Safe Harbour (9 page)

Aunt Maud and Aunt Dolly sipped their milky tea slowly, while the children gulped down glasses of the freshly-made lemonade. Shopping definitely made you thirsty! Hugh eyed the cake-stand greedily and put a chocolate slice on his plate.

Two or three elderly couples came over to say hello to the aunts, and they chatted about the weather and golf and a game of bridge. They seemed curious about the two strange children. ‘Jerome’s grandchildren!’ was the only answer they were given. The children smiled politely. Sophie could see a flicker of surprise in the old people’s eyes at this information.

The grandaunts were a totally different kettle of fish when they were away from Grandfather, and they quizzed Sophie in detail about their lives in London. Where did they live? What size was their house? Did they have any help in the house? What school was she going to? Did they have to pay fees?

Hugh gave Sophie an elbow in the ribs and became unusually silent.

Sophie wanted to be friendly to the two old ladies but not indiscreet, and there was the question of loyalty to Mum and Dad. She did her best to seem jolly and friendly, but after an hour of it her head ached, trying to remember what to say
and what not to say.

Two spots of red flared in Aunt Maud’s gaunt cheeks when Sophie told her about Mum and the hospital. ‘What’s her condition, Sophie? What’s the prognosis?’ She was all attention as Sophie outlined her mother’s illness and what the nurse had told her.

‘The very best of nursing! That’s what the children’s mother needs. Mark my words, Dolly!’ Aunt Maud stated.

‘Well, I’m sure that all concerned are doing their very best,’ said Aunt Dolly, patting Sophie’s hand. ‘You know, child, how sorry we are about Libby, we’re keeping her in our prayers.’

Finally, the aunts called the waiter and settled the bill.

‘I know, Sophie, we didn’t get much for you today,’ said Aunt Dolly.

‘Perhaps a trip on the train to Dublin?’ murmured Aunt Maud, rummaging in her handbag, ‘nice shops there, almost as good as London, fine style for a girl your age. We’ll mention it to Jerome.’

‘Thank you,’ said Sophie politely, secretly aghast at the thought of another shopping trip.

‘I feel sick!’ whispered Hugh.

Any wonder, thought Sophie – he’d been stuffing himself for the last hour.

‘If you don’t mind,’ she said, ‘I think I’d better take Hugh home, he’s not feeling very well.’

‘We’ll walk with you,’ offered the grandaunts.

‘No, honestly, it’s better we go on our own, we’re nearly home already. Thank you so much for all you’ve done.’

Sophie kissed the two sets of powdered cheeks politely. She grabbed Hugh and the parcels, and the two of them chased back to the relative peace and quiet of Carrigraun.

Early next morning Hugh dressed himself in his new clothes. Sophie smiled to herself. He definitely looked healthier than he had done before they came to Ireland. His shoulders seemed to have broadened a bit, and his skinny legs didn’t seem quite as bandy. His face was losing that scared, pinched, tense look, which, now that she thought about it, many of the kids back home had.

She pulled him close. ‘You know I love you, Hugh!’

‘Course you do! You’re my big sister,’ he smiled shyly.

‘And you’re the best brother anyone could have!’ She felt so lucky to have him. She fixed the shoulder of his new jumper. ‘And you look very handsome!’ she said.

Hugh smirked. Nobody had ever told him that before. ‘Well, I think you’re getting prettier too,’ he complimented her in return.

Sophie laughed, even if it wasn’t true. She hadn’t changed, she was still plain old Sophie. Her hair was maybe a bit shinier from the soft water, and the sea breeze had already turned her normally white skin to a soft golden colour, but it would take more than a week by the sea to make her any bit pretty.

‘Come on, Hugh! We’d better hurry or we’ll be late for breakfast!’

Grandfather was engrossed in his newspaper, and barely
nodded at them. Nancy had told them he used to get all the newspapers but now because of paper shortages he was trying to restrict himself to one, which he read from front to back.

Hugh stood in front of him and coughed. Grandfather looked up.

‘Well, Hugh, my boy! They say clothes maketh the man. I’m not sure about that, but there is most definitely an improvement.’ Hugh’s eyes sparkled with the compliment. ‘Good to have got rid of all those old clothes of yours, I bet!’ he added absentmindedly, turning over a page.

Sophie stopped eating. ‘Grandfather!’ The old man kept on reading. She made a swipe at the page, disturbing him. ‘What did you do with Hugh’s old clothes?’ she asked earnestly.

‘Eat your breakfast, girl! Don’t be letting good food get cold!’

‘The clothes!’ she demanded angrily.

‘Sophie! What on earth are you on about? I told Nancy to get rid of Hugh’s old clothes.’

Sophie jumped up from the chair and raced out to the kitchen, where the housekeeper was making a fresh pot of tea.

‘Nancy! What did you do with Hugh’s old clothes?’ she demanded.

‘Oh, I put them out in the bin. Why?’

Sophie ran across the red tiles and out the back door to the yard. There were two bins standing against the fence. One was very smelly, obviously full of food scraps. She
lifted the lid off the other one. Immediately, she spotted the familiar piece of grey hand-knitting and dragged it out, clutching it to her.

‘Oh! Oh!’ she sighed with relief.

Nancy stood in the doorway watching her. ‘Sophie, are you all right? You know I wouldn’t do anything to offend you!’

Sophie nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She walked back to the dining room.

‘Do you see this?’ she said, brandishing the outgrown grey jumper. ‘My mother knitted this for my little brother. She managed to get the wool somehow or other, and she sat by the fire, night after night, knitting it. She put in that blue stripe, to match his eyes.’

‘Calm down, girl!’ remonstrated Grandfather, laying down the newspaper.

‘With the rest of the wool,’ continued Sophie, ‘she made a pair of socks for Dad so his army issue boots wouldn’t hurt so bad. Mum hates knitting – she’s always dropping stitches and forgetting to count rows. It makes her eyes water, and gets her cross.’ She shook the ragged-looking jumper under Grandfather’s nose. ‘But still she knitted this … remember, Hugh … and Mum nearly died trying to get this jumper … she went out to the washing …’

It was no use. Two pairs of bewildered male eyes focused on her.

‘You! You don’t understand a thing!’ she screamed at her grandfather. ‘You have your big house, your furniture, your pictures, your ornaments, your precious books, while we’ve
got nothing – no house, not a room, nothing left that is just ours.’ Sophie clasped the jumper to her. ‘I’m keeping it!’ she said firmly. She took it upstairs and hid it under her pillow.

Back downstairs, Grandfather was waiting for her. Hugh had made himself scarce.

‘I apologise, Sophie!’ Grandfather told her. ‘It was thoughtless of me. It was all my fault, not Nancy’s. I should have consulted you and Hugh about your things.’ She nodded silently. ‘You miss London, and naturally you miss your parents and friends. Greystones and I are a poor substitute for home and hearth.’ She could tell by the way he was rubbing his beard that he was trying to figure out what to say to her next. ‘I did tell your Aunt Jessica my reservations about evacuating you to Ireland and my taking the two of you,’ he continued.

‘We are grateful, honestly, Grandfather,’ she interrupted.

‘One has to do one’s duty, what is expected. It’s the least I could do in the circumstances,’ he added.

Duty. Like a cold grey stone off the beach, the word pressed down on Sophie, making her feel breathless. Duty – that’s all she and Hugh were to this stranger, whom they called Grandfather. She stared at him, but he had already retrieved his newspaper.

‘Excuse me, Grandfather!’ she whispered politely, ‘I think I’ll go and find Hugh.’ He didn’t even look up, as with tears welling in her eyes she ran from the room.

The seagulls screeched and whirled above them in the bright blue sky as spring drifted lazily towards summer and the days got longer. Grandfather wanted the two of them to start in the local schools.

‘It’s hardly worth it!’ Sophie protested. ‘It’s only a few weeks to the summer holidays and we’ll be back in England by the autumn.’

‘That makes no difference,’ argued Grandfather. ‘I’m not having the two of you miss out on your education just because you’re here in Ireland. Learning is the very cornerstone of society. You must go to school!’

Sophie sensed his determination, and gave in.

The convent school wasn’t bad. The nuns were as kind as they could be to the little English evacuee who had been landed on them. Hugh attended the boys’ primary school, and Sophie couldn’t believe how well he settled in and made friends. She envied her younger brother as he raced around the yard with Donal and Liam, two of the boys in his class, looking as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

She hated to admit it, but she was the one finding it hard to get used to the change. Sister Agnes, her teacher, did her best to integrate Sophie with the other girls and to encourage her to make new friends. But Sophie felt very much and outsider and she kept mostly to herself.

She noticed that the others all talked about ‘the emergency’ but to her, coming from the London Blitz, it was most definitely ‘the war’.

The school work was easy enough, and she couldn’t resist putting her hand up to answer the nun’s questions, ignoring the giggles from the back row and the girls who mimicked her London accent. They had already nicknamed her Miss Clever-clogs.

As soon as school was over she and Hugh wasted no time in getting to the beach and harbour, where the fresh sea air left them dizzy and full of a strange new kind of energy.

They both loved the harbour and spent hours playing on the shingle among the boats. There were all kinds of boats there lying in the sun, some sanded and varnished and tended with love and care, others scarred with years of neglect, with peeling paint and leaky bottoms where pools of dirty water stagnated.

The war seemed a very long way off, except for the awful loneliness of missing Mum and Dad, and wishing that they were a family again.

Every evening before tea, Grandfather would walk from one end of the long winding seafront to the other. Sophie often watched him in the distance. He walked as briskly as his bad leg would allow, sometimes stopping to nod politely to those he met along the way. He had a set routine and disliked having it disturbed.

Back at the house, Nancy was set on feeding the two of them up, making them drink big glasses of creamy Jersey milk from Wicklow cows and cooking the best meals ever
from whatever foods were in good supply – beef and lamb, eggs and fish and bacon, and fresh vegetables straight from the garden.

Grandfather had taken to letting the children listen to the wireless in the late evenings. He moved the set from his study into the drawing room, dusting it off and placing it on a mahogany sideboard. There was a special programme for children who had been evacuated and were far from home – in Wales, Scotland, Canada and the USA mostly – and Sophie and Hugh loved to join in all the songs. Grandfather stayed while these programmes were on, watching silently. Perhaps he thought they were silly with their marching songs and their funny verses. Sophie didn’t really care. The programme was a link with children just like her all over the world, and their home called out to them over the air waves:

One Saturday morning, Sophie sat on the wall, watching the curve of the harbour and its protective arm formed by the mountains and Bray Head, while down below on the beach Hugh and his friend Donal messed around in the boats.

She had stayed up late the night before, writing letters to Mum and Dad and Aunt Jessie. She had them in her pocket ready to post.

‘Hugh!’ she shouted, trying to get his attention. ‘I have to go to the post office. Come on! We’ll be back in a few minutes!’

He was engrossed playing pirates with his friend and he was deliberately ignoring her.

‘Hugh!’

‘I don’t want to go!’ he shouted at her.

‘Hugh! ‘

‘You go! I’ll stay here with Donal,’ he promised.

‘Oh, all right then!’ she agreed reluctantly. ‘I won’t be long.’

Sophie jumped off the wall, leaving the boys to their game. She walked up past the hotel entrance to Mrs Murphy’s shop. The shopkeeper, with her blond curly-haired baby resting on her hip, waved to Sophie. Sophie waved back, then ran on past the church and finally entered the stuffy stillness of the post office.

There was a queue ahead of her and she tapped her foot impatiently, making the man in front glare at her.

Her three letters were ready to go across the sea, all full of good news and cheerful things – things that sometimes gave her a feeling of such tightness in her throat and chest while she wrote them that she often had to put her pen down. Her Mum must never know about the nights she lay still in her bed with hot tears scalding her eyes and cheeks. Aunt Jessie must never know how she longed for someone to laugh and chat with so she would not feel so alone, and Dad must never realise that her sleep was haunted by bad dreams of bombs and bullets and of him being wounded or dead.

She posted the letters and ran back towards the harbour. A small crowd had gathered on the North Beach. Sophie wondered what they were doing. Was Hugh there in the middle of it all? In an instant she spotted Donal, his young face white and scared – and why had Mr Kinsella, his father, waded out into the water up to his chest? Two other fishermen were shouting and pointing at something.

Where was Hugh? She scanned the crowd carefully, searching for him.

A woman who had been sitting reading came up beside Sophie. ‘Apparently it’s some poor child,’ she said, ‘fell off a boat. The whole thing nearly capsized!’

Warning bells sounded in Sophie’s head. She could hear the gushing sound of water in her ears as she began to race, tumbling and tripping over the large uneven stones.

‘It wasn’t my fault, Sophie!’ pleaded Donal. ‘We were
taking turns pushing each other in and out and holding the rope. I dropped the rope and Hugh got scared. I told him to sit down and stay still and I’d get him, but he was trying to climb out or something and the boat went over to one side and he slipped in.’

‘Oh my God! Where is he?’ Sophie rushed headlong into the water. Mr Kinsella was lifting something up – it was her brother. His head flopped against the fisherman’s chest and his arms and legs dangled limply. His eyes were closed and his lips and face were almost totally blue.

The fisherman brushed Sophie aside and carried Hugh up onto the beach where he laid him on a coat that someone had spread out on the ground. He tilted Hugh’s head back and put his large hand across the boy’s pale neck.

‘Come on, lad. You’re safe. We got you out. Come on, lad.’

Sophie crouched on the stones beside him. ‘Hugh, don’t do this. Do you hear me? Don’t do this!’ She pulled at the cold wet hand and arm.

Hugh’s eyelashes seemed to move, something was stirring within him. A bubbling, choking kind of cough came from his throat.

‘Over you go, lad!’ Mr Kinsella rolled him gently to one side.

Water burst out of Hugh’s mouth and from the pinched whiteness of his nostrils, and he splurted and gagged.

A huge sigh of relief swelled from the crowd of people around.

‘The boy’s all right!’

‘Gave us a right scare but he’s safe now!’

‘Nearly drowned, you know!’

Mr Kinsella and Sophie knelt down beside Hugh. They were both soaking wet too and already Sophie was beginning to feel cold despite the sun.

‘I’m sorry, Soph!’ Hugh began to cry a funny kind of cry, as if he couldn’t get his breath.

‘Don’t talk, Hugh lad! Save your breath!’ advised Mr Kinsella.

Hugh’s teeth started to chatter and he began to shiver, his lips moving as if he were praying.

A woman interrupted them. ‘The boy’s in shock. We’d better get him home and get a doctor for him!’

Sophie snapped out of the slow weary feeling that clung to her. ‘We live up at the seafront and my grandfather – we live with him – is a doctor,’ she offered.

‘They’re the Fitzpatrick children, y’know,’ someone said.

The woman nodded. ‘Very well! My car is parked across the road. I’ll drive you all home.’

The fisherman lifted Hugh up and laid him gently on a rug in the back of the old grey Austin. Sophie sat beside him. The woman gestured to Mr Kinsella to get in the front.

‘I’m all wet, Ma’am. Maybe it would be better if I just walked home,’ he protested.

But she wouldn’t hear of it. ‘You’re all soaked through. You’ll end up with pneumonia if you don’t get warm and dry straight away. It’s the very least I can do.’

Seconds later they were outside the door of Carrigraun. Sophie could see the surprise on Nancy’s face when she opened the front door to the wet, bedraggled party.
Grandfather was called.

‘What in heaven’s name is it, woman?’ he shouted at Nancy as he came down into the hall, limping badly. His grey hair was muzzy and he looked tired. He’d been having a nap.

Nancy led him upstairs to Hugh’s bedroom. She undressed the boy quickly and dried him with a huge warm towel, before putting a fresh pair of pyjamas on him and pulling the blankets over him. Hugh lay exhausted, small and pale against the bulky white starched pillowcase.

Grandfather sent Sophie down to his study to fetch his black leather doctor’s bag.

First, Grandfather put on the old-fashioned stethoscope and lifted Hugh’s pyjama top to listen to his heart. All the time he talked in a reassuring hushed tone. The others waited on the landing as the doctor completed the examination.

His face was serious when he came out to them. ‘Hugh will be fine. He’s had a very bad shock and is naturally freezing cold. I’ll keep a good eye on that chest, but with any luck he should be fine.’

‘Oh that’s wonderful news!’ sighed the woman who had driven them home.

Grandfather shook Donal’s father by the hand once they got downstairs. ‘Thank you so much, Mr Kinsella. I … my family are forever in your debt. My son Neil would be …’ he paused, finding it difficult to go on ‘… very very grateful.’

Sophie stared – he had actually mentioned her father, said his name.

Donal’s father was beginning to get cold. He pulled the rug around his shoulders as he got back into the front seat of the car.

‘Thank you!’ they all called, as they waved a subdued goodbye.

‘Come on, Sophie. I’ll run a bath for you,’ offered Nancy, ‘then into bed with you for a while.’

Grandfather was back inside, talking to Hugh. Shaken and exhausted, Sophie was glad to relax in the steamy hot bath. Nancy had left out some fresh clothes for her and Sophie pulled them on, beginning to feel relief ease through her veins. She peeped in on Hugh – he was fast asleep and though he still looked pale, he had curled himself into his usual shape and looked more normal. Back in her bedroom, Sophie stared out the window, watching people passing up and down the seafront. It was hard to believe that only an hour ago she nearly lost Hugh. It was my fault, she told herself. I should have minded him. He’s my responsibility. Why did I leave him? She reproached herself a hundred times over, feeling guiltier and guiltier by the minute.

But it was nothing to how she felt after her grandfather had words with her.

They were sitting at the table, both silent, waiting for Nancy to serve the tea – she had already taken some warm milk and fingers of toast up to Hugh.

Grandfather was seething with rage and anger which seemed to be totally directed at Sophie.

‘Well, what do you have to say for yourself?’ he demanded.

She said nothing, just sat staring at the fine bone china cup.

‘I hope you learnt your lesson today!’ he continued.

Sophie nodded. ‘I’m sorry, Grandfather. Truly sorry.’

‘Sorry! Sorry!’ he shouted. ‘Well, that’s just not good enough. Your brother almost drowns and that’s all you can say. Sorry! Like some stupid little ninny!’

‘I didn’t mean for it to happen, Grandfather,’ pleaded Sophie. ‘I only left him for a few minutes while I went up the road to the post office with some letters. I was no time at all.’

‘You were gone long enough for your young brother to almost drown himself.’

‘I know,’ she added softly.

‘If I can’t trust you it means I’ll have to forbid the two of you from going down to the harbour or beach. I am responsible to your parents and to the authorities for you. Obviously neither of you has an ounce of sense,’ he shouted angrily. ‘Why in heaven’s name didn’t Neil teach you to swim?’

Sophie took a deep breath. ‘Grandfather, you have never even cared to ask, but Hugh and I live in an ordinary house in London, we have only ever been to the seaside two or three times in our lives on day trips – that’s as much as Mum and Dad could manage. I know it’s my fault totally what happened so please don’t try and blame my Dad,’ she sobbed.

‘You are a stupid, self-centred girl who was too busy daydreaming to take proper care of your brother!’ said the
old man, his eyes hard and cold.

‘I hate you!’ shouted Sophie, jumping to her feet. ‘My Dad hates you and now I do too. You’re the horriblest grandfather anyone could ever have.’ She was screaming now.

Sophie felt the stinging slap of his palm across her face. She almost stopped breathing with the shock of it. She turned and fled from the drawing room out through the hallway towards the front door.

She ran down the driveway, across the road and found herself making for the rocks. She scrambled lightly over them, using her hands to steady herself where it was slippery, until she reached a good vantage point. Down below, the sea swirled menacingly. She closed her eyes, thinking of Hugh underneath the water, fighting for air and breath. It was hard to believe that this sparkling blue friend that soothed and calmed her could in turn be so dangerous. She stared at the water, watching the rhythmic swell of foaming bubbles below.

Sophie sat for a long time as the rocks beneath her cooled and the sea became darker, and slurped and slapped against the jagged rock which reached out like a finger from the shore. Soon the moon would come out – the sun had already disappeared, hiding behind the Sugarloaf mountains. In the fading light between night and day she sent a secret message, willing it to reach a soldier far away and a woman lying in a hospital bed. ‘Stay well! Stay safe! Your children need you! I need you! I need you so much!’

She was beginning to feel cold and her leg was stiff, so she had to stand up and stretch. Hugh might have woken up
and he might want her. She kept her eyes down as she walked up the driveway, ignoring the tall stern figure staring out at her from the bay window.