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One day I started a sort of mental game I got the idea from a book our Ronnie was reading. It was dealing with the power of thought, and it told you that anything you wished for in life could be yours, if you made the desire strong enough. I remember laughing with some bitterness as I read this there could be no desire stronger in anyone alive than the desire in me for Martin. The book gave a number of exercises that had to be done just before dropping off to sleep, and I did the exercises and played this game until I asked myself one night why Ronnie had been reading such a book, and it came to me, as it should have done at the beginning, that he was using the exercises to accomplish his desires as I was to accomplish mine, and from that moment I stopped doing them, but hope was in no way lessened in me.

Sam came back into the shelter saying briefly that everything was all right, but added, "By! there's some fires blazing round about," and as he sat down on the bunk he remarked, "You know I used to be terrified of the pit, but now I think it's the safest place." He was in his usual position with his hands hanging down between his knees, and he looked down at them as he stated, "They say given the will you can get over anything in life, but you can't, not really."

"Are you going to stay in the pit, Sam?" I asked.

"No," he said.

"When I make a bit money I'm going to save like billy-ho for that piece of land I've always been on about. You know," he went on, his eyes still cast down, but now with his head moving slowly from side to side,

'when I'm sitting at the end of that conveyor belt pushing the coal around I'm not seeing coal. Some pieces are taties, and the longish pieces carrots, and when along comes a piece that's nice and rounded I say "There's a grand turnip for you, that one's threepence, Mrs.

Jones."

I was laughing again, a real laugh. It started as a chuckle inside, then for the first time in nearly three years I_was really laughing, really laughing, and Sam was laughing with me, his eyes on me now. And Constance slept all through the laughter as she had through the bombing.

"Oh, Sam," I said, as I held myself, "I've got a lot to thank you for."

His kind mouth was smiling and his eyes had a gentle light. From his expression you would have imagined he had just received a gift of some kind. I knew as I looked at him that this was what he had been trying for during these past years, to bring my laughter back. Across the narrow space I put out my hand and touched his knee.

"Thanks, Sam," I said. As his head drooped I patted him two or three times, and this reminded me of my mother. When unable to find words with which to express her feelings she would pat.

This moment of warm comfort between Sam and me was broken by a voice calling, "Anybody there?"

Sam rose hastily and went to the door, and a man's voice said, "Any of the Winters inside... the father?"

"No, only Christine."

There was a pause, and I stood behind Sam and asked, "What is it?

Anything the matter? "

Again there was a pause; then the man said, "I'm afraid, lass, your brother's been hurt."

A stillness settled within me. Then out of it I heard my voice asking,

"Has there been a fall?" Although the war was on we pit folk would always associate accidents with the mine.

The man's voice came again.

"No, lass. It was the bomb that got the bridge."

I was outside in the passage now, standing close to the man, and as I peered into his face I said, "It couldn't be my brother, he's doing his shift. He left the house about an hour ago."

"Well, lass, he's been recognized as Ronnie Winter. Where's your dad?"

"He he's at work, Ronnie and him went out together. He's not " No. As far as I can gather there was a woman and two baims and your brother.

Can you come to the hospital? "

I looked at Sam, and he whispered, "I'll see to her, go on."

I picked up my coat and followed the man, and not until we were outside did I realize that he was in uniform and an A.

R.

P.

warden.

A jeep was coming down the road and he hailed it and said to the driver, "Will you give us a lift to the footbridge, the main one's gone?"

"Get up," said the man.

"Where you for?"

"The General Hospital," replied the A.

R.

P.

man.

"This lass's broAer caught it." His voice had taken on a sad intonation.

"Oh."

I felt the man's eyes slip towards me for a second. I said nothing because I was feeling nothing.

When we reached the place where the bridge had stood there seemed to be crowds of people about; it was the same at the footbridge, and the driver said, "Look, I'll run you down to Bog's Bridge and take you right to the hospital that way."

"Thanks," said the warden.

Ten minutes later I was in the casualty ward, and standing in a small cubicle by the side of a bed. On it lay Ronnie. His face looked very clean, as if it had been lightly powdered. His eyes were closed and I knew without being told that he was near death. As a thought rose up swiftly to the surface of my mind I cried at it, "No! No, for God's sake dont wish that. How can you?" But I knew in my heart that I could and did wish that he would die.

Someone pushed a chair forward and I sat down, and someone else brought me a cup of tea but I couldn't drink it. I sat there for three hours.

Towards the end of that time Ronnie opened his eyes and looked at me.

There seemed to be no recognition in the look yet he lifted his hand towards me. But before my hand reached him his dropped back on to the counterpane, and I knew that my subconscious desire had been granted.

Ronnie was dead, and pity and remorse and relief, but also love, yes strangely, love, now twisted my whole being.

A different nurse came and led me away into another room and she spoke to me as if I were his wife.

"Have you any children?" she asked.

After a moment I moved my head and she said, "Well, dont worry, you'll be taken care of."

Something loud within me yelled at her "Shut up! shut up!" and when I shuddered she said, "You mustn't catch cold." I had to get away from her and her misplaced kindness or I would scream. A few minutes later a woman took me home in i35

a car and I didn't thank her, but ran into the house and into the kitchen and retched my heart out at the sink.

Ronnie had been dead three weeks and Dad still kept saying, "If only he had gone down that night."

The mystery of how Ronnie had come to be on the bridge when he should have been down the pit was solved when Dad had come up the next morning. While they waited for the cage Ronnie had apparently said he felt off-colour, that he could not go down and must go back to bed. As Dad was telling me this there had come to my mind a saying of my mother's: "The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small'. Ronnie had been unable to get me alone, Dad was always there.

I had no doubt in my mind that his illness was a ruse to be in the house alone with me, and he had paid dearly for it. Yet, now safe from anything he could do, or try to do, I could say, "Oh, Ronnie. Poor Ronnie." But I did not hide from myself the release from strain that his death had brought to me. There remained only Don Dowling, and now, oddly enough, since Ronnie's death, he had let up in his persecution.

For the first time since my mother had threatened him with the poker he came to our door. Dad answered it and asked him in, and he stood in the kitchen expressing his sympathy in tones that sounded sincere.

"We had our differences. Uncle Bill," he said, 'but we were pals from when we were lads. "

"Aye, that's true," said Dad.

"You'll miss him, Christine," he said to me.

He had spoken my name as if he had never stopped using it, and although his tone was most kindly I could not help but wonder what was behind the words "You'll miss him, Christine." But after that one remark he addressed himself to Dad all the time. He did not stay more than a few minutes, and when he left he said to Dad, "If there's anything I can do, Uncle Bill, you've only to ask. I'm just next door, you know."

There was no tapping through the wall now, there was no singing loudly or playing of the guitar, nor did he come again to the house for almost a month after this first visit. Then one day there was a knock on our front door, and when I went to it he said, "Hullo, Christine," and before I could reply he asked, "Is Uncle Bill about?"

"He's in the kitchen," I said.

"Can I see him a minute?"

He made no attempt to come in, and I did not ask him to but went into the kitchen and told Dad.

It was almost ten minutes later that Dad closed the front door and came back into the room. He had a parcel in his hand and he looked at me rather helplessly as he put it on the table, saying, "Now dont go for me, lass, I couldn't do any thing about it."

"About what?" I asked.

"This." He tapped the parcel.

"It's some butter and sugar and stuff."

I sighed and closed my eyes for a moment, then said quietly, "Dad, you mustn't start that, not with him."

"I know, I know, lass." Dad's tone sounded harassed.

"But what could I do? He's trying to be kind and he seems changed. I think Ronnie going was a shock to him an' all. We've got to give him a chance, lass."

I did not answer, but went into the kitchen thinking, "Dear God, dear God." And Dad came after me, saying, "And there's Phyllis, she's got nothing really, nothing but her bits and pieces. It's her that's to be pitied."

Some time later an incident occurred which explained the many, and seemingly useless, bits and pieces that my Aunt Phyllis gathered about her. I was in Burton's in the High Street, upstairs in the china department, or what had been the china department before china, like everything else, became hard to get. Burton's was a sort of multiple store, with counters dotted here and there and goods displayed in arranged piles on the floor. It was just as I caught sight of my Aunt Phyllis's familiar back that my steps towards her were halted, for I saw her hand, which was holding a cloth bag at her side, gently pick up a small ornament and with a swift twist of her wrist slip it into the bag and she carried this out while looking the other way. The whole thing was so slick that I could not believe my eyes. I was only a few yards from her, and the next instant she had turned and was facing me, and she saw by my face that I knew what she had done, for she came towards me quickly, saying "Come on."

"But, Aunt Phyllis...."

"Look' she was breathing quickly 'dont stand there with your mouth agape, come on." She grabbed hold of my arm, but when I refused to be moved her whole attitude changed and she pleaded in a whisper, "For God's sake, Christine, come on ... come on. I'll explain, I'll tell you about it when we're outside."

I allowed her to lead me from the shop, but once outside I pulled my arm from her. We passed up the main street and were on the road for home before she spoke. Then she said, "I've never done it before, honest. I dont know what came over me."

I was shocked at the idea of her stealing and felt only con tempt for her lying, and so there was little pity in my voice as I said, "You have done it before, all those odd, useless things coming into the house for years."

I had not looked at her as I spoke, but when she did not answer or deny anything I glanced sideways at her and could not help but be touched to see her in tears. I had never seen her cry, never, and now she was mumbling, "I only do it when I'm worried, I can't help it.

It's Don, he's on with a woman in Bog's End. She's old enough to be his grandmother, as old as me anyway. It's nearly driving me frantic.

I only do it when I'm worried. "

In this, at least, I believed her; she only did it when she was worried. The knowledge, too, that Don had a woman came as a relief to me, and my tone was much more kindly as I said, "All right, Aunt Phyllis." Then I added, "But if you're caught, just think what'll happen."

"Sometimes I dont care if I am." Her tone was so dead sounding, so hopeless, that I realized as I looked at her how true my mother's words had been. Aunt Phyllis was a very un happy woman. She was not yet forty yet she looked an old woman. She had no joy in life except her elder son, and he, I was convinced, cared not a fig for her. It was Sam on whom she had thrashed out her unhappiness. It was he alone who showed her any consideration, and she could not find even a small grain of comfort in it for she had no love for Sam. I now thought, "Poor unhappy soul, poor Aunt Phyllis."

When I reached home and entered the kitchen and saw Constance turn from Sam and rush towards me with a cry of joy, and felt her little arms tighten about my legs and heard her voice cry, "Mummy, Mummy," I thought that after all I had quite a lot to be thankful for. I had her, and there was no bitterness in my heart.

I hadn't been in the house long enough to put away the rations and the odd things I had bought in the town when there came a tap on the back door, and thinking it was Aunt PhyUis again, I called, "Come in!"

It was Don who appeared in the kitchen doorway, filling its frame and making the room look small with his hugeness. At times he looked bigger than at others; when he was in a pleasant humour he seemed to swell.

He looked at me now and said "Hallo, there," and I said lightly,

"Hallo, Don." Then he glanced at Sam who was getting up from the mat where he had been playing with Constance and said, "You're cutting it fine, aren't you? You should be on your way."

"Oh, I've time enough," said Sam briefly, and his tone, I noticed, was not that of a younger brother to an elder, and such an elder, but he spoke to Don as to an equal, and his tone implied, if not an active dislike, utter disregard, and he made no move to leave the kitchen, for which I was thankful.

"Been for your rations?" Don nodded down to the articles on the table, and I said, "Yes, I've been for the rations."

"Well, there's no need to starve yourself, you know that, dont you?"