Home Sweet Home (5 page)

‘Stan Sweet, you're a fool,' he murmured. ‘Charlie, come down off there,' he shouted at his young grandson, who had managed to climb halfway up the stone angel.

It was seven thirty in the evening. Dr Foster was sipping his whisky very carefully. Although he had a supply at home, buying a shot in one of the village pubs was something he liked doing in order to find out the local gossip. He'd also just come from delivering a baby, so the tipple was by way of wetting the baby's head. Not that he'd been treated by the grateful parents. He just liked congratulating himself on a job well done.

He was also here in the hope of seeing one person in particular who could help him out with a certain problem. The problem had been playing on his mind.

When Stan Sweet came in they greeted each other cordially. Being of the same age they tended to view the world with a sense of shared experience and also, when it came to the war, déjà vu.

This evening, Stan Sweet had the distinct impression that the good doctor was aching to ask him something. The man was fingering his glass, turning it round on the bar top as though something was worrying him.

‘Jim,' said Stan, addressing the doctor by his first name. They'd known each other since the end of the Great War. ‘Is something wrong?'

The doctor drained his glass and accepted Stan's offer to refill it. ‘It's me that's supposed to ask you that.'

‘You usually do, but now it's me asking you,' said Stan.

‘I need a favour.'

‘If it's extra bacon you're after, there's none available until we've got the approval to slaughter,' said Stan, who still kept a few pigs in partnership with an old friend.

Dr Foster shook his head. ‘Nothing to do with pigs and bacon, Stan. It's Mrs Gates. She's had another baby …'

Stan's eyebrows rose like hairy wings above eyes that saw more of people than he sometimes wanted to see. ‘Another?'

‘It's her sixth. It makes me feel like contacting her husband's superior officer and suggesting he gives him less leave. If she doesn't get some rest, she's likely to become very ill, perhaps be unable to care for the baby—.'

Stan took a sip of his beer, relishing its dark oaky flavour. ‘I hear what you're saying. She needs a break from the rest of those kids.'

‘Quite right.' Satisfied that the subject he'd broached had been well received, the doctor took a sip of his whisky and prepared to put forward the rest of his plan. ‘The trouble is she's got no relatives in these parts, so I was thinking now's the time for her children to be evacuated, that way she doesn't have to find the money to keep them, money she hasn't got and something extra to worry her.' He took another sip of whisky then wiped his bushy moustache with two long fingers.

‘That seems the best solution,' commented Stan.

‘I think so too, except that she won't have them sent anywhere the evacuation people send them, and she won't have them split up. So I was wondering …'

Stan Sweet was ahead of him. ‘Ada Perkins. Our Frances loved being over there with her.'

Dr Foster peered at Stan, owl-like wisdom shining in his eyes. ‘Can you get in touch with Mrs Perkins? I did ask Mrs Powell, but you know what she's like. Told me that both her mother Ada and her daughter Miriam were dead to her. Shouted at me that people who lived in the Forest of Dean were followers of the devil, burrowed into the ground like rabbits and … did other things that rabbits do.'

Stan's hand holding the beer mug stopped halfway on its journey to his mouth. He smiled and shook his head. ‘Poor Gertrude. Telling us all that we're on our way to hell is about all she's got left.'

‘Can you get in touch with Ada?' the doctor asked again. ‘I would do it myself but it might be better coming from you, seeing as your niece was evacuated into her care.'

Stan nodded. ‘I dare say I can. Frances was very happy there and I'm sure she can be persuaded to take the Gates kids there, get them settled in, like. I expect she wouldn't mind staying with Ada if it came to that. It's just a case of getting somebody in the shop to help when our Ruby is off doing her war work.'

He conceded at least to himself that it wouldn't be that easy getting somebody to cover in the shop on those days when Ruby was demonstrating her baking skills. But if Frances could be persuaded to go back to the Forest of Dean, it would put off the dreaded moment of her demanding to see her mother.

‘So you think Ada will be willing to help out?'

‘I can write to her and ask.'

Dr Foster frowned. ‘The only problem is that writing can take a while. I wish there was some quicker way of finding out.'

Stan upended his glass. ‘There is. Leave it with me.'

The red telephone box stood only yards from the door of the post office in the village of Bentley in the Forest of Dean. A red pillar-box stood next to it.

Most people in the village – at least those who could read and write proficiently – used the pillar-box. Few used the telephone box unless it was a dire emergency, mainly because they knew nobody with a telephone. Another reason was that the whole procedure of putting pennies into the slots, pressing buttons A or B, dialling a number and speaking to a person they couldn't see, could be rather frightening for some.

The man who ran the village post office was just as daunted by the telephone box as most of the village. He did not want anything to do with the contraption the red metal box contained, but because he ran the post office, and the telephone was outside his premises, he was the one through whom messages were relayed. It was to this man that Stan Sweet sent a message for Ada Perkins.

To Stan, the doctor and Mrs Gates's great relief, Ada said that she would be happy to have the three girls and would arrange suitable accommodation for the boys.

‘Your only problem's going to be transport,' she said when she'd managed to call Stan back. ‘They've cut the amount of train services coming through, thanks to the shortage of staff. Men prefer to fight in a war rather than drive a steam train, which only serves to strengthen my belief that men are mad!'

Stan had chuckled at her comment while trying to work out how to get round the transport problem. He could use the bakery van – as long as he could get enough petrol to drive all the way around Gloucester and down into the forest.

He voiced his reservations to Ruby. ‘I've still got a bakery to run. I can't really spend a lot of time driving over there and shepherding the Gates kids.'

Ruby stopped running the hot iron over one of her dresses and frowned. ‘There has to be something we can do, though it's not just a question of transport. Someone has to accompany those kids. I can't do it. I've got baking demonstrations to prepare for.' Her face brightened. ‘The only person who knows that area well enough is Frances. She can help Ada settle the children in suitable accommodation that's not too far from where Mrs Perkins lives. I assume she won't have much room, seeing as she's taken Miriam in.'

Stan agreed with her, ‘Yes, I'd already thought our Frances would like to go with them.' Though he didn't admit that he'd also been hoping spending time in the country would help Frances forget her foolhardy plan to find her mother.

Frances didn't hesitate when her Uncle Stan asked her to shepherd Mrs Gates's children to Ada's. If there was one person who could advise her best on finding her mother, it was Ada. There had been a number of occasions when she'd attempted to ask her uncle Stan, but she'd chickened out at the last minute.

Neither Stan nor Ruby appeared to notice the look in her eyes. As far as they were concerned, everything was going to plan and she'd forgotten about finding her mother.

Stan voiced one particular problem that still remained. ‘We still have to work out how to get everyone there.'

Ruby was ready with an answer. ‘How about I ask Declan if he can arrange something?'

‘Do you think he could?' Stan's face brightened. All he knew about the military policeman was that Ruby went out with him. As long as the man didn't marry her, he was all right with him. He really did not wish his remaining daughter to marry an American and move to the United States. It had already been suggested that Mary would eventually move to Canada with her husband Michael. But not yet, he counselled. He sorely wanted to see his new grandchild before that happened.

‘That doesn't mean he can just borrow a truck and a driver to take a gang of kids out for the day. He'll have to get permission,' Ruby pointed out.

‘Of course he has to get permission. I understand that.'

‘And he'll need to work out how to get there. Maps and things.'

‘That's no problem. Frances, you can show Ruby's friend the way, and if he's got any common sense at all, he should be able to find his way back by himself – otherwise I fear the US Army will never find France, let alone Germany!'

Although Frances looked forward to seeing Ada again, she had no intention of staying there. ‘I'll show him the way back too! Ada won't have room for me and the Gates family. Anyway, you'll need somebody in the shop and to look after Charlie. I have to come back.'

Stan saw the defiance in his niece's face. His plan had backfired. He'd have preferred her to stay over with Ada for a week or two at least, just long enough to forget this madcap scheme of finding her mother. Still, a day out might do her good.

‘Let's hope your friend can arrange things,' said Stan.

‘I'm sure he will,' said Ruby with a smile. ‘I'll explain it all to him when I see him tonight.'

Ruby returned to her ironing. On hearing the crack of her father's newspaper as he prepared to read it, she knew instantly that there was something he wanted to say, but he was holding it back.

‘Are you serious about this American?' he asked suddenly.

Ruby laughed and shook her head. ‘I knew you were going to ask me that.'

Her father's confident expression faltered because she'd actually read his mind. ‘There's nothing wrong in it,' he responded with a grumble to the edge of his voice. ‘I'm only concerned for your welfare and happiness.'

Ruby kept on ironing. ‘I know, Dad. But we're only friends. I'm not about to run off with him. My home is here.'

He asked the question that had been on his mind for some time. ‘What will you do if you never hear from Johnnie? What if he never comes back?'

She stopped ironing. Without raising her eyes from the pillowcase, she said, ‘I think of him every day, of what he might be going through – if he's still alive, that is. I … I might marry him when he gets back.'

She purposely didn't use the word ‘if'. She had to believe that he would come home.

Mary Sweet was getting used to life with her husband in the flat Lincolnshire countryside.

‘That's why there are so many flying fields around here,' Michael had told her when she'd voiced her desire to see a few hills. ‘Aircraft need flat land.'

Mary had been amused. ‘And there was me thinking it was because Germany was a shorter flying time from here!'

September was proving to be very mild, although a fierce gale had blown through the countryside at the end of the first week.

Not that Mary had cared about the rain hammering against the windows or the draught creeping through the gap at the bottom of the ill-fitting front door. The seventeenth of September was a milestone in her married life: it was the day Michael came home from hospital. His bandages had been removed the day before. Up until that date, his damaged hands and torso had been bathed in a saline solution and the dressings changed regularly.

Mary had wanted to go to the hospital and bring him home, but he'd refused, saying it was bad enough that he would smell of antiseptic without her smelling of it too.

After taking off his cap, he'd ducked his head beneath the front door lintel. Sergeant Innes had fetched him and his effects in an official car and followed him through the door. The sergeant had placed a brown paper carrier bag on the floor. It didn't contain much, just two pairs of pyjamas, underwear, shaving soap and a face flannel.

‘Is there anything else I can do, sir?' Sergeant Innes asked.

Michael shook his head. His gaze was fixed on his wife. ‘Everything I want is here, Sergeant.'

‘Then I'll wish you good day, sir. Good day, Mrs Dangerfield.'

‘Good day,' Mary said softly. ‘And thank you.'

The front door had closed softly on the nasty weather and the discreet RAF sergeant.

Her heart racing, Mary had covered her cheeks with her hands. This was it! Michael was home. She could hardly believe it. Her legs would still have been weak even if she hadn't been pregnant. She had waited for this all morning, wanting to go with the sergeant to fetch her husband, but had been advised to consider her condition. Not that she'd been able to rest – she'd cleaned, dusted and polished to distraction, darting to the window every half hour to see if the car was in sight. And now he was here.

She'd baked a rabbit and mushroom pie for their lunch, and made a cake from stale breadcrumbs and stewed apple. She'd also rehearsed what she was going to say to her husband, words of love, of welcome and telling him how much she'd missed him. But all she had been able to say was, ‘Michael!'

There was triumphant glee in his smile and the way he flung his cap on top of the rest of his things. ‘Honey, I'm home.'

Mary tried to say something in response, just a few of the words she'd rehearsed; surely she could do that? It was no use. The words just wouldn't come. Instead her mouth had opened and closed like a goldfish. As though I'm drowning in happiness, she'd thought.

‘Do I look good to you?' he had asked.

Mary had flown into his arms and buried her face against his shoulder.