The Miller's Daughter (35 page)

‘That’s not the point. It’s stealing.’

‘Don’t talk daft, Mam. Everybody does it.’

She thrust her face close to his. ‘No, they don’t. We don’t. Not this family, Billy Smith.’

‘If me dad were here—’

‘Oh aye. Ya dad! Bit too much like him, you are. Well, he isn’t here, so you’ve got me to contend with, m’lad. And I say you take it straight back and if you can’t
find the rightful owners, then you’re taking it to the police station.’

Billy looked frightened. ‘I aren’t going in there. You can forget it.’ He tried to wriggle free but Emma still held him firm.

‘Oh no, I shan’t forget—’ she began but at that moment the back door burst open and a dishevelled Mary Porter burst in.

‘Have you heard – ’ she began and then stopped as she saw Billy. ‘Oh, he’s all right then. You’ve ’ad your poor mam going out of her mind, ya little
devil . . .’ she began, but then smiled and ruffled his hair, pleased to see him safe. She looked at Emma, seeming not to notice anything amiss between mother and son, as the news she brought
obliterated anything else. ‘Have you heard?’ she repeated. ‘Old man Rabinski’s bakery’s been burnt down and the rooms above where he lives.’

Emma’s mouth dropped open. ‘What do you mean? Bombed?’

Mary shook her head and her mouth tightened. ‘No, all his windows were smashed and then someone threw petrol in. It’s ’cos he’s foreign.’

‘But who’d do such a thing?’ Emma was shocked and angry. ‘Everyone round here likes the old man.’

‘They don’t reckon it’s anyone local. They reckon it’s a gang of fanatics from away.’

Emma felt Billy stiffen under her grasp and slowly she turned to look at him. The boy was hanging his head and shuffling his feet. Suddenly, she knew exactly where Billy had found the watch.

‘Aw Mam, leggo. You’re hurtin’ me ear.’

As soon as Mary had gone, Emma rounded on her son. ‘Not likely, m’lad. You’re taking that watch back and I’m going to see you do it.’

‘But he’s probably dead. Old man Rabinski wouldn’t have minded me ’aving his watch if he’s dead.’

She bent close to him. ‘I want to know exactly what you had to do with all this, Billy. Were you with the gang that burnt his place down?’

‘No, no, Mam, I swear I didn’t do owt. I wouldn’t do that. Honest.’

‘Then what did you do? How did you find that watch? Come on, I want the truth.’

‘I was coming home and I saw all the flames and went to look what was happening. I thought it had been bombed but someone said it had been set on fire deliberately.’ The boy
shrugged. ‘’Spect they thought if they did it in an air raid, everyone would think it had been a bomb, but no bombs fell round here last night—’

‘Oh, very unlucky then, weren’t they?’ Emma said sarcastically and added grimly, ‘Go on.’

‘I stood and watched till they’d put the fires out and then the firemen got called away to another fire and when everyone had gone, I – I went into the house.’

‘Oh, Billy, it could have collapsed on you.’

‘I found this tin box and inside were some papers and this watch.’

‘Where’s the box now?’

The boy was reluctant to give away his secret hiding place, but even the bold, brash Billy Smith was no match for his mother in this mood. ‘In – in our wash-house.’

‘Right.’ Still holding him, Emma marched him out through the back door across the backyard and into the wash-house. ‘Right, let’s be seeing this hiding place of yours.
What else have you got there, eh?’

‘Nothing,’ he said morosely.

‘Huh, got rid of it all, I s’pose?’ When the boy did not answer Emma sighed, deeply saddened.

Billy reached up into the space between the brick wall and the tiles of the roof and pulled down a small tin cash box.

‘That it?’ she demanded and when he nodded, she said, ‘Right. We’re taking this back to Mr Rabinski right now.’

‘But he’s dead. I heard the firemen say so.’

‘Did they find him?’

Billy shuffled uneasily ‘Well, no, but I heard them say nobody could have still been alive in that lot.’

‘Well, we’ll go and see. Right now.’

A determined Emma marched her wayward son through the streets, keeping a firm grip on his shoulder. When they arrived at the end of the street where Mr Rabinski’s bakery had stood, Emma
stopped and gaped in horror, feeling an indignant anger flooding through her. This stupid, stupid war, she railed inwardly. Wasn’t it bad enough that the enemy destroyed lives and homes
without gangs of vigilantes taking the law into their own hands? How could anyone have done such a thing to a nice, harmless old man like Mr Rabinski? She shuddered. And if he had perished in the
fire, what would become of her now at the mercy of Mr Forbes? She pushed the selfish thought away and urged Billy towards the blackened shell, the smell of smoke still hanging like a pall.

An elderly man in a long black coat stood in the middle of the road staring at the destruction, his shoulders hunched with misery, his hands holding his hat in front of him as if paying his
respects at a funeral. A playful breeze lifted the wisps of his grey hair but the man, unaware, stood quite still.

‘That’s him!’ Emma cried. ‘That’s Mr Rabinski! He’s alive!’ She hurried forward, hustling Billy along with her, ignoring his protests. A few feet from
the bent old man she stopped and said gently, ‘Mr Rabinski.’ The old man did not move until she came nearer and touched his arm. ‘Oh, Mr Rabinski, I’m so sorry.’

As he turned to look at her, she could see tears streaming down his wrinkled cheeks. ‘Ah, Mrs Smith. How could they? I haf never harmed anyvon. Who could do such a thing? I thought the
people round here, they like me . . .’ In his distress, his normally perfectly spoken English was thick with the foreign accent.

She took hold of his arm. ‘They do. They do, Mr Rabinski. It wasn’t locals.’

He shook his head gazing sadly at his former home. ‘My life’s work. My business, all gone.’

‘But you’ve other property, Mr Rabinski,’ she urged. ‘You can open up another bakery.’

Again he shook his head and said flatly. ‘No, no, I’m too old and too tired to start again.’

‘Have you somewhere to go, because if not, you can come home with me?’ Ignoring Billy’s gasp of protest, she hurried on. ‘There’s a spare room – now that
Charles is away in the forces.’

The old man’s wrinkled hand covered hers where it lay on his arm. ‘You are so kind, Mrs Smith, but I have a house to go to. Some tenants in the next street, they haf just moved
out.’ He nodded. ‘I have a house to go to.’ With a dignified movement he put on his hat but his eyes still brimmed with tears and Emma knew that although the old man might still
have a roof over his head, his home had gone.

She turned and pulled Billy forward and, sparing him nothing in the telling of it, said, ‘I never thought I’d have to say this of a son of mine, Mr Rabinski, and although he swears
blind he didn’t have anything to do with setting fire to your place—’

The old man was not listening for he had seen the tin box in Billy’s hands. ‘My box, oh, you haf my box. Oh, my boy, thank you,
thank
you.’ He reached out with trembling
fingers to take it from a very surprised Billy.

The boy cast a sly glance at his mother and grinned at the old man. ‘I came past, Mister, when they were putting the fire out and then the firemen got called away. Well, I thought,
there’ll be looters along any minute, so I thought to mesen I’d see what I could rescue for you.’

Emma took in a swift breath. The lying little toad, she thought, but she kept silent.

‘Most of ya stuff’s burnt, Mister. But I found this and thought you might like to have it.’

The old man was opening the box with an awed kind of reverence. ‘My papers and my vatch. Oh, I am so happy not to haf lost my vatch.’ He reached out and startled Billy by patting his
cheek. ‘You are goot boy. You are goot family. I’ll not forget this.’ He turned away and clutching the box to his chest moved slowly up the street. ‘I’ll not forget
this.’

When he was out of earshot, Emma rounded on her son, ‘You lying little toe-rag,’ she hissed and raised her hand to clout him, but this time Billy was too quick and he scampered up
the road.

Emma lifted her skirt and chased after him, shaking her fist, the pins working loose from her hair until her long plait unwound itself from round her head and unfurled down her back. The boy
darted away and disappeared round a corner, his mocking laughter floating back to her. ‘I’m a hero, Mam. Our Charlie’s not the only hero now.’

Billy was still not home by the time darkness fell, and Emma alternated between being outraged and worried sick.

‘Oh, Mary, what am I to do with him?’

‘He’s missing a father’s hand,’ she said and then bit her lip, but the words had come out before she had thought to prevent them. ‘Lots of the kids are with the
menfolk away.’

Emma snorted derisively. ‘Well, in Billy’s case that’s hardly true. I blame Leonard for leading Billy into bad ways in the first place.’

‘But Leonard’s never done – well – y’know.’ The woman wriggled her thin shoulders in embarrassment.

‘Thieving, you mean?’ Emma said bluntly. ‘No, not as such. But I reckon he’s sailed pretty near the wind at times. All that business about the wireless. It was stolen
property all right, even if Leonard didn’t do the stealing himself. He’s taught our Billy all about cards and betting and dealing and of course now, with the black market and that, the
lad’s in his element. I shudder to think what he does get up to.’ She sighed and shook her head sadly. ‘I don’t mind telling you, Mary, though there’s not many
I’d admit it to, I dread hearing a knock on the door and opening it to find a policeman there.’

‘I think we all dread opening the door to bad news of any sort at the moment,’ Mary said quietly.

Emma was silent a moment and then said slowly. ‘Aye, you’re right. Perhaps I ought to be thankful if that’s the only bad news I do get.’

‘Aye, but you’ve had your share of that an’ all, if the War Office is to be believed. I don’t suppose there’s been any more news? About Leonard. I mean?’

‘Only another letter confirming the first one. They found his dog tags but they – they couldn’t identify his body.’ Her voice faded to a whisper. ‘It was
unrecognizable.’

Mary patted Emma’s arm and sighed heavily. ‘Well, at least they’ve found his tags. Surely that’s enough, ain’t it?’

Emma shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I really don’t know.’

‘Well, I bet before this lot’s all over there’ll be many a wife who never will know if she’s a widow or not. Not for certain.’ Mary gave a low moan and shuddered.
‘Oh, Emma, isn’t it all dreadful?’

The two women sat together, each thinking of their two sons in constant danger.

‘At least your Charles and my Joey are all right,’ Mary said, ‘because as me old mam used to say, “No news is good news.”’

Emma smiled at the daft, though strangely comforting, remark, and gripped her friend’s hand swiftly. ‘Oh, Mary, what would I do without you?’

There was a whine, a whoosh and a loud bang and the ground shuddered beneath the foundations of the houses. Emma clutched the kitchen table and held her breath, automatically
looking to the ceiling as if she would be able to see the next bomb. Then she heard the whine, louder this time and coming closer . . . closer . . . She gave a small scream and, with no time even
to get through to the front room and the Morrison shelter, dived under the sturdy kitchen table.

The whole world seemed to erupt, noise blasted her ears and she heard the crumbling of masonry and the splintering of wood and brick. She heard a high-pitched scream and realized it had come
from her own mouth. She was choking with dust as the house caved in upon her. The noise seemed to go on for ever and then suddenly there was silence with only the occasional shifting and settling
of rubble. The hum of aircraft seemed to be receding and, mockingly, the all-clear sounded.

‘Fat lot of good that’ll do now,’ Emma muttered crossly for there had been no warning sounded. The air raid had been swift and unexpected and devastating. In the pitch black
Emma put out her hands to find herself feeling the sharp edges of smashed bricks and mortar. She coughed and covered her mouth with her apron. Dust was everywhere, stinging her eyes, clogging her
nose and throat and she could see nothing. And what unnerved her the most was the deathly silence. She might have been alone in all the world.

She tried to quell the fear that she was buried beneath a huge mound of rubble and that she would suffocate. With trembling fingers she felt all around her in the blackness, but everywhere her
hands touched sharp stone or splintered wood. Then, on one side of the table, she found a small space. Emma reached out and felt the wood of a beam that had fallen against the table and held up
some of the brickwork. Feeling her way carefully she crawled forwards, pushing rubble out of the way as she went. Every few moments, she stopped to listen, but there were no sounds, no shouting
voices, no pounding feet coming to her rescue. Nothing. The world was black and silent.

In the darkness, coughing the choking dust from her throat, Emma gave a little sob. Her hands and knees were cut already and she could feel the stickiness of blood in the palm of her hand. With
every movement, sharp edges bit into her flesh. She felt something on the floor lying flat and smooth. Running her fingers along it she felt a door knob and knew that the kitchen door had been
blown from its hinges. Clambering over it, she felt for the frame and cautiously hauled herself upwards, surprised to find that she could now stand upright. Arms outstretched, and with tentative
fingers feeling the way all around her, she inched forward step by step, until she felt a cool draught of air from the back door. Her foot caught against something and she almost plunged forward
into blackness but steadied herself and picking her foot up higher this time, she took another step.

This is what it must be like to be blind, she thought, and for a moment understood completely the sufferings of those bereft of sight.