Under the Apple Tree (43 page)

under the apple tree in the orchard, looking intently into her

eyes as he talked. With him, she had felt her pain begin to

ease and the scars in her mind begin to heal.

He had gone back to school in Winchester now, but he

had written to her and she had written back. It was strange

to strike up so close a friendship with a boy still at school,

yet he didn’t seem so young, and in any case there were boys

not much older serving at this moment in the Armed

Forces. If Ben got his way - and she felt sure he would - he

would soon be one of them.

Her mind drifted to another young man whose eyes had

looked into hers as he talked, who had held her for a while

with his magnetism. Chris Barrett, the Observer who spent

his time on the roof of the Royal Beach searching for enemy

aircraft, and who had sat with her on the floor of the lift, his arms around her in comfort; who had kissed her to the

sound of cheers as the lift arrived at the eighth floor. She

thought of the way she had treated him after that - hiding in

a cupboard when she saw him coming, pushing past him in

the corridors, snapping his head off when she’d met him on

the steps. I wasn’t very nice to him, she thought. And I really think all he wanted to do was say sorry. Polly said in

her letter that he’s asked after me two or three times and

wanted her to send his good wishes to me. I really ought to

send mine back, just to show no hard feelings. It wasn’t his

fault the lift arrived when it did. He was a nice chap. And it

was a lovely kiss …

She lay in bed, thinking of Chris and thinking of Ben

until, smiling a little, she fell asleep.

There was no time to read a newspaper next morning. It

was always busy then, because of the milking, but today one

of the cows was having difficulty calving and Judy was sent

down to a neighbouring farm to get help. She came back to

find that Sylvie had been sick and was back in bed, looking

pale and miserable, so she ate a hasty breakfast and went up

to look after her. The newspaper, brought from the station

by a neighbouring farmer, was tossed into a corner where

Mrs Sutton dropped a bundle of washing on top of it, and if

the wireless was on at all Judy didn’t hear it. She didn’t even wonder what the news might have been. It was always the

same anyway, she thought, sponging Sylvie’s face gently.

Bombing, and more bombing. Deaths, and more deaths.

There were believed to have been just three survivors from

the Hood.

‘Three mothers will be happy, at least,’ Alice said as Polly

switched off the wireless after listening to the one o’clock

news. ‘But I don’t think our Cis’ll be one of them. I mean, I

know one of those boys could have been our Terry - but you

know what they say. Things go in threes. First your Johnny,

then Sean and now Terry. It seems like fate, somehow.’

Polly nodded. She didn’t really believe in superstition and refused to throw spilled salt over her shoulder, or avoid the cracks in pavements, but now she had the same feeling

as her mother, that it wasn’t likely that Terry was one of the

three who had survived that terrible blast. For one thing, he

worked in the engine rooms so he would almost certainly have been below decks when it happened. Terry wouldn’t

have had a chance.

‘At least it must have been quick,’ she said, trying to find

a crumb of comfort. ‘He wouldn’t have known anything

about it. He wouldn’t have been floating about in the sea for

hours.’ Like Johnny, she thought. Like Johnny and,

probably, Sean.

Alice nodded, but the comfort wasn’t enough to stop her

face crumpling again and the tears welling up in her eyes.

‘Our Terry,’ she said, choking on his name. ‘It don’t seem

possible, Poll. He was always so full of life, so bright and

breezy all the time. I can’t believe all that’s gone. I can’t

believe we’ll never see him again.’

‘Oh Mum.’ Polly moved to put her arm round her

mother’s shoulders. She was as thin as a bird, she thought,

feeling the tiny bones beneath her hands. She’s getting

smaller, I’m sure. ‘There’s still a chance,’ she murmured.

‘He could have been one of those saved.’

‘No,’ Alice wept, shaking her head so that the grey hair,

not yet properly brushed and pinned up that morning,

straggled across her brow. ‘No, he’s not. We’d have heard, you know that. If they know there’s three saved, they must know their names and they’d have sent someone round.

He’s gone, Polly, and we’ve got to face up to it. But it’s so

hard.’ She broke down in a storm of sobs. ‘Oh Poll, it’s so hard, losing all our men like this. It’s so cruel.’

Polly could not speak. The tears were pouring down her

cheeks and she was holding her mother now as much to gain

comfort as to give it. For some time they clung to each

other, weeping as if their hearts were broken, and then at

last Alice gave a sniff and felt for a hanky. She blew her nose hard, drew a deep, shuddering breath and looked at her

daughter with wet but determined eyes.

‘Well, we can’t sit here piping our eyes all day, Poll.

We’ve still got to do our jobs, same as usual. Cis and Dick’ll

be home any minute for their dinner, and we haven’t even done the potatoes.’ She glanced at the clock. ‘Look at the

time! Wherever can they be?’

‘They were going to see Jean.’ Polly frowned anxiously. ‘I

hope Dick hasn’t had an attack. He hasn’t been looking at all

well lately, and what with the shock and upset and

everything …’

‘That would just about put the tin lid on things.’ Alice

wiped her eyes again and then looked up in relief as the

doorbell shrilled. ‘Oh, that’ll be them now. Go and let them

in, Poll.’

‘But they’d have a key.’ Her heart thumping with anxiety,

Polly hurried to the front door. Something had happened,

she was sure of it. Then a new thought occurred to her.

Judy - it must be Judy, rushing home as soon as she had

heard the news. She opened the door, a smile of welcome

battling with the grief still pulling at her face.

For a moment, she did not recognise the man who stood

there. She stared at him as if at a stranger, half-recognised,

dimly remembered. It seemed a lifetime since he had played

any part in her thoughts. Blankly, she shook her head.

‘Well, Poll,’ Joe Turner said, his crinkly face spread all

over with delight, ‘don’t you know me no more?’

Chapter Twenty-Two Joe’s first reaction, on hearing the news, was to leave

immediately. Polly had asked him in, embarrassed because

the house was in a ‘state’ - nothing yet done, breakfast

things still piled by the sink, Alice’s bed in the front room

not yet made - and he’d realised at once there was

something wrong. It had needed only a few words to tell

him what it was.

‘Blimey, that’s a facer and no mistake,’ he said, staring

from one to the other. ‘No wonder you looked at me as if I’d

just fell down from the moon. Here,’ he turned towards the

door. ‘You won’t want me around. I’ll get out of your way.’

‘No!’ Polly reached out a hand involuntarily. ‘No, don’t

rush off, not after you’ve taken the trouble to come all this

way. Stop and have a cup of tea at least.’

‘Well…’ He hesitated. ‘Maybe I could do something to

help. Not that there’s much anyone can do at a time like

this, but — you know, I could take a message somewhere, do

a bit of shopping, whatever you like. Go and get you some

fish and chips for your dinner. Anything. Just say the word.’

Polly looked at him. ‘Well, there is something you can do.

It’s Cis and Dick. They went to see Terry’s girlfriend, Jean

- she works at the Landport.’ She realised that this meant

nothing to him. ‘In a shop. Only they’ve been gone hours

and we’re getting, worried. Dick’s a bit of an invalid, you

see; he gets asthma and he’s only just got over pneumonia

and we’re afraid he might have had an attack. I was thinking

of going to look for him, but I don’t like leaving Mum.’ She

gestured at the old woman, who seemed to have lost all her

sprightliness and sunk into a small, crumpled heap of misery. ‘She’s taking it very hard,’ Polly whispered.

‘I’ll go,’ he offered. ‘Just tell me where. Only, I don’t

know Portsmouth at all, see, never been here in me life.

Where do I start looking?’ Then he grimaced. ‘Come to

that, who do I look for?’

‘Oh dear, you don’t even know what they look like, do

you? So that’s no good.’ Polly went out to the scullery and

filled the kettle. ‘You’d better have a cup of tea anyway - we

all will. And I was just going to start doing some potatoes

for dinner. You’d better stop and have a bite with us.’ He

had followed her and stood leaning against the door-jamb.

She looked at him regretfully. ‘I’m sorry you had to find us

all at sixes and sevens like this. It’s just been such a shock, you see, and now with Cis and Dick not coming home I

hardly know what I’m doing.’

‘That’s all right,’ he said quietly. His crinkly face was soft

with compassion. He hesitated for a moment, then stepped

forwards and held out his arms. Polly stared at him. Her

mouth drew itself down at the corners, her lips trembled

and her eyes filled once again with hot, stinging tears.

Without being aware that she had moved, she found herself

leaning against his chest, her face against his shoulder,

weeping as he held her close, weeping as she had not wept

since Johnny had died. ‘Oh Joe,’ she sobbed, holding him

tightly.

‘There,’ he murmured, stroking her back with a big,

warm hand. ‘There, there. You have a good cry, Poll, you

just have a good cry. Let it all out - that’s right. It’ll do you good. And now you sit yourself down by your mum and I’ll

make that tea. I’ll peel the spuds as well, and get you a bit of dinner, and then if your sis hasn’t come back we’ll think

what to do next. You need someone to look after you. You

all do.’

He led her back into the other room and pushed her

gently into Dick’s armchair. Polly sniffed, and blew her nose

and wiped her eyes, and looked at him gratefully as he placed a cup of tea beside her. ‘You don’t have to do all that, Joe.’

‘Don’t see why not,’ he said. ‘I come all this way to see

you, I ain’t going to turn round and go without making

meself a bit useful. Unless you wants me to, of course,’ he

added quickly. ‘You’ve only got to say the word, if that’s

what you’d rather.’

‘No. No, I don’t want you to go.’ She gave him a watery

smile and he grinned at her and went back to the scullery.

Polly looked at her mother. Alice had recovered a little

and was sipping her tea. She gave her daughter a quizzical

look, almost like her old self.

‘I must say, he seems a nice feller, Poll - but who is he?

You never mentioned no Joe Turner before.’

Polly blushed, aware that Joe could hear everything they

said. ‘I met him that day I went to London with the

Mayoress, Mum. His sister’s the cook at WVS Headquarters.

I said if he ever came down to Pompey he ought to

come and see us, and I suppose that’s what he’s done.’

‘Hm. Come down special, just for a cup of tea?’ Alice

gave her a sideways glance. ‘And I dare say that’s where

those letters have been coming from too, is it? The ones you

don’t say nothing about?’ Then she seemed to remember the

trouble they were in and her face crumpled again. ‘Not that

it seems to matter much now,’ she said despondently.

‘Nothing seems to matter now.’

‘Oh Mum …’ But whatever Polly had been about to say

was lost in the sound of the front door being opened, and

voices as Cissie and Dick came into the passage. The two

women looked at each other with relief, and Polly jumped to

her feet.

‘Cissie! Dick!’ she cried as they came through to the back

room. ‘Wherever have you been? We’ve been so worried.’

She caught the expression on their faces and stopped.

‘What’s happened now? What’s the matter? Is it Jean? Is she ill?’

Cissie sat down on the nearest chair, as if her legs refused

to hold her up any longer. She leaned her elbow on the table

and supported her head in her palm. She heaved a huge sigh

and Dick stood beside her, resting his hand on her shoulder,

although he too looked grey and shocked. Polly stared at

them in alarm. ‘What’s happened? Tell me what’s happened!’

‘Not

ill, as such,’ Cissie said, shaking her head. ‘We had

to take her home from the shop - she fainted when we told

her the news. But it wasn’t just that that made her faint,’ she added bitterly, as Polly gave a little exclamation of pity.

‘And I don’t reckon it was the first time she done it,

neither.’ She raised her eyes and looked at her sister. ‘The

silly girl - the silly, silly girl - she’s gone and got herself into trouble. She’s expecting, Poll. She’s expecting our Terry’s

baby - and what’s she going to do now, I ask you! What in

heaven’s name does she think she’s going to do now?’

In the first few moments after Cissie’s announcement, Polly

forgot all about Joe, still out in the scullery. It was only