’

‘Not a one to be had, so I decided to walk. How is everyone?’

‘Same as usual. Josh still grumbles, Meg and Daphne still laugh at him, Dad still fills in endless forms and Mum is mum to everyone.’

‘But the boys are a handful?’

‘Yes. Their dratted mother hasn’t been to see them and all they’ve had is one measly letter saying she might come at Christmas. You should have seen their faces. Poor little devils, they had been counting on her coming for the summer holidays, especially after all their pals went back to London and they were left behind.’

‘Perhaps it’s just as well they were. I had to cross London to catch my connection. It’s a mess.’

‘How long have you got?’

‘Seven days.’

‘Then you’ll be here for Saturday’s dance. Daphne and Meg are going. I can guarantee you won’t be without partners.’

‘Thanks, Sis. Speaking of the twins, look over there.’

She looked up and saw the two bedraggled boys apparently coming out of the gates of the Hall. They had their hands in their pockets. ‘Donny, Lenny, where have you been?’ she called out. ‘I’ve been looking everywhere for you.’

‘We went for a walk,’ Donny said, falling in beside her.

‘I’ve got wet feet,’ Lenny informed them.

‘I’m not surprised,’ Steve said. ‘It’s too wet for plimsolls.

Why didn’t you wear your wellies like your brother?’

‘’Cos I’ve got a blister on me ’eel.’

‘Then going for a walk was hardly a sensible thing to do, was it?’

‘Nothing else to do.’

‘Where did you go?’

Lenny opened his mouth and was silenced by a look from Donny, which was not lost on Steven. He was not so old he couldn’t remember the things he used to get up to as a child and he guessed they had been doing something they knew they shouldn’t. ‘Let me guess. You’ve been exploring the grounds of the Hall and found the boathouse.’

Lenny gasped and Donny managed a grin, though he could feel the loot in his pocket weighing it down. ‘Yes, but we didn’t take the boat out, honest.’

‘I’m glad you didn’t. I’d be surprised if it’s watertight. But you know you aren’t supposed to go in there. It’s private property.’

‘We weren’t doin’ no ’arm. An’ the lady didn’t mind.’

‘You mean Lady Barstairs?’

‘Dunno her name. She said to say hallo to Aunty Kathy.’

‘Then I expect it was. Run along now and get out of those wet clothes before you catch your death of cold.’

‘Can you die from a cold?’ Lenny asked.

‘I shouldn’t think so.’

‘Oh.’ He paused. ‘But you can get ill though?’

‘Oh yes. Headache, stuffed up nose, aches and pains, but you needn’t worry, Aunty Kathy will cure you.’

‘Can we take the bike?’ Donny asked. ‘We’d get ’ome quicker on that.’

Steve removed his bag and the boys got on the cycle, Donny on the pedals and Lenny on the saddle. They wobbled off down the lane. Steve laughed. ‘They’ll probably end up in a heap on the road.’

‘No, they’ve become quite adept. They seem more cheerful than they have been, which is strange considering how wet and bedraggled they are. I’d guess they’ve been up to something.’

That was a view shared by Kathy when she scolded them for disappearing without saying where they were going and getting soaked into the bargain. Donny had slipped out of his boots as soon as he entered the house, but Lenny had to sit on the scullery floor to undo his plimsolls.

‘Take your coat off first,’ she said. ‘Then go upstairs and change. Put your pyjamas on. You can have your tea in your dressing gowns.’ Dressing gowns were garments they had never had before coming to Beckbridge, but Kathy had gone to the WVS clothing exchange and found a couple, together with some other items of clothing they needed. Steve came in the door at that point so she did not immediately notice that, instead of hanging their raincoats on the rail in the lobby, they ran upstairs with them on. ‘Steve! Oh, how lovely to see you.’ Eyes alight, she ran and embraced him. ‘Why didn’t you say you were coming? We could have met you at the station.’

He kissed her cheek. ‘I didn’t know which train I’d be on and, anyway, I enjoyed the walk.’

‘In the rain? You are as wet as the twins. Go up to your room and change. I’ll do a few more vegetables and make the meat go round. More gravy and dumplings should do it. Oh, it’s so good to have you home safe and sound. Jenny, be a dear and go and tell Dad and the girls Steve’s home and we’ll be eating in half an hour.’ She bustled about peeling potatoes, shredding cabbage and laying an extra place at the table, humming happily to herself, while upstairs the twins emptied their pockets and hid the contents on the top of the wardrobe.

‘Now what?’ Lenny asked.

‘Get into jim-jams and go down for supper.’

 

The taxi Helen took from Liverpool Street Station stopped at the end of Prince Albert Lane. ‘Can’t go any further, missus,’ the cabbie told her. She got out, paid him and set off up the street. Except there was nothing left of it. A few walls still stood, carefully roped off, and the craters where some houses had been were half filled with dirty water. The street itself had been swept clean and a coal cart, pulled by a horse, trundled along it. At the far end, one house, with its windows boarded up and its sidewall propped up by large timbers, had a notice pinned to its door. ‘Still living here.’ She knocked and waited.

A voice from inside called. ‘This door don’ open. Come round the back.’

She stepped gingerly round the foundations of what had been the house next door and was met by an elderly woman with two small children clinging to her skirts; her grandchildren, Helen surmised, and wondered where the mother was. Killed or at work? All were ill-clad. ‘I’m looking for Mrs Drummond and her daughter, Laura,’ she said.

‘Don’t know nuffin’ about anyone called Laura; her daughter’s name is Maisie, but Mrs Drummond copped it when her ’ouse ’ad a direct ’it.’

Helen felt herself begin to tremble. Surely, surely not? She would have known, somewhere inside her a voice would have told her that all she lived for had been brought to a sudden and bloody end. ‘I’m sure she was called Laura. Mrs Drummond would be about my age, not very tall, fair hair, a little plump.’

The woman eyed Helen up and down, taking in her fur coat and stylish hat, and the look was one of curiosity. ‘Oh, then yer must mean the other Mrs Drummond. Tom’s wife. They moved away, years ago.’ She stopped to think. ‘The little girl had just started school, as I recall.’

Helen’s had heart plummeted into her boots. ‘Do you know where they went?’

‘No. Maisie might know where to find ’er.’

‘Where does she live?’

‘Dunno. Not round ’ere. Moved up in the world, she ’as, married to a tailor.’ She laughed. ‘Making uniforms for the troops fit to bust, ’e is, so she told me when she came up to arrange the funeral. The war ain’t bin bad for everyone.’

‘Do you know her surname?’

‘Not that I c’n recall. Sorry I can’t ’elp yer.’

‘Thank you anyway.’ She pressed some coins into her hand. ‘For the children.’

The woman accepted them and ushered the children back into the house and Helen trudged back down the street, ready to howl. She was very, very angry. And it hurt to think she had scrupulously kept her word and been rewarded with betrayal.

There were no taxis to be had and she caught a bus back to the station. She found a seat in a crowded carriage and sat down to endure the return journey. She was not aware of the slowness of the train, the frequent stops, the growing dusk and the feeble yellow light in the carriage. Her head was spinning. Why had Anne never told her of their change of address? Had she gone up in the world or down? Was she in want? Did she need help? To find out, she had to find her again, but the memory of the weeks and weeks of searching before – the letters, the questions, the disappointments when a promising lead came to nothing, the bribery and bullying tactics and the sheer expense of it – daunted her. Could she find her again? Did she have the stamina to do it? But if she did nothing, her daughter would be lost to her for ever.

‘Are you all right?’ The woman who was sitting opposite her leant forward and touched her hand.

Startled out of her reverie, she blinked to clear her vision and realised silent tears were running down her cheeks unchecked. She smiled wanly. ‘Yes, thank you. I’m afraid I’ve had bad news. The war, you know—’

‘I’m sorry. It’s the same all over. If I had Hitler here, I’d strangle him with my bare hands. All this suffering, lives gone, houses demolished… There, there, dear, don’t cry, I’m sure you don’t want to hear me rabbiting on.’ But she did rabbit on, which, in some measure, saved Helen from brooding. She left the train at Ely and boarded another for Attlesham. It was gone midnight when she arrived, but the stationmaster called up a taxi for her and twenty minutes later she was home. It had been a long, long day and nothing achieved. Perhaps she was not meant to achieve anything.

 

The twins, who were too healthy and well-fed to catch cold, waited until after Steve had returned from leave the following Sunday to pay a return visit to the summer house. It looked exactly as they had left it but they approached cautiously, Lenny dragging reluctantly behind his brother. It was all very well for Donny to say they could get some more things but they still had to hide them. He was terrified of being caught. Aunty Kathy would tell Mum, and Mum, instead of coming down to give them a hug and a kiss and take them home, would give them a belting. Beltings hurt. Donny didn’t agree; he said Mum would be so pleased she wouldn’t care where the stuff came from, and maybe he was right. In any case, he wouldn’t have dreamt of letting Donny go alone; where his twin went, he went.

With a quick look round him, Donny took off the padlock and opened the door. ‘It’s OK,’ he said, walking straight over to the locker. Lenny followed. The door banged behind them, making them jump out of their skins. They whipped round to find Ian Moreton grinning at them.

‘Well, well, the little magpies. I thought it might be you.’ He had been mystified to find some of his hoard missing. It was annoying because the summer house had been a particularly good hideout, sheltered from the elements, cool and dry and, as long as he kept an eye out for Lady Helen, he could come and go undetected, taking out what was needed for customers and putting in any new stuff he had acquired. Puzzled and angry, he had been about to bundle all that was left into his bag and take it somewhere else but changed his mind. If the thieves were clever enough not to take the lot, it meant they intended to return and all he had to do was keep his eyes peeled.

The boys stared at him in consternation. ‘Narth’n to say for yarselves?’ he asked.

‘We weren’t doin’ no ’arm,’ Donny said. ‘Jus’ lookin’ round.’

‘Lookin’ round and helping yarselves, eh?’

‘Helping ourselves?’ Donny queried, trying to brazen it out.

‘To suff’n that don’t belong to you.’ He was speaking quite reasonably, but they both recognised the underlying threat.

‘We thought it belonged to a spy, Mr Moreton,’ Lenny put in. ‘We was going to catch ’im and turn ’im in.’

Ian laughed. ‘Spy, eh? Well, I’ll tell you this fer narth’n, that stuff don’ belong to no spy. It’s mine.’

‘Why you ’idin’ it ’ere?’ Donny’s cheek worried Lenny, but he admired his brother for his courage. ‘I reckon you don’ want people to know about it.’

‘Have you told anyone?’

‘Wouldn’t do that, Mr Moreton. It’d all be took away if we did.’

‘Ah, I see, you don’t want to kill the goose that lays the golden egg.’

‘Don’ know what you mean.’

‘Never mind. How good are you at keepin’ secrets?’

‘Very good, Mr Moreton.’

‘You swear it. You swear you’ll never tell a soul what’s in this ’ere summer house.’

‘It depends.’ Donny was pushing his luck and it made Lenny gasp with fear. Mr Moreton was not a very big man, but he had a temper, everyone in the village knew that.

Ian gave a great guffaw. ‘Man after me own heart,’ he said. ‘I like that. Now, this is the deal. You say nothing about this to anyone, anyone at all, and I’ll make sure you don’t lose by it.’ He opened the locker and took out a bar of chocolate. ‘I know you like chocolate, you’ve had one already.’ He put the chocolate in Donny’s hand. ‘Now, I’m relying on you.’

‘We wanted something for our Pa. One o’ them bottles of booze.’

‘Cheeky bugger! If you want any more, you have to earn it.’

‘We don’ mind workin’, do we, Lenny?’ This was said eagerly. ‘What you want us to do?’

‘Narth’n right now. Later, perhaps. Now cut along and not a word. You’ll know what to expect if you let me down.’ He picked up one of the cricket bats and stroked it gently. They knew exactly what he meant and scuttled away, glad to have escaped in one piece. The sound of Mr Moreton’s laughter followed them as they fled.

 

Steve had returned to his squadron to discover there was a new intake of pilots. ‘Babes in arms’ was Oxo’s comment, which made Steve smile, considering the boy had only been operational himself a few months. He had survived his first few critical weeks and was now a seasoned and sensible pilot. Brand had been shot down over the Channel and Oliphant had been grounded on medical grounds and now spent his time in the ops room. There were changes in the rest of the squadron too. Pilots were shot down or transferred for one reason or another, and others arrived, young, fresh-faced and eager. Steve was beginning to feel like an old man. Patrolling the skies, peering through the darkness for the familiar formations of Heinkels and Dorniers, he knew from the information radioed to him that the raid was a heavy one. London, after a few weeks of respite, was having another pounding.

‘Skip, there they are!’

He saw them at the same time, dozens of them. Angry and frustrated he might have been but he was not reckless; his training and experience kicked into action and he went after the last one in the formation with cool precision. He had no hatred for the enemy airmen, tried not to think of them having families, just as he did. What he was after was an aeroplane, a thing made of metal and other inanimate materials. When it went down in flames, he rejoiced that it would never invade the skies above his homeland again, could not threaten Laura. She was constantly in his thoughts. He found himself thinking of her trim figure, her violet eyes, the sheen of her dark hair, her smile, and looked forward to seeing her again. When he had time off.

 

‘Why don’t you go into the country?’ Anne asked Laura. They were sitting in the Anderson shelter, listening to the sounds of a raid, trying to ignore the thumps and whistles and crashes. They had heard it all before and though they could never be blasé about it, they had come to accept this semi-underground existence as normal. Each morning they woke and went out into the early morning dawn to find their house still intact, though they had lost a window on one occasion and the garden had been showered with shrapnel more than once. Judging by the noise, this was an especially heavy raid, which was what had prompted Anne’s question.

Laura, like her mother and everyone else, was tired. Her pregnancy was obvious to everyone now but she stuck at her job, shifting uncomfortably when hours of sitting at a table sorting piles of resistors into boxes by size and colour made her back ache and her bottom numb. She had given up nursing and taken factory work as soon as she realised that long hours on her feet and lifting heavy patients was too risky for her unborn child. She needed to keep going until after Christmas at least, so she wore loose smocks over a skirt she had let out and hoped the manager would not look too hard at her and decide she was corrupting the morals of the other girls in the factory. That was a laugh. Some of them were far more immoral than she was. They talked of nothing but the pictures and the dance halls and boyfriends – where they had gone with them and what they had done; it seemed to be all they lived for. She ought not to blame them when death stalked them every night and their daytime jobs were so repetitively boring. She missed the hospital. There she felt she had some purpose in life, that she was helping people and making a difference. The work she was doing in the factory, so they were constantly told, was vital to the war effort, but it didn’t feel like it; it was deadly dull. She listened to Music While You Work and Forces’ Favourites relayed over loudspeakers and dreamt of the child she was expecting.

‘Mum, how can I go? At the moment I’ve got a job of sorts and I must work as long as I can. Where would I find work in the country? Any employer would take one look at me and shake his head.’

‘You’ll have to give up work sooner or later.’

‘I know that.’ When the time came, the responsibility for their keep would devolve entirely on her mother with the help of the small savings she had managed to accumulate, and the prospect of that worried her constantly. Mum was looking tired, almost gaunt. The fat had dropped off her, so there was nothing much left of the plump, cheerful woman she had once been. She said it was the war, but Laura suspected it was more than that. She had tried several times to persuade her to see a doctor, but she had refused. ‘I’m not going to the doctor just because I’ve lost a bit of weight. They’d laugh at me and tell me they’ve got more important things to do with their time. Anyway, I was always too fat.’

‘I’ll go if you come too,’ Laura said.

‘I can’t leave here, it is my home, the one your dad and I worked so hard to get. It’s more than bricks and mortar and a few sticks of furniture to me. It’s my life.’

‘Mum, you can’t say it’s your life, that’s morbid. It could be bombed out of existence, but that doesn’t mean you can’t survive without it. Now, stop talking like that and tell me where you think we should go.’

‘I’m going nowhere.’

‘Then neither am I.’

Anne gave up for the moment, but she was worried. She worried about Laura, about the baby, about her own failing health, about what would happen if she could no longer work. Some days she had to drag herself out of bed, she felt so exhausted. And hiding the pain from Laura was becoming more difficult. Sooner or later something would have to be done to make sure Laura and her child were cared for. She thought she had shaken off the past, but she was going to have to face it again.

 

Laura was three years old, nearly four, when Anne found herself face to face with Helen Barstairs. She had been sitting on a park bench watching the child play when she became aware that they were being watched. The woman was tall and dark, wearing a fur coat and a felt cloche that shouted money and privilege. ‘Who are you? What do you want?’ she asked.

‘I mean no harm. You see, I had a little girl once…’

‘Oh, I’m sorry.’

And then her world fell apart when the woman said she was Laura’s mother, that she had given birth to her at the St Mary and Martha clinic on the fifth of March, 1918. ‘She was taken from me,’ the lady said. ‘Pulled out of my arms and carried away. Given to you.’

Anne desperately wanted to get rid of her, and was worried that Laura might overhear. She might not understand, but she might say something about a strange lady to her daddy. ‘You didn’t want her.’

‘That’s not true. I did want her very much. Shall I tell you about it?’

‘I don’t want to hear it.’ She could have stood up and walked away, but something kept her glued to the seat. And the woman who was Laura’s mother told her a tale of such heart-breaking misery it brought tears to her eyes. Lady Barstairs! She had known Laura’s mother was well off, but that she might be titled had never entered her head. That she had wanted to keep her child was something she had never allowed herself to dwell on. Lady Barstairs had been hard done by but that did not mean Anne would ever relinquish Laura. Never. Never. What she did was to offer her a little consolation, a promise to keep in touch if she left Laura alone. Reluctantly, Lady Barstairs agreed, but Anne did not feel safe after that.

She grew over-protective, hardly liked to let Laura out of her sight, afraid that Helen would break her promise and try to take Laura from her or come to the house when Tom was there. What would he do about it? When Laura started school, she had to leave her there, terrified someone would tell the child, ‘Your mummy is not your mummy.’ Though she tried to hide it, she was jumpy and irritable, and Tom soon realised there was something wrong. It came to a head one evening after Laura had gone to bed.

‘What’s the matter, love?’ he asked, putting his arm round her and drawing her away from the sink where she was washing up. ‘You’ve been edgy for months. Are you ill?’

‘No, I’m just tired.’

‘It’s more than that. Come and sit down and tell me what’s wrong.’

‘I c-c-can’t.’

‘Of course you can. Come on, out with it.’

She took a deep breath. ‘I’ve done something wicked.’

‘You? Wicked?’ He laughed. ‘I don’t believe it.’

‘But it’s true.’

‘And you are afraid of what I will say?’

‘Terribly afraid.’

He led her into the front room and sat with her on the sagging second-hand sofa, taking both her hands in his. ‘Now, tell me what this wicked thing is.’

Little by little, it all came tumbling out: her dejection at losing her own baby; how she was told she couldn’t have any more and couldn’t accept it; about the lifeline offered by Mrs Bates and how she had meant to tell him when he came home from the war, but when it came to it, she couldn’t find the courage.

He was silent for a long, long time and she wondered if he would ever speak to her again. When, at last, he did it was not to offer words of forgiveness but to ask about Laura’s real mother, something she had studiously avoided mentioning. ‘Who is she?’

She had planned to tell him the whole truth, but balked at the last hurdle. ‘I don’t know. I was told she passed away on the day Laura was born. They were going to put her into an orphanage, Tom. Even if the mother hadn’t died, she had no intention of keeping her. I couldn’t let her go into a home, could I? I know what that’s like.’

‘So why tell me now?’ His voice was controlled but she could see the angry colour mounting in his face and it frightened her.

‘It’s been on my conscience.’

‘I should just about think so. All these years! Living a lie, letting me think the child was mine. I don’t know how you could do it.’

‘I know I should have told you, but I wanted her so much. You should have been there when she was put into my arms. She was so tiny and helpless. I simply couldn’t let her go and I’m sure you wouldn’t have been able to either. I hoped you would understand.’

‘Who else knows you’ve made a complete fool of me?’

‘No one.’

‘Mum said she wasn’t mine, but I didn’t believe her.’

‘She was only guessing.’

‘What else don’t I know?’

‘Nothing. You love Laura, don’t you? You can’t suddenly turn off that love because she’s not your flesh and blood.’

‘Ah, but is she your flesh and blood?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know what I mean. How could you pull the wool over everyone’s eyes for nine months if you weren’t really pregnant? People round here are not that stupid. Who was he?’

She could not believe he had asked the question, that he could even consider that she had been unfaithful and stared at him in shock. ‘There’s no one, there’s never been anyone but you, surely you know that? I stuffed myself with padding. I was deceiving myself as well as everyone else. Try to understand. Please don’t let this make any difference. Laura doesn’t know, there’s no need for her ever to know. Please, Tom…’

He pushed her away and stormed from the house. Wearily, she climbed the stairs and went to bed, laying awake, listening for him to return and worrying what she would do if he never did. She heard him come in at two in the morning and collapse on the sofa. She went down to find him snoring in a drunken stupor, covered him with a blanket and went back to bed. At least he had come home. He had gone to work when she came down the next morning; the blanket was neatly folded over the back of the sofa. She spent the day on tenterhooks, trying to do all the things she normally did, taking Laura to school, doing the shopping, a bit of dusting and ironing, cooking the evening meal, wondering if he would come back for it.

He came in the back door at his usual time and went through to the dining room, where Laura was laying the table for her. She hardly dare breathe, listening to what they were saying.

‘Have a good day at school, love?’

‘Yes. I came top in English. Miss gave me a gold star.’

‘Well done, sweetheart. What else did you do?’

‘Sums. I got some of them wrong. I’m supposed to do them again tonight.’

‘Would you like me to help you after we’ve had our tea?’

‘Oh, yes please.’

Anne breathed a sigh of relief. At least if he was angry it was not with Laura. She took the casserole into the dining room, trying to put on a cheerful face. They ate together as they always did, and if there was a constraint between her and Tom, Laura did not seem to notice it. The child helped her wash up and then settled down to her homework. It was so normal, Anne began to hope.

Tom never really forgave her, but in the end he told her coldly that considering she was in every other way a good wife and an exemplary mother and Laura’s happiness was important to him, they would try and make a go of their marriage. But it was nothing but a pretence and their relationship was never the same again. Soon after that they moved into the house in Burnt Oak, and two years after that Tom died from a chest infection, made worse because of the mustard gas he had inhaled.

 

She had kept her secret, was still keeping it, years after Tom’s death, even after her mother-in-law had confronted her at Tom’s funeral, calling her a tart, saying she’d killed him with the worry of it, and she never wanted to see her or her bastard again. She had been sending Helen the occasional snapshot of Laura but she stopped sending them after that. Helen didn’t know their new address and she hoped that was an end of it. But it wasn’t, was it? But not yet, please God, not yet.

 

Ian had not been joking when he said he would put the twins to work, not because he particularly needed them, but by involving them, he could control them. He used them as messengers; a couple of evacuees wandering about the village attracted less attention than he would. ‘Tell Mr Wareson I’ve got a few bottles of whisky in,’ he would tell them. ‘Catch him coming outa his house, don’t speak to anyone else.’ Or, ‘Tell Mrs Cook, her in that big house on the Attlesham Road, I can get her two jars of jam and a tin of golden syrup. Tell her it come to four and a tanner in advance.’

All their business was done in the summer house. Here the boys received their instruction and were paid their ‘wages’, usually chocolate, but sometimes other things which they intended to use for Christmas presents. They had even inveigled a half bottle of whisky out of him to give to their dad. Always there was the threat of what would happen if they told anyone. ‘I’ll see you go to clink for thievin’,’ he warned them.

‘You stole the stuff in the first place.’ Donny was always one to push his luck, though he usually backed away when he saw Mr Moreton’s face turn red.

‘No, I did not. It’s honest tradin’, that’s what it is. I don’ make a song an’ dance about it on account of everythin’s in short supply an’ I have to choose who I let hev it.’ He had reached out and grabbed the lobe of Donny’s ear. ‘You c’n understand that, can’t you?’

‘Yeah.’ It was a squeal of pain as his ear was twisted.

‘Then run along and do as you’re bid.’

Today, they had skipped Sunday school and would have to invent something about the hymns they had sung and the lesson to tell Aunty Kathy. They had become adept at that. Donny was blasé about it, but Lenny was deeply unhappy. He hated telling lies and usually let Donny do all the talking.

‘Are we going home now?’ he asked, scuffling his feet in the fallen leaves which had collected at the side of the road. It was nearly dark and he hated to be out in the dark when there were no street lamps and the bare trees, moving in the wind, cast strange shadows, and owls hooted and things scuffled in the undergrowth. He knew Donny didn’t like it either, though he pretended not to care.

‘Might as well.’

‘How many days to Christmas is it?’ Christmas was large in their minds. Mum had said she would come down and perhaps, if Dad’s ship came in, he would come too. When they asked Aunty Kathy if that would be all right, she had said, ‘Yes, of course. They will both be welcome. We’ll have a grand time, won’t we?’

‘One day less than it was yesterday when you asked.’

‘Mum will come the day before, won’t she? She won’t leave it until Christmas Day. I want her here when we open our stockings.’

‘How do I know? She never said which day. You saw the letter.’

‘Perhaps she’ll write and let us know. Or she might telephone.’

‘She might.’

 

Kathy washed the flour off her hands and went to answer the front doorbell. Mrs Woodrow, the welfare officer for the evacuees, stood on the step and Kathy’s heart sank. Had she heard about the trouble she’d been having with the twins? ‘Mrs Woodrow, come in. If you’ve come to see the twins, I’m afraid they are at Sunday school.’ Sunday school was where she had sent them, but she was not at all sure that was where they had gone. They had been more than usually secretive lately.

‘Oh.’ She was a very big woman, always dressed in country tweeds with her hair rolled up tightly under a man’s pork pie hat. She had a booming voice, but that little word had been said unusually softly. ‘Perhaps it’s just as well.’ She followed Kathy into the little-used drawing room, where Kathy turned to face her. ‘It’ll give you time to decide how you’re going to tell them.’

‘Tell them what? Do sit down.’ Kathy waved her to an easy chair on one side of the hearth.

‘I’m afraid, there’s very bad news. Their mother was killed in an air raid last Sunday night. Her house received a direct hit. It was completely demolished, so I am informed, and there were no survivors.’

Kathy sank into the chair opposite her visitor. ‘Oh, the poor, poor boys.’

‘I’ll tell them if you don’t feel up to it, but it would be better coming from you.’

‘What else do you know? They’re bound to ask. Why has it taken a week to tell us?’

‘I’m told the ARP and rescue squad had to dig in the ruins for days before they got the bodies out and then there was a question of identifying them.’

‘Them?’

‘Mrs Carter and a man.’

‘Her husband was on leave?’

‘No, I was told he’s at sea. He will be notified and no doubt will get compassionate leave as soon as his ship docks. Of course, no one could say when that would be.’

‘Oh, I see. I don’t think I’ll tell them about their mother’s visitor.’

‘No. Very wise.’

‘They will be heartbroken. They had a letter from her a few weeks ago, saying she hoped to come for Christmas.’

‘It will be a very sad Christmas for them. Let’s hope Petty Officer Carter can get leave.’

‘How does it affect their evacuee status? I mean, they will stay with me, won’t they?’

‘For the time being. We shall, of course, consult Petty Officer Carter, when he comes home.’

‘I understand, but it would be a pity to uproot them when they have settled down so well.’ Even as she spoke, Kathy wondered about that. She had done her very best to give them a stable and comfortable home, by all accounts more comfortable than the one they had come from, but was that enough?

‘Yes, I agree, and my recommendation will be that they remain here. We have funds to tide you over until arrangements can be made about their keep.’

Kathy had not even been thinking of that. Mrs Carter was obliged to send seventeen shillings a week for their board, lodging and clothes, but she often missed. Kathy had never reported this. ‘That’s not important, Mrs Woodrow. What is important is their happiness, and I fear this will be a terrible blow to them. They talk about their mother constantly, more than their father.’

‘He was a peacetime sailor, Mrs Wainright, and would often be away from home. They are no doubt used to not having him around.’ She stood up. ‘I’ll be off, but if you need me, you know how to contact me.’

‘Yes.’ She saw the woman to the door and then turned back indoors and wandered in a daze into the kitchen. How was she going to break the news to the boys? What words should she use? Did they understand about death? At nearly eleven they surely must.

‘Who was that?’ William looked up from his newspaper. For once he was not busy on the farm; the threshing was done and the grain sent off to market, the straw stacks had been built and the potatoes harvested with the help of Meg and Daphne and the schoolchildren, given time out of school to do it. If you could call it help. The crop had been turned up by a digger on the tractor and the children had been stationed along the rows with baskets and paid a copper or two to pick up the potatoes and fill the baskets. All his forms had been filled in and sent off to the Ministry, and all he had to do later that afternoon was the milking. For a precious couple of hours he had done nothing but toast his toes on the fender and read the paper.

‘Mrs Woodrow.’ Kathy sat down heavily at the table. ‘The twins’ mother has been killed in an air raid.’

The paper dropped in his lap. ‘Good God! Poor kids. And you have to tell them.’

‘Yes.’

Kathy followed the boys up to their bedroom when they came home. They did that a lot lately: going straight up without even taking off their coats or coming into the kitchen. Donny was stowing something in the back of their wardrobe when she went in and scrambled out with a guilty look on his face when he saw her; she had given them a little money to buy Christmas presents for the family and she supposed that was where they were hiding them. She pretended not to notice and sat on one of the beds. ‘Boys, come and sit here with me. I have something important to tell you.’

They moved over and sat one on each side of her and she put her arms about them. Donny shrugged her off, but Lenny allowed it. ‘You must be very brave because the news I have is very bad.’

‘Dad’s boat’s been torpedoed,’ Donny interrupted her.

‘Why, no,’ she said in surprise, though on reflection she supposed that would be their conclusion. Their father was away at war and therefore the one at risk. ‘I’m afraid it is your mother. Your house was bombed. I’m so dreadfully sorry, my darlings, but she died.’

She felt Lenny stiffen beside her but it was Donny that yelled out his disbelief. ‘No! No! I don’ believe yer. Yer makin’ it up.’

‘Why would I do that, Donny?’

‘I dunno, do I? She’s coming down for Christmas, she said so, and then she’ll take us home. I hate this place! I hate you! I hate this war!’ And then he burst into tears.

That set Lenny off and the pair of them sat and sobbed. She could do nothing but sit there with them, fighting back her own tears, not at the loss of Mrs Carter but in sympathy with two little boys who had so cruelly been deprived of their mother. She couldn’t tell them not to cry, so she dabbed their wet faces with her handkerchief until the sobs subsided into an occasional hiccup.

‘Who told you?’ Donny demanded when it seemed he had no more tears to shed.

‘Mrs Woodrow. You remember her? She was the one who met you at Attlesham Station when you first came and brought you to Beckbridge. She looks after all the evacuees and keeps in touch with their parents. She told me that your father would be notified and he would probably come home.’

‘When?’ Lenny asked, seizing at a straw.

‘I don’t know. It depends when his ship docks.’

Lenny sighed and sniffed. ‘Mum always said that when we asked her. “When his ship comes in,” she always said.’ The memory was too much for him and he began to cry again.

Kathy hugged him. ‘Perhaps it will come in soon.’

‘I want me mum,’ Lenny’s voice was muffled against Kathy’s bosom. ‘She can’t be dead.’

‘I wish that were true, Lenny, I really do. But we can’t wave a magic wand and make it all right again.’

‘What’s going to happen to us?’ Donny asked. ‘Will we have to go to one of those places where they put kids with no mums?’

‘No, you’ll stay here with me, at least until your dad comes home. You’ve still got him, haven’t you? You’re not orphans.’

‘Might just as well be. He’s always at sea.’

‘He’ll be back soon.’

‘In time for Christmas?’

‘I don’t know. Perhaps not.’ She could not let them build their hopes on that, as they had on their mother coming; it was best to be honest, even if she sounded unsympathetic.

Lenny was no longer sobbing, but silent tears still coursed down his face and dripped off his chin. Donny had stopped crying altogether and was looking mulish. ‘Do you want to come down for your tea?’ she asked.

‘No,’ Donny snapped. ‘Go away. Leave us alone.’

Silently she stood up and watched them for a minute, before going downstairs. Meg and Daphne had come in and were laying the kitchen table.

‘How did they take it?’ William asked.

‘I’m not sure they’ve taken it in yet.’

The sound of banging and crashing and yells came to them from the direction of the boys’ bedroom, which was directly above the kitchen. Kathy looked up at the ceiling. ‘What on earth are they up to? They sound as if they’re wrecking the place.’

‘I’ll go,’ Daphne said, and disappeared in the direction of the stairs.

She opened the bedroom door to a scene of devastation. The covers had been stripped from the bed, the stuffing pulled out of the pillows and feathers were flying everywhere; the curtains hung in ribbons. The wardrobe door stood open and the little stash of Christmas presents, not only those intended for their mother and father, but for everyone else in the house, had been pulled out and systematically destroyed. There were streaks of lipstick on the mirrors and paintwork, a jar of jam had been flung at the wall and broken against it. The room was filled with the scent of lily of the valley and raspberries. Daphne stood and stared.

Donny, seeing her, stopped with his arm raised to throw a half bottle of whisky at the window. She ran forward and grabbed it from him. ‘Donny, stop it, stop it at once. It won’t help.’ She looked round for Lenny and found him cowering in a corner, his knees up to his chest and his head in his arms. She didn’t know which to go to first.

‘It ain’t fair!’ Donny shouted. ‘It ain’t fair. Ma said if we was good, she’d come for Christmas.’

‘It’s not her fault she can’t.’

‘No, it’s ours.’ This was a mumble from Lenny.

Daphne went and knelt beside him. ‘How can it be yours, sweetheart?’

‘We wasn’t good.’

‘Oh, Lenny, of course you were.’ She folded him into her arms and rocked him. ‘It was no one’s fault. If you want to blame anyone, blame Hitler and the Germans, they started this war.’

He sobbed against her jumper and in a little while Donny crouched down beside them and pushed his way up into her arms as well and the three of them cried together.

At last they became quiet and Daphne eased herself away from them. ‘Just look at this mess, boys. Are you going to help me clear it up?’

They nodded.

She went down and fetched a brush and dustpan and some warm soapy water in a bucket and set about picking up the feathers and broken glass, scraping the jam off the wallpaper and washing the mirror. The boys half-heartedly set about remaking their beds, though they weren’t sure what to do about the ruined pillows. Kathy came up while they were doing it. She was shocked by the mess, even more by the things the boys had used for missiles. Where had they come from? They could not possibly have afforded to buy them. Surely they hadn’t taken to stealing? Half of her wanted to give them a good scolding and demand to know, the other half wanted to cry out in pity. She found new pillows and put them on the bed without a word.

‘Sorry, Aunty Kathy,’ Donny mumbled.

Kathy picked a feather out of his hair. ‘I’ll forgive you, this time. Do you want some tea?’

‘No. I’m going to bed.’

‘What about you, Lenny?’

‘I’m going to bed too.’

She and Daphne helped them into their pyjamas, which at any other time they would never have allowed, tucked them in and returned downstairs, taking all that was left of the loot with them.

‘They’ll wake up in the morning, hoping it was a bad dream,’ Daphne said as they returned to the kitchen, ‘Poor mites. And just before Christmas, too. They had been so looking forward to it. And what about all that stuff? Lipstick and jars of jam, and whisky, for goodness sake. How did they come by it? Surely they didn’t steal it? Was that why Lenny said they hadn’t been good?’

‘I don’t know. We can’t ask them, can we? Not now.’ The laddered stockings had given Kathy an idea where the stuff might have come from and something had to be done about it, but she wouldn’t say anything to the boys until she had spoken to Joyce Moreton. Joyce had worked at the local post office and general store since the postman had joined up the previous year. She sorted and delivered the mail on a bicycle and afterwards served in the shop. She must have been privy to a lot of other people’s personal business, but she was never heard to speak of it. She was as universally liked as her dissolute husband was disliked.

 

The shop was busy. Kathy had to wait several minutes until there was a lull between customers and Mrs Galloway, the sub-postmistress, had gone out to the back room to make a pot of tea before she could get Joyce to herself. And now she wasn’t quite sure how to begin. She picked up a tin of peas and put it down again. What did she want tinned vegetables for when they grew all they needed?

‘Is anything the matter, Mrs Wainright?’

‘I don’t know. I want to ask your advice.’ She dug in her shopping bag and produced a lipstick. ‘Do you recognise this?’

Joyce picked it up and examined it. ‘Not one we sell.’

‘I was afraid of that. There was more, all sorts of things: jam, chocolate, whisky, scent, silk stockings – though they were already laddered.’

‘Oh, I think I see what you’re driving at.’ Ian had come home the previous week with a whole bag full of silk stockings which he swore he’d bought cheap off a market trader. ‘You can have a pair if you like. Here, take two pairs.’ He had thrust a couple of envelopes into her hands. Both pairs had been laddered and she suspected every other pair was too, and that inclined her to believe he hadn’t nicked them. He hadn’t shown her anything else, though. ‘Where did you find them?’

‘In the twins’ room.’

Joyce was shocked. ‘How did they get there? Have you tackled them about it?’

‘No, they’ve just learnt their mother’s been killed in an air raid and they’re both very upset. I couldn’t, could I?’

‘No, of course you couldn’t.’ She’d give that no-good husband of hers what for when she saw him, selling dodgy stuff to children. ‘Will you leave it with me?’

‘Yes and thank you.’ Kathy gladly handed over the bottle of whisky and the stockings. Joyce put them with the lipstick in her own handbag, just as Mrs Galloway came back into the shop. Kathy asked for a tin of condensed milk, which was still free of rationing but was in short supply and reserved for ‘registered customers only’, a phrase everyone heard more and more as the war progressed. ‘I’m going to make the boys some fudge’, she said to explain why someone who had a herd of cows should be buying milk in tins.

 

When Ian went home that night, Joyce was at the range, prodding at some boiling potatoes with a fork. Ken was sprawled on a grey horsehair sofa studying a book on aircraft recognition. He did not look up as his father came in. He hated him. Now he was as tall as his father, the beatings had stopped and been replaced by taunting jibes. If he wasn’t goading him about his reading matter, it was over his lack of girlfriends – as if he would bring a girl back to this dump! He couldn’t wait to get away and join up. He had asked Steve Wainright about joining the RAF, but Steve had advised him to wait until he was called up. It was all very well for Steve; he didn’t have to live in this place with a pig of a man who didn’t know the meaning of words like honesty or decency. One day the old man would over-reach himself and they’d all be free of him.

Stella was standing at the mirror over the mantel brushing her hair. She had a round, rosy face and pale hair, which she supposed was better than the ginger of her mother and brothers, but she wished it was dark and wavy like Vivien Leigh’s. She did not turn round but her brushing slowed as she watched in the mirror, waiting for the explosion and hoping Ma would get the better of Pa this time. She’d like to see him get his comeuppance. He’d stopped her going to Attlesham Grammar School when she won a scholarship, telling her she was getting too big for her boots and the village school had been good enough for him and it was good enough for her. She had turned fourteen in the summer and left school for a job at a butcher’s in Attlesham, where she doled out the meat ration and kept hard-to-come-by unrationed sausages and offal under the counter for favoured customers. If only she was a bit older, she could leave home. As soon as the opportunity arose, she would.

‘What’s this?’ Ian asked, pointing at the little heap on the table which should have been laid ready for his tea. Instead, the brown chenille cloth sported, not a plate of meat and two veg, but a lipstick, a bottle of whisky and an opened envelope from which the pale silk of a stocking protruded. Had the old witch found them in her summer house and brought them to Joyce?

‘You tell me.’ She waved the fork at him and a lump of hot potato landed on the back of his hand. He lifted the hand and everyone in the room waited, expecting it to land on Joyce’s face, but he simply put it to his mouth and sucked the potato off.

‘Me? They hin’t got anythin’ to do with me.’ He laughed. ‘What would I want things like that for? Tek me for a pansy boy, do you?’

‘Nothing so refined. I know you for a wide boy, on the mek at the expense of everyone else and tradin’ with innocent children. Teachin’ them your wicked ways is the last straw. Do your dirty deals if you must, but not with my friends or my friends’ families. If I hear you have, I’ll be down that police station quicker than you can say Jack Robinson.’

Stella put down her brush and crept quietly from the room. Ken looked up from his book, ready to defend his mother, but to his surprise, his parents simply glared at each other in hostility. He wanted to say, ‘Go on, Ma, don’t back down, you’ve got him on the back foot,’ but he said nothing. Time for that when it became necessary to divert his father’s wrath.

‘Keep yar hair on,’ Ian mocked. ‘If I had anything to deal with, which I i’n’t sayin’ I hev, I wouldn’t deal with yar friends. Askin’ for trouble, that’d be. They can’t bear to see a man doing well for hisself.’

Joyce turned back to the fire to hide the laugh that almost escaped her lips. She didn’t suppose for a minute she had achieved anything, except to let him know she was on to him, but whether she would really turn him in, she didn’t know. They’d been married nineteen years and she had stuck with him. It was a kind of habit, and she wouldn’t do anything to jeopardise her home, such as it was, because of her children. A wayward husband was better than no husband at all, or so her mother told her. But then, her mother liked the little treats Ian took her now and again.