Читать книгу Orphans of War - Leah Fleming - Страница 12

December 1940

‘Can you pick up my knitting, dear?’ gasped Great-aunt Julia as she struggled with her two sticks across the hallway of Brooklyn Hall. Maddy wasn’t used to going at tortoise pace but she loved being useful to the old ladies in the drawing room who, wrapped in ancient fur wraps and shawls to keep out the draughts, were busy knitting for the Sowerthwaite Comforts fund. Everyone took it in turns to sit up close to Uncle Algie’s battery-operated wireless to catch the news as best they could.

Maddy couldn’t believe it was nearly Christmas, nearly three whole months since that arrival at Brooklyn Hall, when Sid had had his fit and Grandma had eyed her up and down with disappointment.

‘It’s hotting up in Greece,’ shouted Great-uncle Algernon across the room, resting his half a leg on a leather buffet as he strained to catch the bulletin. ‘Metaxas has said “No” to Mussolini and there’ll be trouble in the Balkans, mark my words…Oh, and Liverpool and Manchester had another visit from the Luftwaffe last night. Three of our planes are missing.’

‘Don’t believe a word of it, girls,’ shouted Grandma, looking up from her letter writing. ‘It’s all lies and propaganda. I don’t know why you want to depress us with such news.’

Maddy was glued to the six o’clock news every night. She had heard enemy bombers droning overhead at night on their deadly route across the moors, hoping that the searchlight on the field battery would be torching their path for the ack-ack guns.

Her parents were on their way back from Egypt, hinting in their letter that they were going the long route round Africa and there was fighting in the Mediterranean. They were coming home for Christmas, but Maddy would rather they stayed put if there was danger.

It was such an age since she’d seen them and so much had happened, so much to tell them about her new school and friends. How the Brooklyn seemed like a hotel full of shuffling old people, who played endless games of patience and bridge, who quarrelled and fussed over Ilse’s cooking and fought to get the best corner by the huge fireplace.

Besides Uncle Algie and Aunt Julia and her companion, Miss Betts, there was a distant cousin Rhoda Rennison and her sister, Flo. It was easy to lump them all together somehow in their grey cardigans and baggy skirts, darned lisle stockings and tweed slippers. Around them wafted a tincture of eau de cologne that almost masked a more acidic smell. The oldies melted into the walls of the Brooklyn between meals along with their ear trumpets, stringy knitting in carpet bags and shawls. Then when the dinner gong rang they appeared from the far recesses of the house, back to the table like clucking hens at the trough, pecking at their plates, too busy to talk to Maddy

Aunt Plum was worried about Uncle Gerald, who was waiting in barracks down south to be sent abroad soon. When she was upset she smiled with sad eyes and went for long walks over the hills with her dogs, when she wasn’t on duty at the Old Vic Hostel.

Maddy walked to the village school each morning with the two Conleys, who now lived in Huntsman’s Cottage with Mr and Mrs Batty. It was a funny arrangement: normal school lessons in the morning, mixing with the local children at St Peter’s C of E School, and then lessons in the village hall, crushed in with a gang of evacuee kids from Leeds, who were living the other side of Sowerthwaite. It was all very noisy and they didn’t do much work, just copying from the board until hometime. There weren’t enough teachers to go round.

It was not like St Hilda’s at all, and the first thing she’d done was to lose her elocution accent in favour of a Yorkshire one, flattening her ’a’s so she didn’t get teased, though it made Grandma Belfield furious if she said bath instead of baath.

‘The sooner Arthur comes and puts you in a half-decent school…You’re turning into a right little Yorkshire tyke. It’s no good Plum letting you mix so much with that village lot. They’re teaching you nothing but bad habits. I hear they’ve been up to their old tricks again on the High Street,’ Grandma sighed, looking up at Maddy’s glasses and then turning back to her letter writing.

Maddy smiled to herself as she sat with her arms out so Aunt Julia could unravel a jumper that smelled of mothballs. Peggy, Greg and Enid knew all the best wheezes. It was Enid’s idea to fill the cig packet with dirt and worms and then box it up as if it was new and toss it on the pavement. They hid in the little alleyway while the passer-by spotted the cigs and pounced only to jump back in horror. They filled blue sugar bags with horse droppings and left them in the middle of the road so the carters stopped, hoping for a present to give their wives, only for the smelly muck to spill out while the gang had to look, duck and vanish like the Local Defence Volunteers down the ginnel.

Everyone got a telling-off from the constable, and poor Enid was grounded for being the ringleader by Miss Blunt, but she complained they’d all helped so all of them missed the Saturday film show as a punishment except Maddy. Going on her own was not much fun.

Greg was out cleaning the Daimler and helping Mr Batty, and begging old wheels to make a go-kart from the salvage cart. There was always something happening at the Old Vic even though Miss Blunt was strict and didn’t like mess. They were busy making Christmas presents out of cocoa tins, painting them and putting holes in the lids to pull a ball of string through. String was very precious now. Aunt Plum took her down to the hostel to join in the crafts after school. They were turning dishcloths into pretty dolls and sewing dusters into knickerbockers with frills on to sell at the bazaar for War Comforts. Soon it would be time to make Christmas paper chains and tree decorations.

The Brooklyn was fine in its own way, but since Gloria and Sid had moved in with the Battys, Maddy felt lonely at night, the draughts whistling round the house like banshees. Aunt Plum and Grandma were always out at committee meetings; the Comforts fund, the WVS, the Women’s Institute and the Church Council, so she sat with the oldies listening to the wireless while they dosed after supper. Uncle Algie let her listen to the Light Programme, and the music that reminded her of Mummy.

Mummy’s letters were full of interesting places that Maddy dutifully looked up in the atlas with Uncle Algie’s help. They had sung in concerts in the desert under the moon and stars.

We’re so looking forward to Christmas and to being a proper family once more. We should never have left you behind, but we thought it was for the best. You have had to suffer because of us doing our duty but be strong and brave. Not long now, darling.

It was a funny war here, nothing much happened at all. There was a gun battery up behind Sowerthwaite, and the Local Defence Volunteers paraded in church. The town was bursting with kids from all over the place but no bombs and no big factories belching smoke were to be seen. It was a relief to wake up each morning to silence and the bleat of sheep but she still felt sad. In her dreams she went back to Chadley, chasing Bertie, singing round the piano with Uncle George, playing with the button tin, making corkscrew coils of knitting with Granny Mills. If only they were here with her for Christmas too.

Her biggest surprise was that the Yorkshire of her Jane Eyre heroine was so beautiful and wild, with hills and stone walls creeping in all directions, green grass and hundreds of sheep, cows and pigs in makeshift arks, chicken coops and duck ponds, horses ploughing up the fields by the river and gardens crammed full of vegetables and apple trees.

They were making an allotment behind the Old Vic and Mr Batty was helping the big children plant vegetables. None of them had known a fork from a spade before they started but they did now. Enid and Peggy complained their hands were getting blisters. It was all so peaceful and safe, as if she’d moved to another world, but at what a cost? Why couldn’t they all have come before the war to enjoy the scenery?

Maddy’s favourite spot was high up in the big beech tree that was planted right at the back of the Old Vic in the corner where the garden became a field. There was a swing rope up to a little wooden den in its branches. The tree was very old.

From their hide-out they could spy on German planes and hide if the enemy invaded. There was a password to climb up that changed every week.

Aunt Plum said the tree was planted long ago by subscription after some famous victory. No one could remember which battle it was but it had to be hundreds of years old. It must have been in honour of the men of Sowerthwaite who took part; a bit like Grandma’s line of Lombardy poplars on the lane up to Brooklyn Hall, which Maddy always felt were sad trees. She called them the Avenue of Tears.

One of those trees was for her Uncle Julian-no wonder Grandma hated anything to do with the war. She did her duty on her committees but her lips were always set in a thin line and she had no smile wrinkles round her eyes like Aunt Plum.

Maddy lay across a branch of the tree daydreaming, her arms dangling down, hidden by a curtain of rusting leaves. It reminded her of the apple tree near The Feathers, but that made her think of Bertie and Gran and the terrible blitz that haunted her dreams. She hoped her little dog had found a new home.

Aunt Plum’s dogs were big and bouncy, not the same as her own special friend.

Everything was so different here, she thought, hiding under the canopy whilst she watched for spies. There had to be spies in the district if there was going to be an invasion soon, she thought. She knew the fire drill by heart. Now she was supposed to be collecting beech mast to feed Horace the pig in the shed.

It was fun going on salvaging trips down the cobbled alleyways and lanes, staring in through the doors of stone houses with slate rooftops like fish scales. Sowerthwaite was full of secret lanes that opened out onto the wide marketplace. Its shops lined the streets with arched doorways and bow windows straight out of her fairy-tale book. There were banners across the town hall urging the townfolk to buy Savings Bonds, posters in the shop windows warning of ‘Careless Talk’, but no bomb sites or proper air-raid shelters in sight, not like Chadley.

Peggy, Gloria and she were in Greg’s team, collecting newspapers and jam jars for salvage. Peggy was very round, always puffing, and didn’t like pushing the handcart; Gloria was always sneaking off looking through shop windows, so Maddy and Greg did most of the hard work, dodging dogs, knocking on doors and trying to beat the other gang for the team to collect most. Big Bryan Partridge’s gang cheated by hanging round the back of shops, sneaking cardboard boxes while Mitch Brown and Enid hung round the Three Tuns to cadge bottles, but Miss Blunt liked to have them out of the Vic all day being useful, come rain or shine.

Maddy loved practising for the school Christmas concert in church, making secret presents for the oldies, and now with Mummy and Daddy coming home it was going to be just perfect. Only one thing was spoiling everything now.

Last night her dreams were disturbed by bangs and flashes and the flames burning the pub, and she was running to save them but she couldn’t reach them in time and then she woke and her bed was wet again.

Aunt Plum had put a rubber sheet on her mattress when she first came and told her not to worry, but she woke crying from the dream and crying with shame as she sneaked her sheet and her pyjamas down to the scullery to soak in the sink. She was making extra work and there was a war on and it worried her. Then she’d had to creep back in the dark, feeling up the oak banister rail and curl up with Panda, trying to be brave.

The silence outside was scary at first but she strained to hear the night sounds, the bleating sheep, the owl hooting, the drone of a night plane or the rattle of the night express in the distance. She was lucky to be safe and warm in this hidy-hole, but until Mummy and Daddy returned it could never be home.

The old house was friendly in its own way, cluttered with walking sticks and cushions and doggy smells. There were rooms boarded off and shuttered to save on heating. The sun shone through dusty windows, but it gave off little heat now.

Sometimes she walked up from school, up the Avenue of Tears, wondering if Daddy did the same dawdle with his satchel all those years ago. Why had he never come back here?

It was something to do with Mummy and the Millses being ordinary and saying ‘bath’ in the wrong way, but Mummy was beautiful and sang like a ‘storm cock’. When Maddy grew up she would marry someone she loved, however poor he was, if he was handsome and kind. He wouldn’t mind that she was leggy and plain with a turn in her eye that never seemed to get any better. She didn’t want another operation to straighten it out. The last one in Chadley hadn’t worked for long.

Aunt Plum promised when things were less hectic they would take her to see a specialist in Leeds who might sort out her eye once and for all. With the war on, though, Aunt Plum said all the best surgeons were at the front so they might have to wait until peace came again.

It was so peaceful here. The war hadn’t bothered Sowerthwaite, and it wouldn’t if Grandma had anything to do with it. Maddy touched the bark of Uncle Julian’s poplar for luck.

Gloria Conley skipped round the playground singing ‘Little Sir Echo, how do you do…’, her bunches bobbing behind her. She’d just been chosen to sing a solo in the school concert and Miss Bryce said she had lovely voice. She couldn’t wait for it to be Christmas now.

She didn’t mind being moved out of the Hall because now Sid and she had their own special auntie and uncle of their own and all because of Sid’s ear.

It had gone septic and now he couldn’t hear in it at all. Miss Plum had explained how ill he was when the Welfare came to take them away, and that he couldn’t be moved. Then Mrs Batty asked Mrs Plum if they’d like to come and stay with them. It was such a relief. How Gloria’d prayed not to be taken back to Elijah Street. She hoped that the Lord understood why she had to fib like mad about how Uncle Sam, God rest his soul, had beat them and poor Mam had shoved them on the train out of harm’s way. In her heart she knew it was all lies but it made a better story than the truth–that nobody wanted them.

She woke up on that first morning in Brooklyn Hall and thought she’d died and gone to heaven, snug in clean sheets and pyjamas, with thick checked shirts and corduroy dungarees to play out in. There was yucky porridge for breakfast but hot toast and real butter and jam for afters.

Everyone had fussed over Sid until he was better She wished they could stay in the big house for ever but then they’d been allowed to stay on in the grounds at the Battys’ cottage, which would have to do.

Mrs Batty did all the washing for the Hall and the ironing. She had a big copper boiler in its own shed and an iron mangle that she turned with strong arms. She made big stews out of rabbits and stuff that Mr Batty ‘found’ in the woods. Huntsman’s Cottage was small but clean, and the old couple let them run wild in the woods and play with the other vaccies after school.

Even school was turning out better than she dared hoped. Her reading and writing were coming on and Maddy sometimes let her practise the difficult words in the reading book. She was getting quite good now but would never catch up the Belfield girl.

The only worry was that Constable Burton was sending someone to find Mam. She was in big trouble now. Gloria prayed that Mam’d take her time to fetch them back or come and live with them up here. She still couldn’t believe that she’d just shoved them on that train…It didn’t make any sense. Gloria never wanted to go back to the cobbled streets and dark corners of the city again, now she’d seen Brooklyn Hall.

It was Miss Plum who explained that Mam was no longer living in Elijah Street. In fact no one knew where she had gone. ‘Gone orff, I’m afraid,’ she said. ‘Not to worry, Gloria, she’ll come looking for you soon enough.’

How could Gloria explain that she wasn’t worried, she was relieved to be staying put? Old Mrs Belfield said they ought to be put in an orphanage, so she cried and hollered and made herself so sick that Maddy’s gran relented, saying that they could stay ‘for the duration but in somewhere more suitable’, whatever that meant.

It didn’t take a numbskull to work out that old Mrs Belfield thought she wasn’t good enough to share a room with Maddy. She was not family, but Miss Plum explained that she could come and play with Maddy any time she liked. Try and stop me, Gloria thought.

She loved the Brooklyn, with its wide curving staircase, the pictures up the walls in gold curly frames and the smell of wet dogs and lavender polish. Every shelf was covered in china Bo-Peeps and silver trinket boxes, statuettes and ornaments.

Why must she be banished just because she wasn’t born rich and petted with pretty dresses? There were no dancing lessons for her, or ponies to ride. The Belfields lived in another world, in a big space with fields to play out in, not cramped in a bricked back yard with noisy neighbours, barking dogs and horrible smells.

Yet this war had done something wonderful in transporting the two of them from the town into the country. There would be no budging her now. She and Sid might live in a humble cottage but she was going to stick close to the Big House like glue. Maddy would be her best friend and where she went Gloria would not be far behind, she smiled to herself.

Huntsman’s Cottage would do for now but when Gloria Conley grew up she was going to find her own rich man with a house with a hundred rooms and servants so she could live the life of a film star. She loved going to the Saturday pictures with the other vaccies to see Mickey Mouse and Charlie Chaplin, and Shirley Temple in Poor Little Rich Girl.

If being rich meant learning to read and write proper…no elbows on the table and no slurping her soup, sucking up to her betters, then she was up for it. She was prettier than Maddy any day. That must count for something, and she could sing the best in her class. When they saw her on stage in the school show, then they would see she was as good as any of them.

Greg Byrne took the corner fast. He’d borrowed some pram wheels off the salvage lorry, just three to make his racing cart. It was low to the ground with ropes to guide the steering. This was the fastest he’d made –if only he could control the damn thing. There was a touch of black ice on the tarmac ahead that was going to be tricky but skidding would be even better, he grinned to himself.

It was worth weeks of cleaning and polishing the Daimler, fetching and carrying empties, to have the money to build this racer.

There was something about going faster and faster that made his head spin with excitement. There was nothing to beat it. The trudge up the steep hill track onto the moors, with its five sharp bends, made it all worth it, scaring horses and carts, making tramps dive into the walls out of his way when he careered down pell-mell.

The best thing of all was to cadge a ride on the back of one of the soldier’s motor bikes up to the battery field, towing ‘Flash Gordon’ behind him.

One push and the cart flew downhill all the way with the soldiers’ shopping list for the village stores. All he could think of when he trudged back up the hill was the loose change he’d earned and the day when he would be old enough to own a racing bike himself. Even a two-wheeler would be a start but the old ‘sit up and beg’ two-wheeler bike in the Vic belonged to The Rug; an ancient black metal affair with a basket up front, that made Miss Blunt look even more like the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz. She rode it to Scarperton on market day and no one was allowed to borrow it.

She ran the hostel like HMS Bounty, with her rules for wayward evacuees, a strict rota for chores, curfew hours, punishment meted out for bed-wetting and lateness, so once or twice he’d let her tyres down just to get even. One of these days he’d do a bunk but not yet.

There was something about the Old Vic that he’d taken to. It wasn’t a bad billet. He’d been in far worse, and something Miss Plum had said about him being ‘officer material and a born leader’ pleased him, even if he did lead the gang into mischief. He was the one that started them off giggling when Miss Blunt’s wig went all of a quiver, which made it wobble even more. The others looked up to him as their boss, and Enid had offered to show him her thingy for a ride on Flash Gordon.

Sowerthwaite wasn’t that bad a place. There were always summat going on, hills to climb, foraging for mushrooms and sticks, salvaging trips. School was pretty basic. He was marking time for his fourteenth birthday when he could get apprenticed.

As long as he was working on wheels with oil he was happy, and Mr Batty had showed him all the ins and outs of the Belfields’ saloon. He taught him to do rough work, taking engine bits apart and putting them back together again. He watched how to decoke the engine and change the oil and tyres. ‘You’ve got engine oil in your veins, me laddo,’ Mr Batty laughed.

And once, only once, the chauffeur’d let him sit in the driving seat, showing him the stick gears and letting him drive a few yards. This was sufficient to keep him behaving enough to stay put and not draw too much attention to his madcap schemes.

There was a big garage on the main road out of Sowerthwaite that might take him on as an apprentice mechanic if he kept out of trouble and if Miss Plum put in a good word.

Greg liked walking up into the Dales to the battery field. It was manned by a group of old soldiers. He wasn’t supposed to trespass but there was a geezer there called Binns who knew all about birds of prey: buzzards, merlins, peregrines and harriers. Now he could tell a sparrowhawk from a kestrel by its tail.

Mr Batty was a bit of a stargazer and showed him directions by the stars and how to find true north. Greg had never seen so many stars in a sky before, all with different names.

It was a man’s world up here, a train-spotter’s paradise, perches on rocky cliffs to climb in search of dead eggs, waterfalls with deep ledges to jump into pools when the weather warmed up…if he stayed that long.

There weren’t enough hours in the day for Plum to finish getting ready for Arthur and Dolly’s return.

‘I don’t know why you’re making such a fuss, Prunella,’ sniffed her mother-in-law. ‘They can stay in the Black Horse. It’s what they’re used to, after all.’

‘Of course they won’t! They’re family. I don’t understand you sometimes; your own flesh and blood…It’s Christmas, Mother, the season of goodwill. Those two have risked life and limb to get back to Maddy, the least we can do is let bygones be forgotten and give them a proper homecoming. Heaven knows what dangers they’ve faced en route.’

‘Please yourself but don’t expect me to roast the fatted calf for them. Not a word from either of them in years.’

‘Do you blame them? When did you last write to Arthur?’ Plum argued, but Pleasance stormed off out of earshot. How could families quarrel over trivia when the country was in such danger?

Her recent visit to London to see Gerald off into the unknown after what was obviously embarkation leave gave Plum a good idea what London was going through. There were raids every night and total devastation in some parts of the town. It had been a bittersweet reunion: going to parties held in smoky basement flats, trying to get last-minute tickets for a show, spending the night in a public shelter when they were caught in a raid, and a twelve-hour journey back on the train. She felt so guilty to be living so peacefully out in the sticks away from such terrors. Their parting had been rushed and fraught and very public.

Gerald listened to all her news of the hostel and her new job politely.

‘I must tell you what Peggy said to me the other day,’ she prattled on, hoping to amuse him. ‘We were running the vacuum cleaner over the drugget in the Vic. Peggy Bickerstaffe, the little pug-faced one who steals biscuits when no one is looking, was supposed to be helping. She just stood there looking at it puzzled. “Am I one of them?” She pointed down to the machine.

‘“A Hoover?” I replied. “It’s a vacuum cleaner, dear.”’

‘“That’s right, miss, a vac…and we’re vaccies. We’re sent out all day picking up other people’s rubbish.” It brought me up sharpish, I tell you. You never know what goes on in the mind of a child, do you?’

‘I wouldn’t know…’ Gerald replied, obviously not interested, but she wanted him to know what sort of children she was billeting.

‘Enid shocked me the other night too when we were making cocoa in the kitchen. She was talking to Nancy and Ruby bragging, almost. “At the last house I was in, I got sixpence for doing cartwheels. The old man used to give me extra if I did it wi’ no knickers on,” she sniggered.

‘“That’s enough,” I said, trying to change the subject. ‘No wonder that girl is boy mad. Makes me think what other things went on and she’s still only a child. What do you think?’

Gerald shook his head. ‘Let’s go to bed.’

They made love on that last night in the hope of conceiving another baby but somehow their very desperation spoiled it for her. She just couldn’t relax into it. Part of her was still smarting from his earlier betrayal and wondering if his affair was really over. Was he just humouring his wife to keep her sweet and still seeing Daisy behind her back? Did it suit him that she was stuck up north with his mother, out of sight? Was she just a glorified housekeeper? He knew she and Pleasance didn’t get on, but her own parents were dead.

Loyalty would always keep her at her post. That was a given. She’d been raised to value service to others as the duty of anyone brought up in comfort, wealth and security. What she was doing for those unfortunate evacuee children was important. She just wished he would be more interested in his niece, Maddy

There’d been just time before her return to trawl through the shops to find gifts for her charges. She had clothing coupons from the local authorities to spend on Greg and the Conleys. There were still materials hidden away in shops that could make winter dresses and trousers. She found toys for Sid and Gloria in Hamleys, and a present for Maddy that was a bit extravagant.

If only Pleasance would spend more time with the girl and get to know her, Plum sighed, looking out of the sooty train, but she seemed to avoid the child. It was so unfair. In fact, Pleasance avoided all the evacuee children, claiming she was too busy doing her war work. Sometimes this consisted of little more than endless tea parties with ladies in smart hats bemoaning the lack of decent domestic servants while they knitted balaclavas and scarves. Their comfortable world was being turned upside down by this war and Mother was struggling to adjust to not having her usual creature comforts to hand: their car was doubling up for one of the town ambulances, the bedrooms were filled with aged relatives, and now Maddy had children traipsing up and down the stairs making a racket that got on her nerves. Her son’s visit was playing on her nerves too.

How strange to meet a brother-and sister-in-law for the first time. Would Arthur remind her of Gerald or the photo of Julian in the drawing room? Gerald looked so dashing in his uniform with his thin moustache hovering above his upper lip like Robert Donat, the film star. If only he wasn’t so handsome.

Men like him didn’t have to work to charm the girls, they just turned up, all tight trousers and teeth, and the doves fluttered in the cote around them. She should know–she’d felt the power of his charm beaming in her direction. Theirs had been a whirlwind romance. She’d come out in London and Yorkshire, done the round of debutante parties and balls, been thrown in the path of suitable partners, and Gerald had been the most handsome, persistent and debonair. The fact that she was an heiress of sorts with a good pedigree made his wooing all the more ardent, she realised with hindsight.

The Templetons fought with King Charles, lost their lands under Cromwell and then got them back under Charles II. The estate near Richmond now belonged to her brother, Tim, but there was a generous settlement on her; not a fortune but enough to give her independence.

She was young, naïve, taking all Gerald’s flattering attention at face value. He did love her in his own way, as a desired object, a pretty face and the future mother of his children. The miscarriages had changed all that, made her wary, and he’d lost patience and found other pretty faces. His mother was disappointed with them both for not coming up to scratch in the heir department. She didn’t like weakness.

Was that why Pleasance distanced herself from Arthur’s child–because she was plain? Was it her roving eye and spectacles, her bony frame and gawky gait that disappointed her? Maddy was growing fast. All the newcomers had blossomed on fresh air, good food and quiet nights’ rest.

It was just as she first thought, these children were like a kennel of puppies. She smiled thinking of roly-poly Peggy, who stuck to Enid Cartwright. Both were at the awkward age of fourteen, being too old for dolls and too young for boys.

Little Mitch Brown was a serious chap, old for his years, with a hunted look on his face like a nervous terrier. Bryan Partridge was like one of those lolloping mongrels, willing, shambolic and always racing into mischief. Nancy Shadlow was so quiet she was like a timid sheepdog cowering in a barn yard, silent and wary. She cried for her mam and sisters, and wasn’t settling at all. Gloria was a bouncing red setter, impossible to keep still but she tagged along with Maddy, who had the knack of reining her in somehow.

Gregory was the one coming on better than she’d dared hope, the pack leader, handsome in a rough sort of way and proud; a bit of an Alsatian about him. She’d already asked at Brigg’s Garage if he could be taken on as a mechanic.

It was promising to be a great Christmas–if only Herr Hitler would give his bombers a holiday over the festive season so everyone in the country could have a good night’s rest. Just a lull for a few days would do.

As the towns turned into villages and hills, grey into green, Plum peered out at the beauty of her surroundings, relieved and guilty to be leaving the nightly raids behind. Her war work was of a different kind from that of the women in the city: trying to give these lost children some fun, hope, and discipline. She tried to temper Avis Blunt’s coldness with some warmth and understanding.

Matron was always banging on about them needing a firm hand but Plum had always got more from her dogs with praise and titbits than with sticks and a beating. Too much yelling and punishment made them anxious and confused, and that set them off in the wrong direction. Surely the children needed firm consistency but also praise when they deserved it?

They had hidden the latest food parcel sent as goodwill gifts from the American people. It was bulging with treats and clothing, and so precious. With all the terrible submarine attacks on convoys in the Atlantic, who knew when they might receive another one? There were more tough clothes for playing in, warm nighties, tins of syrup, lovely quilted bedspreads, milk powder, sweets and magazines. Christmas at the Old Vic was going to be fun.

The hostel’s Christmas turkey was provided by the Town Council and the Christmas puddings were ready in Mrs Batty’s scullery. The children would lunch after morning service and the Belfields, along with their elderly houseguests, would dine later and dress for the occasion.

Plum had used her own coupons to buy Maddy a turquoise velvet dress with long sleeves from Harrods. It was outrageously extravagant but she wanted the child to have something pretty to wear for her parents. Pleasance would have to go halves with her whether she liked this present or not. The other gift had been hidden at Brigg’s Garage for weeks, out of sight of peering eyes.

Everyone was doing their best to be cheerful and festive, but the shops were struggling to keep up with demand. All the factories were up to speed and turned to war production: curtain mills turned into shirt factories, woollen mills turning out uniform cloth, silk mills churning out parachute silk, engineering works pumping out machine tools and spares for aircraft and tanks.

The streets of Scarperton were filled with older men and women with baskets, nipping out in their lunch break to catch up on shopping. The farms were full of land girls. Plum wondered what it was doing to the babies and children, not having fathers around the house and mothers on shift work.

Then she smiled, thinking of her own childhood, when Nanny dressed her to take tea with Mummy and Daddy, if he was home. Sometimes she hardly saw him for weeks. Mummy was a lovely creature who popped into the nursery to say good night, dressed in chiffon and smelling of vanilla perfume. They were loving strangers to her in some ways.

Everyone had to make sacrifices now but she yearned to have a child of her own to cherish, one who would not be farmed out to servants all day. Without Gerald close by it was an impossible dream. War was causing such disruption even in this sleepy market town.

All the schoolmasters were called up for service and older staff brought out of retirement, married women were also back in the classroom. Farmhands, postmen and shopkeepers had all but disappeared. It reminded Plum of after the Great War when she was young and so many of her friends had daddies killed in the war. On market days it seemed as if the whole town was full of women, young boys and farmers, who had a reserved occupation. There were a few soldiers billeted around the streets but no army camps nearby.

She hoped that Arthur and Dolly would arrive back in time for Christmas. They were due to dock in Liverpool at the end of next week, if all went well. No wonder Maddy was excited and Pleasance was going around with a look on her face like her corns were pinching her.

‘What have you got against Dolly?’ Plum asked one night, after her return from London.

Maddy was in bed and the oldies were snoozing by the fire with their cocoa. Pleasance had looked down her specs at Plum.

‘It’s a matter of standards. Those sorts of girls…well, we all know what showgirls are like…actresses. I never expected a son of mine to get mixed up with one of them,’ she sighed.

‘But Dolly was singing to wounded troops when they met,’ Plum replied.

‘On the make, dear, just looking out for someone to be her meal ticket…It was all about the S word,’ she whispered back.

‘The what?’ Plum could hardly believe what she was hearing.

‘You know perfectly well what I’m getting at. Sex,’ Pleasance mouthed in disgust. ‘It was just sex with those two!’

‘And so it should be at that age, Mother. Dolly’s a lovely-looking woman. I’ve seen posters of her.’

‘So why did they produce such an ugly duckling? I’m not even sure if Madeleine is Arthur’s…I did warn him he was making a mistake.’

‘Oh, enough! That’s not very Christian. How can you say such a wicked thing when they’ve been out giving their services to the troops? Arthur sounds like the nicest of the brothers.’ How dare Mother insinuate such a cruel thing about Dolly!

‘I’m surprised at you. Gerald is the handsomest of all my boys,’ Pleasance preened, looking up from her book.

Plum plonked herself down on the sofa, picked up her knitting. It was time for some home truths. ‘I think this family must have a fascination for the stage. I know Gerald has. He’s kept a mistress in London for years. In fact, he was seeing her before we were married. He says he’s finished with her but I’m not so sure. If you want to criticise anyone, tear your own pretty boy off a strip, not Arthur. He’s the only one with a happy marriage.’ That would pop her balloon.

‘Prunella, what’s got into you? Don’t be so mean. Gerry can’t defend himself. Men are like that sometimes. It doesn’t mean anything. You have to make allowances for their urges. They don’t marry girls like that–not in my day, they didn’t.’

‘Didn’t you have any urges then?’ Plum paused, unimpressed by her argument.

‘No I did not. I did my duty and gave him three sons. In return he gave me respect and didn’t trouble me much after that. What Harry did in his spare time, I never asked, but Arthur wouldn’t leave well alone; he had to go and marry the girl against our wishes. I blame him for Harry’s death–letting the family down, going on the stage, refusing to go into the business with not even a grandson to inherit. Gerald was too young to take over. He’s just a man being a man. It’s a pity there’s no child. You wouldn’t talk so freely then.’

‘It’s not for want of trying.’ Plum blushed with embarrassment. ‘You missed out, not enjoying the physical side of marriage. It can be fun.’

‘So much fun that my son seeks comforts elsewhere? Our sort of women are not bred for such…messiness. Next thing you’ll be saying we should demand to be pleasured and equals like those damned Suffragettes making fools of themselves. There are women paid to give those sorts of services…’

Pleasance could be so cruel. ‘And what wretched lives some of them lead,’ Plum snapped back. ‘I’m glad I’ve got the vote and have some say in things. Anyway, what has all this got to do with Dolly and Arthur? I just want them to be made welcome for Maddy’s sake.’

‘You’re getting too fond of that child, spoiling her. She’s not our responsibility now. We’ve done our duty.’ There was no budging Pleasance. No use carping at her.

‘All I’m asking you is not to hold up Gerald and me as paragons of virtue. This last affair almost came to a divorce, but we’ve talked it through and it’s sorted so you can sleep easy; end of subject. And who wouldn’t be fond of Maddy? She’s your only grandchild. Once that eye is realigned I bet our duckling will turn into a swan.’

‘Oh, don’t talk poppycock. I’ve never seen a plainer child. Now, if it was Gloria…she’s got spark and those green eyes, she’ll go far,’ said Pleasance. ‘Pass me my sherry.’

‘Do you think so? There’s something about her that worries me. I can’t pin it down. Madge Batty says she’s forever prancing in front of the mirror. Now there’s someone who ought to be on the stage…Don’t forget the school Nativity play on Monday. We’ll have to support our evacuees.’

‘Must we? The pews are so hard in the church.’

‘Come on, Sowerthwaite expects its most prominent citizen to do her duty.’ Plum smiled sweetly as she handed Pleasance the glass.

‘I’ve done my duty sending my sons to war, opening my home to refugees and evacuees and putting up with disruption at my time of life. But listening to Juniors caterwauling on the stage is not my idea of a night out,’ Pleasance snapped back.

‘Bah humbug!’ laughed Plum, her tension released. ‘Who needs Dickens when Scrooge is alive and well in Brooklyn Hall?’

‘Don’t be facetious, it doesn’t become you…making fun of a poor widow in her sorrows. Christmas is nothing without your family around you,’ Pleasance sighed, sipping her sherry as she gazed into the log fire. ‘Ugh! Is this the best we’ve got? Algie’s been at the decanter again.’

‘Hark at you. You’ve got a house full of relatives, a son and daughter on their way home, a hostel full of abandoned children and a granddaughter…Just thank God in His Mercy you have the means to give them all a wonderful time…The joy is in the giving.’

‘Just leave the sermons to the vicar, Prunella,’ came the sharp reply.

It was nearly Christmas and still no news of Mummy and Daddy. Maddy was so excited, waiting to hear their voices. Grandma didn’t believe in having a phone at the hall but the Old Vic now had one for emergencies and Aunt Plum promised to let her know as soon as the trunk call came through.

‘Can I go to the station to meet them with Mr Batty?’ Maddy pleaded.

‘Of course, but we must expect delays with the snow,’ Aunt Plum smiled. She was putting the finishing touches to the playroom decorations, with Mitch and Bryan standing on the table fixing up paper bells.

They were going carol singing round Sowerthwaite with the church choir and it was snowing hard. The village looked just like a Christmas card, full of prewar glitter.

Peggy was sulking because her mother wasn’t coming until Boxing Day. There was a special train for evacuee families to come out from Hull and Leeds. Enid had begged to go to the soldiers’ dance but Matron said she was too young, so she swore at her and was up in the attic bedroom having a screaming match, calling down the stairs the worst swear words she could muster.

Maddy was trying not to worry about Uncle Algie’s latest news bulletin from the wireless. ‘Convoys under attack. That means no bananas for tea,’ he joked.

Maddy had not seen a banana or an orange for years, not since she was at St Hilda’s. She thought of those poor sailors rowing open lifeboats in stormy seas. Thank goodness Mummy and Daddy weren’t crossing the Atlantic.

She’d helped Aunt Plum prepare their room, air the bed with a stone hot-water bottle, put on crisp sheets and a beautiful silk counterpane. They filled a vase full of pink viburnum from the garden that smelled so sweet. The fire was ready to be lit in the grate. The bedroom smelled of polish and soot. She just couldn’t wait.

Then she thought of their last Christmas together with Uncle George and Granny Mills behind the bar at The Feathers, Mummy singing ‘There’ll Always Be an England’ to the airmen, and everyone cheering. It had been such fun being all together…

Suddenly she felt sick and sad and shaky. Nothing would be the same ever again. Last year she’d been safe–now she’d come to live with strangers. Her eye had been straightened when she was seven but now it had gone all wonky again. The patching wasn’t working and sometimes she got two shapes, not one, before her eyes. Would they be disappointed like Grandma when they saw her, plain Jane that she was?

Tears rolled down her face; from deep inside great sobs poured out of her. Grandma came to see what the noise was and stared down at her.

‘What’s up now, child? What’s brought this on?’ She patted her on the shoulder like a pet dog.

‘They won’t come…they won’t come…I know it,’ Maddy spluttered.

‘Now how did you come up with such an idea? Of course they’ll come. They’re on their way,’ Grandma argued, but Maddy was too upset to guard her tongue.

‘But you don’t like my mummy and they’ll go away again and never come back,’ she blurted.

‘Here, blow your nose,’ came the reply. ‘Now who’s been telling you silly tales? How can I dislike her? I’ve never met her. You’re too young to understand grownup affairs. We’ll have a perfectly pleasant celebration, so stop all this silliness, dry your eyes and go to the kitchen for a biscuit.’

‘I don’t want a biscuit, I want Panda,’ Maddy sniffed. ‘I just want my mummy and daddy to come home.’ She felt foolish and awkward now. She’d poured out all her fears and Grandma didn’t understand. How could she? She’d not even been to her sparents’ wedding.

‘You’re a big girl for cuddling toys, Madeleine.’

‘I want Panda and Aunt Plum,’ she argued, pushing past her grandma.

‘Oh, please yourself, but stop snivelling and pull yourself together. Crying gets you nowhere. I was only trying to help,’ said Grandma, turning towards her, looking hurt, but Maddy was off down the stairs in search of her beloved black and white companion.

Panda heard all her troubles and never answered back.

It snowed hard again overnight, drifting across the lanes into banks of snow, covering the railways lines with ice. Everyone’s pre-Christmas travel plans would be disrupted with this snowfall, Plum sighed. Sowerthwaite had tucked itself in for the duration, used to bad winters and being cut off for days. The school was closed for the holidays, the food bought in and the children in the hostel were trying to be good, itching to be out on tin trays and sleds down the sledge runs.

Matron was huffing and puffing about the extra work, frustrated that her leave to be with her sister near Coventry might be cancelled. The news from the city was bad and she was worried by no word from Dora that she was safe.

‘I’ll have to go and see for myself, Mrs Belfield,’ she insisted, and headed off into the snow to catch the first available train south.

Gerald sent a cryptic note from somewhere hot and dusty, but there had still been no word from Arthur and Dolly. That was only to be expected due to the weather conditions and delays. Everything was in place for their arrival and for the children to have a party at the Hall on Boxing Day. The excitement was mounting and once chores were done they were out on the hills having a great time.

Tonight was the Christmas Nativity play and they were all taking part except Greg, who was helping stack chairs at the back of the church. His voice was well and truly broken and he growled like a bear so that got him out of the fancy-dress parade.

Mrs Batty had warned them that Billy Mellor’s donkey was brought out of its shed to do its annual turn parading down the aisle on its way to Bethlehem, no doubt leaving its annual deposit, which the verger would sweep up for his roses before it gassed the congregation. Hitler might do his worst but the donkey would do its duty on cue. Enid, Peggy, Nancy and Gloria were all kitted out as angelic hosts with wire halos on bands round their heads.

‘I look daft in this costume,’ Enid moaned. ‘I’m too old for dressing up. Look, there’s Alf and his mates.’ She pointed out the line of soldiers in the back pew, sticking out her tiny breast buds in a silly pose.

‘You’re too young to be bothering about them,’ Maddy said, but Enid ignored her, turning to Peggy with a loud voice. ‘No one would look at her twice. She’s only jealous.’

‘No she’s not.’ Gloria stepped in to defend her friend. ‘You’re common.’

‘Hark at the kettle calling the pot black, Conley! Takes one to know one!’ Peggy added her pennyworth.

‘Shurrup, fat face!’ Gloria replied. The three angels jostled and nudged each other, knocking Nancy into the stone pillar until Maddy stepped in.

‘Shush! You’re in church. The play will be starting soon. It’s too important an evening for quarrelling. Thanks for sticking up for me, Gloria,’ Maddy whispered. ‘But we don’t need to bother with anything they say, do we?’

‘Ooh, listen to Miss Hoity-Toity,’ Enid giggled, and turned her attention back to the audience.

Maddy took her place in the choir, hidden behind the chancel screen. Everything shimmered in the candlelight. The church windows were boarded up in case any light shone through. How comforting that blitz and bombers had not stopped the Christmas festivities. How confusing that in Germany they would have their own carols and candles, all of them, allies and enemies, praying to the same God. It didn’t make any sense.

When they all returned to the Vic and the children were in bed on pain of being given a sack of coal by Father Christmas for being naughty, there were still stockings to fill and parcels to wrap for tomorrow night. At least being busy there was no time to worry about Gerald. The Nativity had gone well and for once the donkey did his dump in the churchyard, not the aisle. The children had behaved impeccably and everyone was saying what a credit the Brooklyn children were to the Old Vic. She had to admit they played their parts on cue. Gloria sang out like a bell and Mitchell read his lesson like a trooper. There was hot fruit cordial in the church hall and spiced buns flavoured with home-made mincemeat that were wolfed down in seconds. The vicar gave a vote of thanks. Pleasance had made an effort, wearing her thick fur coat, Algie and Julia alongside, so the Hall was well represented. Poor Miss Blunt was stuck somewhere between here and Coventry and unlikely to return. It was turning out to be a good Christmas after all.

Plum’d enjoyed all the children’s preparations, making sure they made presents for each other, all the secrets and surprises, letters and cards home, and the parcels arriving for some of the children who lived far away.

Without children the Brooklyn Christmas was a stodgy affair of much wine and little cheer, sherry gatherings and small talk and gossip, church and long walks. This was going to be a real Dingley Dell festival at the Brooklyn: the excitement of parcels unwrapped, extra food rations and treats, decorations in every room and fires lit, a great tree cut down and decorated, and above all the chatter of little voices singing carols. All they were waiting for was Dolly and Arthur’s arrival by train to complete the picture.

Pleasance was fooling no one by pretending it was all a waste of time and expense, for even she had given a hand wrapping up parcels and sending cards this year. No one could say Sowerthwaite didn’t look beautiful in the snow, icicles spiking down the rooftops.

Lost in these thoughts, Plum didn’t hear the bell ring.

‘Mrs Belfield! Phone!’

Plum raced over to the hall shelf. ‘Sow’thwaite 157,’ she smiled. At last! What perfect timing! ‘It’ll be Maddy’s parents,’ she yelled to Mrs Batty, who was preparing the morning’s vegetables in the kitchen. She smiled at her ruffled reflection in the mirror.

Then her expression went from grin to grimace in two seconds, her mouth tightening. She slumped on to the hall chair in a daze. ‘When…? How…? I see…Yes, Yes…I see…Thank you for letting us know…Is there any hope?…I see…Yes…It is dreadful…’ She slammed the phone down and sat winded. Some disembodied voice had just shattered hopes of a cheerful Christmas. Mrs Batty was hovering, curious.

‘What is it, Mrs Belfield? Not bad news? Not Master Gerald? You’ve gone white,’ she said.

‘No, it’s not him. I’m afraid it’s Maddy’s parents. Their ship was overdue, reports are coming in that it went down en route home in the Atlantic, somewhere off the coast of Ireland…enemy fire. They’re not among the survivors…Oh dear God, what am I going to tell the poor child? It’s almost Christmas Eve!’