Orphans of War (22 page)

‘How can I have been so trusting, so gullible? Any good sob story and I’m a sucker…after all these years in this job. When something seems too good to be true, it usually is. Come on, Maddy, home. We’d better drop off at the Battys and give them the bad news too.’

Maddy sat in the car in silence. After all this time, the woman who’d thrust the Conleys into her care had turned up and whisked her friend away to America.
The lucky devil! She still had a secret dream that one day her own parents would turn up at the end of the war as if they’d never been away: a great comfort to imagine on nights when the gales howled and she couldn’t sleep.

It wasn’t fair. Why couldn’t it have been her turn too?

It was time to go, time to sign up and get out of Sowerthwaite, thought Greg as he marched up and down the square with the Home Guard, on parade for the last time, his long legs marching in time to the Silver Band. He felt daft playing at soldiers when the real war was hotting up. He’d never stayed anywhere as long as he had in the hostel but he wanted a change of sky.

It wasn’t as if he didn’t like his job with Brigg’s Garage but there was no future there for him, not with all those sons to carry on the business. The hostel wasn’t the same now that the old crowd had gone, and Maddy was busy with schoolbooks and a new horse called Monty. Any road, he was too big to be playing with schoolgirls. Greg was restless for adventure. It was time to get himself down to the barracks to sign on. He wanted to see other places than Yorkshire.

‘We shall miss you, Gregory. Mr Batty will miss you, always keeping the car ready when it was needed for an ambulance.’ Mrs Plum had shaken his hand when he’d gone to tell her he was leaving. There were tears in her eyes. ‘I always knew you’d make good. You’ll do well in the army, but promise to write to us. I’m sure Maddy will want to keep in touch too. If you’re ever
passing through you know there’ll be a welcome at Brooklyn. Here…’ She’d shoved some notes into his hand. ‘Just a little thank you. Send us your address and we can make up parcels.’

‘You shouldn’t, miss,’ he’d croaked, wanting to hug her but sensing he mustn’t. Ladies like her didn’t do such things.

Funny how this was the only place he’d ever been treated fair. Looking around him for the last time, he saw the old stone house with windows glinting in the spring sunshine, the tall avenue of trees on the long driveway and the daffs waving him off in the breeze. The days were pulling out, the sky was bright and the sheep were full of lambs. It was the nearest thing he’d ever had to a home. Not a bad place for a billet but it was time to move on.

Where he was going there’d be brick huts and concrete, barbed wire and guard houses. God only knew after that. What if he never came back?

Don’t look back, he thought, trying to stride out with confidence and wink at the girls on the pavements ogling the lads. There’d be plenty of them when he got his uniform and his stripes.

He’d always hold Sowerthwaite dear in his heart. It was what they were fighting for, country towns and villages like this that were safe and wouldn’t change, but who would he be when he returned? One thing was certain: when he came back to Brooklyn again it would be with his tail up. No one would ever look down on this vaccy ever again.

It had been a rotten day at Palgrave House School, three wet playtimes, lots of prep to do and Kay Brocklehurst on her back again. Why was there always one girl and her gang who took pleasure in sly digs at Maddy’s squint, her lack of bosoms and her being top in French and Latin again?

Sometimes she hated her form so much that it made her sick to sit at her desk. They were all so cliquey and she looked different, so no one bothered with her except Elsie Fletcher, who was very plump. It was just the same at playtime and home time, jostling and shoving down the steps to the gate and the long trek to the train.

She’d no special friend since Gloria had left and she felt the loss. There were the occasional letters but not much news from Leeds. Now all the girls were giggling and ogling the grammar school boys, slouching in their cocked caps and gaberdine macs, everyone trying to look grown up and sophisticated in school uniforms. What a laugh! How could anyone look grown up wearing black stockings and a gymslip with a wide-brimmed hat in bottle-green felt? She felt like a sack of potatoes. Maddy tried to ignore the pushing but in her rush to get away through the gate she accidentally nudged Pamela Brownlaw, Kay’s best friend.

‘Here, you! Mind your manners, Maddy Isaiah,’ shouted Kay. ‘You cross-eyed stick insect, get out of our way!’

‘I have as much right to the pavement as you,’ she snapped back. ‘And I’m not Maddy Isaiah.’

‘Oh yes you are…one eye’s higher than the other. Get it?’

Maddy tried not to let them see her distress. She was sick of these jokes at her expense so she put her nose in the air and ignored them.

‘Who’d ever want to look at her twice? You’re a freak,’ Kay shouted as they spilled out onto the pavement.

A smart young soldier was standing on the pavement eyeing the girls coming out of school. Kay stopped and looked him up and down. ‘What you staring at, Private? Looking for a girlfriend?’ She nudged her friends. ‘He’s a bit of all right, don’t you think?’

The young man stared down at her with a sneer. ‘I’m not into cradle snatching, especially a foul-mouthed bitch like you…Hi, Maddy.’

Maddy stopped and turned, seeing Greg resplendent in his new khaki uniform.

‘Oh, you’ve got leave at last! It’s been ages…’ He looked so grown up, tall and sophisticated.

‘Just got a twenty-four-hour pass, so I thought I’d call and see everyone before I’m on my way back to York. I took a chance you’d still be here. Are this lot bothering you?’ he asked.

‘No more than usual but you get used to it, it doesn’t matter,’ she lied.

‘Well, let’s give them something to think about then,’ he grinned. ‘I’ve borrowed a car–no, honest, the owner knows I’ve got it–so hop in and I’ll drive you back home.’ The cluster of girls stared with amazement as he grabbed her arm and shot across the street to a little open-top roadster.

‘Where did you get this? How on earth did you get petrol?’ It was dark green with a belt round its engine bonnet, a real Morgan.

‘A mate in the garage…I did a favour and sorted out his engine. Come on, I’ll take you for a spin and let’s give them an eyeful. Pretend you’re my girl,’ he laughed, kissing her on the cheek.

‘I’ll get a million detentions for this, if Miss Buswell sees me,’ Maddy blushed, but enjoyed it just the same. Greg revved the engine up and they did a two-point turn in the road, leaving Kay Brocklehurst and her gang staring in disbelief.

That should shut her up for a week or two if I can be mysterious, Maddy smiled to herself. She waved back at them, holding on to her hat for dear life. ‘Thanks,’ she shouted into the wind. He’d made her feel grown up and not just a frumpy little schoolgirl. He was her friend for life now after such an act of kindness in this cold world. ‘You can drop me off at the station, if you like.’

‘No, back to Sowerthwaite for me too for a couple of hours. I’d like to see the old HQ for one last time. Don’t know when I’ll be back again.’

Everyone made such a fuss of him at the Brooklyn, plying him with buns and tea as if he was still one of the evacuees, asking about his square bashing and his new life.

Greg was like a stranger. He’d grown inches, his voice was gruff and his hair Brylcreemed. He’d grown up and away from them in the last few months. It was if a barrier had come down, separating them from each
other. Maddy felt awkward and silly in her uniform. Greg was about to start a whole new adventure without her. Like Gloria he was disappearing from her life and she might never see him again. For the first time she wished she was pretty and grown up. She flushed at the thought of the peck on her cheek, given just to shock her silly school friends. That’s all you got when you were fourteen, a peck on the cheek and a pat on the bottom from Old Uncle Algie. Kay was right. Who’d look twice at a cross-eyed freak?

Leeds, 1945

Maddy sat up in bed and felt around the bandages, wondering when they’d come off and she could see the result of Mr Felstein’s effort to straighten her left eye. It was strange sitting in darkness without the usual country noises off in the distance: lambs bleating, dogs barking and the rustle of leaves in the trees. All she could hear was Leeds traffic, mill hooters, the rattle of vehicles in the street below and that hospital smell.

They’d put off this operation for so long. Not that she thought it would do any good, and whatever the result she might still have to wear glasses, but the worst was over now.

What a strange summer it had been since D-day and the excitement that the war might be over by Christmas–but it wasn’t to be.

One more year at school and then she’d be let loose on the world as a grown up. Grandma was already talking about some cookery course in the Cotswolds. Aunt Plum suggested a secretarial course, but Maddy wasn’t in any hurry to decide. Everything
was topsy-turvy now. She was waiting for the war to end and for life to start again.

There were only a few evacuees left in the hostel and she was too old to climb trees and do mischief with them, and since Gloria had disappeared and Greg joined up it wasn’t the same. She spent her weekends hacking over the tops with Monty, helping out in the garden and trying to cheer up Grandma when she was in one of her ‘slumps’.

Now she was the only one again in that rambling house. Uncle Algie had passed away suddenly. Aunt Julia was in a proper nursing home and her entourage dispersed other relatives. Uncle Gerald was still abroad and Grandma was busy ruling the roost so that all the old guests were leaving.

Their war had been an easy one compared to most–no bombs or devastation–but she still couldn’t believe she’d never see Mummy and Daddy again, or Gran Mills and Uncle George. Sometimes it felt as if The Feathers and her life in Chadley had never existed, that it was all some dream. Only the smell of fish and chips brought it back and made her feel sick.

Aunt Plum was kindness itself, but inside Maddy was feeling strange stirrings of confusion now that she had messy periods. She didn’t want to wear suspenders and stockings or put on a brassiere like the other girls. There was still nothing to fill it with, as the girls at school constantly reminded her. She’d grown so tall and gawky. Ballet had given her some grace to stand up straight but she was inches above the other girls at the bar re.

Then there were the spots that kept popping up on her cheeks and her chin. Her dark hair was growing lank and greasy and she felt silly in plaits, but even sillier when Plum showed her how to pad it out into a Victory Roll.

Gloria was the one who had breasts and curls and a waspie waist. According to her letters she could jitterbug better than anyone else in her new job. It was such a relief when letters appeared at the Brooklyn from her friend. Gloria said things were fine and dandy and they were going to go to Hollywood once Mick Delgado was out of the army, but she was vague about her new job, her mother and poor Sid, who wasn’t settling down back in the town and kept running away. She felt so sorry for them all.

There’d been one funny letter from Greg telling her about square bashing and being stuck in a hut, being put on a charge for being late and how they’d put him in the cookhouse even though he was a first-class mechanic. Poor Greg sounded fed up. Now he was somewhere in France, moving eastwards.

There was a flurry of nurses coming down the corridor, the squeak of brogues that announced the arrival of the eye surgeon on his morning rounds. Today was the day!

They fussed around her bed.

‘Can you see him coming?’ she asked.

‘Don’t be impatient. Mr Felstein will come to you in due course,’ snapped Sister.

But Maddy was impatient. She’d been waiting so long to see if someone would straighten out her eye
for good. She did so want to be like everyone else in school, not an object of pitying looks. She was sick of being called ‘sken eyed’ or ‘speccy four eyes’ by Kay Brocklehurst, but they’d laid off her a bit since Greg’s stunt with the sports car and the public kiss. It had been an agony to be pointed at and there wasn’t a name she hadn’t called herself when she dared to look in the mirror.

It seemed like hours before the surgeon breezed in.

‘Well, young lady, let me see my beautiful handiwork,’ he laughed. ‘Let’s get those dressings off…’

‘And then can I go home?’ she pleaded, but the surgeon laughed again.

‘Not so fast. I want to make sure there’s no movement. You’ll have to stay still a little longer to let things settle.’ Fingers were loosening and lifting, easing off the dressing.

Maddy opened her eyes to a blur of light, feeling the pressure off her brow as she stared at the little man in the white coat.

‘Will I do?’ she whispered, hardly daring to breathe.

‘Let me see…look this way…to my light…the other way to the wall. Hmm! That’s better, Madeleine…much better. Everything’s realigned nicely.’

She sank back into the pillow, hardly daring to move in case it all went wrong again.

‘We must exercise the muscle but I want you still a little while longer. Be patient,’ the doctor smiled, seeing her lips pout with frustration.