Читать книгу Michael Morpurgo: War Child to War Horse - Maggie Fergusson, Maggie Fergusson - Страница 11

They travelled together to Suffolk, and for a week bicycled around Blythburgh, Walberswick, Southwold, Tony hoping that, surrounded by silence and sea breezes, by tall churches, fluent countryside and early spring light, they might somehow recover what they seemed to have lost. They returned to the Eyrie, and for most of that spring they remained together. But the atmosphere was fraught and Kippe was still in touch with Jack.

The marriage was soon over. Tony left England. He emigrated to Canada, changed his name to Tony van Bridge, and eventually found work with the theatre director Sir Tyrone Guthrie in Stratford, Ontario.

Kippe’s parents disapproved of her relationship with Jack, and when she married him they were not present. Kippe was forced to turn from her own family to the Morpurgos. Shortly after the marriage, she and Jack moved from his flat in Notting Hill Gate to 84 Philbeach Gardens, near Earls Court. The tall, terraced house was somewhat beyond their means, so Jack’s two unmarried schoolmistress sisters, Bess and Julie, moved in with them to help pay the bills and look after the boys. A curious pair: Julie, who had been jilted when she was twenty-one, delicate and emotionally fragile; Bess big-hearted and controlling, they were to remain a part of the household for the next quarter of a century.

(Like Pieter, Julie and Bess also make an appearance of sorts in A Medal for Leroy.)

It was Bess who was deputed to take Pieter and Michael for a walk one afternoon, and to explain to them that Jack was now their father. A memory of their conversation remains with Michael, fragmentary but crystal-clear. ‘We were on a railway bridge. I must have said something about my father, and Bess said, “Well, you’ve got a new father now, you know.” And a train came by, and the steam came up in my face. And it just felt quite strange.’