Time to Say Goodbye (4 page)

‘Don’t care what it was, so long as we can stay here,’ Imogen said. ‘I like that Jill. She didn’t seem at all surprised when Mrs Hainstock told her we were going to live with them, did she?’

Debby was undressing with care and caution, not throwing off her clothes with wild abandon as the other two did and stepping carefully into her fancy pyjamas, yet she was still the first to be ready for bed. She’d been about to climb between the sheets but she stopped, forehead wrinkling, to reply: ‘Didn’t you hear her saying that Auntie was always bringing in stray animals? I suppose three girls wasn’t that much of a surprise.’

Rita snorted. ‘You’re daft, you are,’ she said derisively. ‘Girls are a lot more trouble than cats and dogs.’

Debby began to disagree, but Imogen overrode her. ‘You’re right, of course,’ she said. ‘And that makes it even more important that we don’t give either Jill or Auntie any reason to think we’re going to be trouble. We’ve got to behave like three little saints, for a few weeks at least. Agreed?’

By now they were all in bed, and whilst Rita murmured agreement Debby, more practical, slipped out of bed, regarded the scattered clothing of the other two with disfavour and began to shake out each garment, fold it neatly and place it on top of the chest of drawers. Rita nodded. ‘Good for you, Debby,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow we might ask for three chairs to put our clothes on, and a box or something so we can put a torch near our beds, just in case one of us wants to use the chamber pot.’

Debby giggled. They had been provided with an enormous floral chamber pot for use during the night, and since Auntie had said that they need not attend school for the rest of the week, she had told them to come downstairs when they awoke next day, emptying the chamber pot, if it had been used, into the bucket on the landing on the way, and wash at the big kitchen sink. ‘I’ll have one of the washstands carried up to the attic before you go to bed tomorrow,’ Auntie had promised. ‘I daresay I’m wrong to let you go to bed just as you are tonight,’ she had smiled conspiratorially, ‘but who’s to know, eh?’

‘We shan’t tell,’ Rita had said, beaming at her. ‘It was a lovely supper, Miss – I mean Auntie. Thanks ever so much.’

Now, Debby cast a last look around the attic before climbing back into her little bed. ‘It’s all very well to talk, and to say how good we are going to be, but we could start off by keeping our room nice,’ she said. ‘I expect at home you always kept your room tidy, didn’t you?’

‘Sort of,’ Imogen said sleepily. ‘I’ll help in future, though; how about you, Rita?’

‘Well, I think we ought to keep our own clothes and so on tidy, but for the actual room itself we should take it in turns,’ Rita mumbled. ‘Do shut up and go to sleep, you two; don’t forget we’ve got to walk into the village tomorrow to post those dratted cards so our families know our address . . .’ Her voice faded into a sleepy mumble, yet it was she who presently broke the silence in the big attic room by giving a muffled shriek, and pushing back the covers to sit upright. Even in the dark, Imogen, facing her, could see the look of shock on her face.

‘Wharrisit?’ she mumbled, forgetting her determination to speak correctly, for at home she was forbidden to talk with the local accent. ‘You near on give me a heart attack, Rita Jeffries, screechin’ out like that. I’d like to clack your lug, so I would!’

‘Sorry. I forgot where I were,’ Rita mumbled. ‘But I just realised: who’s going to plait my hair tomorrer? I can’t do it meself, ’cos of them two fancy bits on each side. Oh, Gawd, what’ll I do?’

Imogen chuckled. ‘Cut it off,’ she advised. ‘Long hair’s a perishin’ nuisance. And if my mam heard me talkin’ Scouse, I’d be gettin’ a clack on the lug meself.’

‘Same here,’ Rita said dolefully. ‘But I can’t cut my hair, honest to God I can’t. My mam says it’s my one beauty.’

‘Then I’ll plait it for you, which means we’ll need to get up a bit earlier once we start school,’ Imogen said decidedly. ‘And now for goodness’ sake let’s get to sleep, or it’ll be morning before we know it!’

Chapter Two

CHRISTMAS CAME WITHOUT
an attack by the enemy and people began to relax. When term had ended a great many parents had reclaimed their children for the holiday, though the three girls had not been among them. No one had wanted to move them from a home where they were safe and happy, and the girls were glad of it.

‘After all, Auntie and Jill took us in as a favour, and if we left they might replace us with other kids needing to be evacuated,’ Rita had said wisely. The three children were roasting chestnuts, Auntie having kindled the fire in the small parlour as a special treat. ‘That family of little lads who’ve been living with Mr and Mrs Pilgrim say they’ll come back, but Jill said she reckons the Pilgrims won’t have them. Apparently they’d asked the billeting officer for older boys who could help on the farm, and were pretty annoyed when they got the O’Reagans.’

‘So if they can, they’ll get lads of our age or older,’ Imogen said thoughtfully. ‘That might be rather fun.’

‘Oh, you know what boys are; if they’re a lot older – say thirteen or fourteen – then they’ll look down on us,’ Rita said. She fished the shovel out from under the coals and waved it. ‘These are done; help yourselves, only remember they’re really hot.’

The occupants of the Canary and Linnet had had a lovely Christmas. They had received small presents from their families and friends, and despite the threat of rationing had had a wonderful dinner. Indeed, Imogen thought, it must rank amongst the very best Christmases she had ever had. But now it was January, and the whole of the country was in the grip of what Jacky, the cellar man, a sprightly sixty-year-old, red-faced and white-haired, said was going to be the worst winter in living memory, if he was any judge. It had not stopped snowing for days and the three musketeers – Auntie’s nickname for the girls – had not been able to go to school since the bad weather started. Now, with the hot chestnuts all eaten, the three of them were in the small parlour, staring disconsolately out at the whirling flakes. They were clad in every warm garment they possessed but even so, when Imogen moved back from the window she was conscious of the chill. ‘Let’s go into the kitchen,’ she said, rubbing her hands together to restore some life to her numb fingers. ‘It’s not fair to make up this fire again, but there’s always a fire in the kitchen and Auntie won’t mind. We might be able to help her if she’s cooking, or cleaning the bar.’

‘Might as well,’ Rita agreed with alacrity. She cast a wistful glance at the whirling flakes being blown horizontally by a spiteful east wind. ‘To think how pleased we were when it first started to snow! I thought there would be snowball fights and snowman competitions, and imagined flying down Parsonage Hill on that huge old sledge of Auntie’s, just as soon as the snow let up a bit. Only it never has – let up a bit, I mean – so all it’s done is stop us from going to school, or doing any outdoor things.’

Debby nodded gloomily. ‘I didn’t like my school at home very much, though I wasn’t there long, but I love the village one,’ she said. ‘Miss Roxley may be old, but she’s ever so nice, especially when you consider she has to teach all the kids now, from five to fifteen, which can’t be easy.’

They crossed the small, dingy corridor down which customers had once trooped from the bar, presumably with their jugs and bottles, and entered the kitchen. Jacky was leaning against the sink. His cottage and that of Herbert, a retired farmhand who helped at the Canary and Linnet when needed, were a hundred yards further up the lane, and they had kept a path clear between the pub and the Pilgrims’ farm, though it had not been easy.

‘Mornin’, girls. I just popped in to see whether Auntie wanted anything from the village shop,’ Jacky said, waving the mug of tea he held in one hand. ‘I reckon school won’t open again until the snow stops a-fallin’, but Mrs Bailey has still got some stock left.’

Auntie grinned at the girls. ‘I was just telling him he’d best get me anything Mrs B can spare, because old Herbert is a famous weather prophet and Jacky here tells me that he says the snow’s here to stay for a while. Which means we’ll start running out of grub as well as beer, so we’d best get what we can whilst it’s still possible to reach the village.’

‘Aye, you’re right there,’ Jacky agreed. ‘There’s no way anyone can get down the lane now – the drifts be higher than a man’s head – but if I go over the fields, pullin’ the old sledge, I reckon I’ll get through all right.’

The girls had been clustered round the fire, but now they turned towards Jacky, faces bright with hope. ‘Can we come and give you a hand?’ Imogen said, speaking for them all. ‘We’ve been stuck in the house for days and days apart from one little half-hour, when Auntie lets us clear a path across the yard. Oh, do say we can, Mr Jacky!’

The old man laughed, but shook his head. ‘Not with a blizzard blowin’. Ain’t you cold enough?’ he asked. ‘It’ll be no picnic, I’m tellin’ you. Gettin’ to the village will be hard, but gettin’ back will be a lot worse because the sledge’ll be fully laden. Just you find some other way to pass the time, young leddies. Didn’t Miss Roxley give you no homework? That’s what the teacher in charge usually do when the weather keep the school closed.’

‘It came on too suddenly,’ Auntie was beginning when the door from the bar opened and Jill, very flushed in the face and carrying a large galvanised bucket, a long-handled brush and a mop, came into the kitchen. She smiled round at everyone, then went over to the sink, tipped the dirty water out of her bucket, pumped some fresh into it and remarked that it was a miracle that the pump had not yet frozen.

‘Don’t you let that pump hear you say it might freeze; it’s never done so in all my time here,’ Auntie said reproachfully. ‘But the well which serves it is very deep, so I reckon that even if we run out of everything else, we should have water.’ She turned to the girls. ‘And as for the suggestion that you might so much as poke your noses out of the door, you can forget it. You’d come home chilled to the bone, with icicles hanging from your ears and every garment you’ve got on soaked.’

‘A big jigsaw would have kept us busy,’ Debby said, ‘or one of those board games, Ludo or Snakes and Ladders, or Monopoly; I used to play that with . . . with my grandparents.’

‘I’d have bought a diary, so I could do this Mass Observation thing all the grown-ups are talking about,’ Imogen chimed in. She had started to keep an account of each day’s doings, but paper was difficult to come by, and anyway, what could she say except Snowing again?

Auntie, writing a list of things she would like if Jacky managed to get to the village and back, glanced across at Jill and raised her eyebrows. ‘Dear me, when it comes to making your own amusements you three give up rather easily,’ she said. ‘I’ve got several packs of cards somewhere, which various customers have left in the bar. No one’s likely to come in whilst the blizzard continues, so I see no reason why the three of you can’t go in there and search for them. I take it you’ve tidied your room and so on?’ She turned to Imogen. ‘Suppose you write your diary in the back pages of one of my account books? Would that satisfy your urge to be an author?’

‘Oh, Auntie, you are kind. But I’m beginning to think I’d better write something like “Three Go Adventuring” or “The Naughtiest Girls in the School”’, Imogen said, ‘because right now nothing happens to make one day different from another. It’s just snow, snow, snow. But I’ll help the others to find those cards.’

The three of them searched diligently and found two complete packs and several partial ones, and were glad to carry their booty back to the kitchen, for the bar was bitterly cold. They settled round the table but were soon chased off it by Jill, who wanted to set it for dinner. ‘It won’t be much of a meal because we’re almost out of potatoes and those we have got are pretty spongy and unpleasant, having got frosted,’ she said. ‘Apart from that there’ll be sprouts, some rather fatty bacon and the rest of the apple pie we started last night. Go and play in the parlour whilst I get things ready, there’s good girls.’

The three of them gathered up the cards and Auntie’s old account book and returned to the Bottle and Jug, but once there were distracted from their game by the sight, through the frosted windowpanes, of Jacky setting out across the yard with the sledge bumping along behind him. He saw the girls and waved, and Debby, giggling, said that the sledge on the end of its long rope looked like a dog on a lead and wondered why Jacky had not brought his collie, Snip, to keep him company. ‘Snow’s too deep and Snip isn’t a young dog,’ Rita said promptly. ‘Brrr, it’s icy in here now the fire’s well and truly out. Do you know, this is the first time I’ve ever regretted that we didn’t get a village billet? Jacky says the school’s closed but I bet there are kids making snowmen and slides and things. If one of the villagers had taken us in . . .’

But the other two made derisive noises. ‘Don’t be so stupid,’ Imogen said. ‘Even your own mam wouldn’t let you out on such a day. Now let’s get going and have a game of pairs or snap or something, otherwise it will be dinner time before we know it. And maybe, if we pray hard, the snow will stop long enough to let us get out for a bit.’

Despite their hopes, however, the snow continued to fall all that day and the next, and they grew increasingly cold and bored with their own company. One or two customers, who had fought their way through from the nearest airfield to get a drink and a change of scene, told anyone who would listen that this bad weather might be to Britain’s advantage since it gave them time to make preparations for what was to come. ‘We can’t get the kites off the ground whilst the snow continues, and from what we’ve heard the whole of Europe is suffering the same freezing weather,’ a young aircraftman said. ‘They’re calling this the phoney war, but if you ask me it’s more like a reprieve, because despite what’s been happening in Nazi Germany our government has made very few efforts to re-arm. I say let the bad weather continue. Chamberlain’s “peace for our time” has only proved how unsuitable he is to lead the country into war.’

But to Imogen, Rita and Debby, this meant very little. What they wanted was to get out of the house, even to go to school; in fact almost anything which would break the monotony of what they jokingly called ‘house arrest’. Auntie and Jill laughed at the idea.