Orphans of War (17 page)

Nothing was fun any more, not listening to
It’s That Man Again
on the wireless nor going to school in the snow. She just wanted to hide away under the bed covers and read. She’d devoured
Jane Eyre
again and
Little Women
and
Anne of Green Gables
for comfort. There was a lending library at the chemist–the books were too old for her but she read them just the same.

Books gave her comfort, knowing other girls had suffered death and sadness.

She no longer liked going to school and had tummy aches in the night and fevers and nightmares that allowed her a lie-in in the morning.

It wasn’t as if she was afraid of going out, but she felt safer in the kitchen, helping Ilse, making milky drinks for the oldies who were scattered about, trying their best to get dressed and downstairs before noon.

It was like a hotel, comings and goings up and down stairs. Aunt Julia had her routine, Grandma had hers, Aunt Plum was always out with the dogs or seeing to the two horses for the trap or helping down at the Vic.

Sometimes Maddy could go a whole day without thinking about not seeing Mummy and Daddy ever again, but other days it just flooded over her like a wave of terror to be so alone in the world. Panda did his best but he was only a stuffed toy. She was getting too old for toys but he’d seen her through the toughest of years.

If she kept quiet no one noticed she’d not been to school until they assembled for afternoon tea on the dot of four thirty. She helped Ilse bake scones and oaty biscuits.

By the time Aunt Plum came rushing through the door and noticed her with a perfunctory, ‘Are you feeling better, darling?’ she’d nod weakly. No further questions were asked until it started all over again, wetting the bed, headaches and tummy pains.

She had managed to stay off school for a whole week but now the school was closed anyway. Grandma sent for Dr David to examine her. He prodded and poked, pulled out her tongue, inspected behind her ears and eyed her up and down.

‘Just a wee bit run down, not surprising for the poor soul, but it’s time we did something about that eye before it weakens her sight.’

He was always more interested in her squint than her tummy. Out came the tonic bottle from his bag and the name of a surgeon in Leeds.

‘Let’s get the girl on her feet before we start poking into her eyes. It appears the last man didn’t make much of a job of it,’ said Grandma. ‘She’s just skin and bone. You’d think we were starving her, not an inch of flesh on her,’ she said, prodding Maddy in the arm as if she was feeling a chicken for the pot.

‘Away with you, Mrs Belfield, she’s tough and made to carry flesh like a thoroughbred, not a cart horse. But I’d send her to a ballet class to straighten out those humped shoulders before she gets a stoop. She’s going to be tall.’

And that was why Maddy was going to be packed off to Madame Drysdale’s Dance Academy in Scarperton to take a ballet class.

‘Do I have to go?’ she moaned to Aunt Plum. ‘I’ll be hopeless and it’s a long way on my own. Why can’t Gloria come too?’

‘The Battys don’t have the money to pay for classes, darling, and bus fares,’ she replied.

‘But we could pay for her…Please. I just can’t face going on my own.’ Maddy whined just enough times for Grandma to consent.

‘Just for a term, mind, to see if it suits, but if you miss classes they will stop for both of you.’

She’d gone with Aunt Plum to visit the Battys and were shown into the front room that smelled of damp and soot and must. Gloria was out and they’d sipped tea politely, and Aunt Plum explained the scheme to Mrs Batty who nodded and smiled and said, ‘How kind to think of her…especially after the unfortunate episode.’

Aunt Plum soon put her at ease with a wave of her hand and left it up to Maddy to tell Gloria this very afternoon, but she’d forgotten to tell her. Why?

As she sat up in the chilly tree loft she felt strangely distant from everything going on around her. Nothing was real any more. She just couldn’t be bothered to tell her and watch the look of delight beam over Gloria’s face.

Gloria would shine in the class and she would be dull. She was as pretty as Maddy was plain. An owl hooted from across the fields and she knew it was time
to head down. She was being mean to Gloria and now she realised why. It was because of her spoiling Christmas with the wrong news, misleading her and lulling her into safety.

Maddy wanted to punish her friend a little while longer and then she recalled what Gloria had told her in confidence about her own mother being a harlot, as it said in the Bible. She must look it up in the dictionary in the study. Gloria’s mother had given her up and run away; her own parents had no choice. It wasn’t their fault or Gloria’s fault. It just was. It was war.

Don’t be mean, she thought as she made her way back to the warmth of the Old Vic, so she could walk back with Gloria and tell her the news then. It was the least she could do. But she was not going to speak to Greg Byrne ever again.

Plum rushed down to the Vic as soon as she heard the news that Enid had turned up safe, having been picked up trying to thumb a lift with her ‘boyfriend’, who was now on a charge of abducting a minor. She arrived to a scene of total chaos. From high up the wall, there were a pair of legs dangling from the upper casement window.

‘Get down at once, Enid Cartwright! Stop making an exhibition of yourself,’ shouted Avis Blunt. ‘I don’t know why they bothered to bring you back, you brazen huzzy!’

‘What’s going on, Gregory?’ Plum turned to the young man staring up at the drama.

‘The silly cow says she’s going to jump out of the window if they don’t let her see Alf. She won’t be sent away to no home either.’

‘Cook’s left me to see to the pastry in the oven,’ said Miss Blunt. ‘You must deal with this now…Let her jump, for all we care. There’ll be more for us if she does. I’m sick of her tantrums.’ Avis turned back to the girl, wagging her finger. ‘It’ll be bread and no jam for you until you see sense, my girl. I never had this trouble with my prep school boys. My nerves can’t stand any more of the likes of you. Don’t scratch the paintwork!’

Plum was tired and in no mood for this drama. What with Maddy being difficult and moody, Mother-in-law off her food and being a martyred Minnie, Ilse giving her notice as she wanted to help in the local hospital, and the parcel of supplies to deliver, her head was throbbing.

Plum looked up at the gangling girl with her plump legs and ankle socks, her hair pinned up in a straggly Victory Roll, trying to look older than she really was. How did you reason with a defiant girl of that age? Call her bluff, she thought.

‘If you’re going to jump, Enid, do get on with it. Matron and I haven’t time to stand here gawping at your dramatics. It’s starting to rain.’ Deliberately she turned her back and began to walk away, trembling at her own words. What if the silly girl did jump and she was accused of incitement to suicide?

‘I’m not going to no home…I was coming back any roads…It’s not fair, I ain’t done nothing
wrong,’ Enid shouted, but the voice was wobbly and tearful.

Plum turned to see her half in and out of the window. ‘Oh, Greg, can you talk some sense into her?’ she sighed.

‘Who said anything about another home?’ he shouted up at her.

The would-be delinquent paused at this different tack. ‘Shut yer mouth, Byrne. It’s none of yer bloody business what I do!’

‘Why should you be treated any different from the rest of us? What’ve you done to help out but moan and whine and skive off?’ he replied.

‘I went to school, don’t I? I never asked to come to this dump. I done me chores but I’m not a kid, am I? I just want to do what the other girls in the village get up to…yer only young once, Alf says. There’s nothing else to do in these hills. It’s all don’ts in this place: don’t show a light; don’t leave a gate open; don’t make a din; mind your manners and sit at the table. They think we’re rubbish kids,’ she called out to her audience.

‘From where I’m standing, that’s just what you deserve,’ Greg yelled. ‘You can’t just run off and expect everyone to welcome you back with open arms. You let Mrs Plum down.’

‘Hark at ’im. You’d be off down that road like a flash if there weren’t a fancy car for you to fiddle with. You’ve gone soft, teacher’s pet. I know your game. I’m not a kid, I’ll be working soon and then no one can stop me and Alf being together.’

It was too much to stand by and let the boy try to bring her down. Plum was blazing mad as the rain poured down on them but now was not the time to show it. How had she ever got talked into this job?

‘From where I’m standing, Enid, all I can see is next week’s washing and a big baby making an exhibition of herself. I hope Alf isn’t peering down his binoculars, seeing you in your glory; not very glamorous or grown up to get everyone worried and searching for you, and now your boyfriend’s in the glasshouse because of you.’

‘I don’t care,’ Enid said.

‘Well, we do, young lady. Some boyfriend! And you don’t even care what happens to him? Still,’ she paused trying a different tack, ‘if you fall we’ll have to pick up the pieces and send for the undertaker to measure you up. So if you’re going to jump, do it quickly before all these lovely American magazines in my bag get soaked. We’ve had another parcel from over the water full of tinned fruit and goodies. We’ll share out yours with the others, if that’s all right. You’ll not be around to worry and Alf will find another girlfriend in your place,’ she said, hoping this might tempt the disobedient young pup into behaving.

‘What magazines?’ Enid’s sturdy legs were edging back over the window sill.

‘Oh, just
Moviegoers,
that sort of stuff, but I can send them for salvage…or I can send for the constable again and then you really will be in trouble. It’s your shout,’ Plum coaxed, sensing a shift in the wind.

‘Keep yer hair on! I’m coming down. It’s just not fair.’
Enid wriggled back through the window, to everyone’s relief.

‘That was good, miss,’ laughed Greg.

‘Sometimes the carrot works better than the stick…And what’s this about you running away too? I thought you were starting work at Brigg’s Garage?’

‘No fear, miss. I know when I’m well off, and so does she, up there shouting the odds,’ Greg smiled, seeing Plum’s anxious look. ‘Take no notice. It was hard at first for all of us to settle, what with the village lads calling us names, but once we’d bloodied their noses on the way home from school a time or two, we’re sort of all one gang now, miss.’

Plum smiled, knowing a few of the matrons of Sowerthwaite had turned their noses up at some of the latest arrivals, especially young mothers in curlers, smoking fags on the doorsteps of their billets, hanging about looking bored. The town was full of newcomers unused to country ways. There’d been gossip about some of the young mothers complaining about there being no chip vans, dance halls or public houses, and giving lip to their betters. Perhaps if the locals knew just what some of these families had been through, they’d not be so quick to condemn.

Even Enid had chosen to run back here and take her punishment, sensing they’d be fair with her, the crafty little minx. It was a good sign when runaways returned to the fold like naughty puppies. Enid knew when she was well off too, however much she protested.

If only Maddy was that easy to settle. It was hard to get through the tough little shell she had grown in
the past months. Her fears and worries were hidden deep behind a ‘don’t bother me’ mask. Perhaps if they made sure her eyesight was secure, and straightened out the squint, it would give her confidence for when she started her new school.

If Plum had learned anything from working with these young girls it was that appearance mattered. How easy to forget how she’d agonised over spots on her own face and whether her nose was too straight. Poor Maddy had to wear those awful specs and the patch. She pretended not to care but she must be the butt of teasing and worse. How could they have left it so long? The girl was never going to be pretty so they must make the best of what she’d got.

Greg was in big trouble. It was not as if he meant to steal the soldier’s motor bike. It was just there and he couldn’t resist. He’d ridden it enough times across the battery field as a reward for doing errands and stuff. He liked going up there and watching them scanning the skies for enemy aircraft, oiling their machinery and playing football. It was one of those days when The Rug was on the warpath, nag, nagging, bending their ears with her petty rules and regulations: ‘Wash your hands’; inspections behind the ears. He’d had years of this sort of rubbish and thought that a quick lick and a promise would pass muster, but not with Miss Blunt.

‘Byrne, you are old enough to set an example but I can grow potatoes behind your ears so go and wash them again!’

Would he hell! Greg scarpered out of the back door and up the hill. There were times lately when he just needed to be on his own. All that fussing just pissed him off. When was he going to grow up proper? He was stuck in between a kid and a lad. There was a war going on and he wasn’t in it. Real danger was coming,
and all that old trout fussed on about was a few crusts behind his lugs. That was when he saw Barry’s bike, mud splattered but begging to be started up. He knew which wires to cross to ignite the engine if the key wasn’t there–he’d learned that at the previous hostel–but he was in luck as the key had been left for anyone to steal.