Under the Apple Tree (55 page)

on but the old man caught her arm.

‘I told ‘ee, not all in a heap. Put ‘em on one be one, look,

like this here.’ He took a letter and crumpled it in his fist,

throwing it into the heart of the fire where it caught and

quickly burned away. ‘See? That’s the way you wants to do

it.’

‘All right.’ Judy began to follow his example, screwing up

each letter separately and throwing them into the flames.

Well, that should keep the country’s secrets safe, she thought, dusting her hands off and watching the last paper shrivel to nothing. I wonder what vital task I’ll be asked to

do next.

She stood for a moment watching the fire revert to its

normal fare of twigs and dried grass clippings. To her

surprise, she was feeling better than she had for some time.

It’s being out in the country again, she thought. The war’s

still on and we’re all still as anxious about it, but it isn’t the only thing there is. In the towns and cities, where you live in fear of bombing all the time, where you can’t put your head

out of doors without seeing the damage, it seems to be the

only thing that matters. But out here, where you can see

trees coming into leaf and vegetables growing and where an

old man can spend his afternoon with a bonfire — out here,

you remember what life is all about. And it isn’t about war

at all, not really. It’s about peace.

Mr Honey was leaning on a gnarled stick, watching the

flames. He feels it too, she thought. He’s seen war himself

he must have been through the Great War - and he knows

that it’s peace which is important. He knows the truth.

He turned suddenly and looked into her eyes. For

moment, as their eyes met, they were in perfect accord.

Then Judy smiled at him and turned, going back to the

house to see what she might do next to help, in however

small a way, so that England might once again be at peace.

Chapter Twenty-Nine As the summer continued, Jean and Judy became closer than

ever. Always friends, they were now more like sisters. And

so we would have been, Judy thought, if Terry had lived.

She was now working on several different tasks for the

local WVS. As well as the pie scheme, which seemed to have

settled down since she had sorted out the paperwork, she

had gone back to making scrim and going out on the

sphagnum moss parties. Jean came too, although her figure

was now making it difficult for her to bend easily, and they

took bottles of lemonade and a few sandwiches and made a

picnic of it.

‘I never thought I’d like it in the country,’ Jean said,

sitting on a fallen tree and unwrapping the sandwiches. ‘I

always thought it was just trees and fields, with nothing to

do.’ She lowered her voice and glanced around to make sure

that nobody was listening. ‘And I thought country people

were all a bit stupid. But they’re not. They’re nice.’

Judy’s lip-reading skills had increased, particularly with

people she knew well, and she understood most of what Jean

was saying. ‘They’re just different,’ she agreed. ‘They’ve got

more time, that’s why they seem slow. But they’re not

stupid. They just know different things.’

Jean nodded. ‘The children like it here, too — most of

them. They’ve settled in really well.’

There were a number of evacuees in Ashdown. Judy’s

cousin Sylvie and many of her schoolmates were scattered

around the village and attended classes in the local school,

sharing it turn and turn about with the local children. There

had been some difficulties with this arrangement to begin with - the local children resented the newcomers coming

into their classrooms and using their desks - but when they

realised that the new timetables meant they only had to

attend for half the day, they soon saw the advantages. Over

the months, the two factions had become warily friendly,

although the evacuees still tended to band together. It was

only natural, Mrs Sutton observed, for kiddies to stick with

their own.

The children from the April Grove area, being from a

different school, were at Bridge End. Judy went over to see

Stella and Muriel Simmons so that she could report back to

Polly and Mrs Budd. Tim and Keith Budd were there as

well, and the four children were busy picking strawberries in

the vicarage garden when Judy arrived. They looked happy

and occupied, and Judy was able to write a cheerful report

to her aunt. She saw some of the other children from the

April Grove area too - Brian Collins, living on a farm,

Sammy Hodges who was staying with a young widow, and a

cluster of others. They were wary of Judy at first, finding

her deafness difficult to cope with, but once Tim had told

them she had been in a bombing raid they looked at her with

more respect.

‘Wish I could’ve been in Pompey in the raids,’ one boy

said enviously. ”S not fair, being sent out here where there’s nothing happening. I could help, I could. I could watch out

for Jerries and put out incendiaries.’

Judy also went to visit some refugee families who were

staying in the village. The invasion of the Low Countries a

year before had brought thousands over to England, and

they too had to be billeted. There were a number in a large

country house nearby, and Judy spent one or two afternoons

a week there, helping in the kitchens. It was just another job she could do without having to talk to people.

I wonder if I’ll ever be able to hear again, she thought

wistfully. Here in the country, people seemed to have more

time to listen to her and try to communicate their own thoughts. Yet she was still miserably aware of how isolated

she was, especially in a crowd. Apart from her work, she

spent almost all her time alone, or with Jean or Sylvie.

Much of this time, she spent thinking of Sean. He

seemed very far away now, as if he were slowly receding into

the distance. She tried to recapture the sound of his voice or

the look of his face, but her memory was patchy and the

harder she concentrated the more difficult it became to

picture him. We didn’t know each other long enough, she

thought sadly. There aren’t enough memories. Oh Sean …

Another face came more readily to her mind - a fair, open

face with glinting blue eyes and a laughing mouth. Irritated,

she tried to push it away, but the memory of the two hours

she had spent in the lift with Chris Barrett were sharper

than any of those she had tried to recapture of Sean. She

could recall every word of their conversation, hear every

laugh as he tried to cheer her up and feel again the comfort

he had given her as he slipped his arm around her to drive

away her fears. And she could remember the kiss. The only

kiss they had ever shared. The only kiss, she thought sadly,

they ever would share, for she had refused to see him when

he came to the door after that terrible raid, and by now he

would have forgotten all about her.

By now, he would be kissing some other girl.

As it happened, Judy was wrong about Chris. He was not

kissing some other girl. As he stood in his wooden turret on

top of the Royal Beach peering incessantly over the Solent through his binoculars to watch for enemy aircraft, his thoughts were not of other girls, but of Judy herself, and he

was growing more and more impatient.

‘How long’s it going to be before she gets better?’ he

demanded. ‘I saw her aunt again this morning and asked

her, and she says there’s been no change. It doesn’t seem

right, a lovely girl like that deaf for the rest of her life. Can’t they do anything for her?’

Spud Murphy shrugged. ‘No good asking me, mate. I

dunno nothing about it.’

‘Well, I’m getting fed up with it,’ Chris said. He stared

moodily out across the glittering sea towards the Island. ‘We

were going to go out together. I reckon there was a good

chance for us - we got on all right when we were stuck in

that lift.’

‘So we all noticed!’ Spud said with a grin.

‘I thought there was something really special about her,’

Chris went on, ignoring him. He had come in for so much

ribbing over that episode that he barely noticed it now. ‘You

know how you do, sometimes? I thought she was a real

smasher.’

‘Yeah, but that’s months ago now. If she’d wanted to see

you she’d have let you know. If you ask me,’ Spud advised

from a store of experience which comprised a different

girlfriend every week, ‘you oughter forget her and find

yourself some other little popsie. There’s plenty around.

Come to the dance over on the Pier on Saturday, why don’t

you? I’ll fix you up with someone.’

‘No thanks. I don’t want to be fixed up with someone. I

want to see Judy again.’

Spud eyed him. ‘Well, if it’s that bad, why don’t you do

that? Go out and see her. Talk to her. Tell her how you feel.

And if she can’t hear you, tell her some other way.’ He

winked. ‘I’m sure you can think of something!’

Chris put down the binoculars and stared at him. Then

he took Spud’s pencil to take his turn at writing the log and

said, ‘You’re right, Spud! It’s not very often you’re right,

but you’re right this time. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll go out to wherever it is she’s staying, in the country, and this time I

won’t take no for an answer. I’ll make her see me. If she’s

not interested after that, I’ll leave her alone - but at least I’ll have tried.’

‘Atta boy!’ Spud said, grinning. He picked up the

binoculars and trained them on the view. ‘Hey, look! What’s

that coming in over the Island? Is it a Dornier or a Heinkel?’

Chris grabbed the glasses back. He stared for a minute,

then punched his friend on the arm.

‘You twerp! It’s a bloody seagull!’

The summer was hot and long, as if to make up for the

bitter winter. In July, it was declared that London had just

had the sunniest day of the century - almost sixteen hours

of it. If there hadn’t been a war on, it would have meant

long, lazy afternoons on the beach at Southsea or walks on

Portsdown Hill. The harbour would have been filled with

sailing dinghies and yachts, and the Solent would have been

a mass of white sails, especially during Cowes Week when

the big yacht races were held and you felt you could almost

walk across to Cowes on their decks, without getting your

feet wet. But all that was just a memory. The last time the

Solent had been filled with little boats was during the

Dunkirk evacuation, and it was now grey warships that

forged their way through the Channel.

But the war was still very much on. The air-raid sirens

were still sounding, although the raids weren’t as heavy as

before. The end of June and beginning of July saw

thousands of incendiaries showered on the city and on

Portsdown Hill, starting a blaze of gorse fires, and a number

of high-explosive bombs were dropped into the sea off

Stamshaw. In August it was announced that tunnels had

been driven deep into Portsdown Hill, beneath the chalk

pits, and three thousand people would be given tickets.

Mothers with children, and people without their own

bunked shelters would get first choice. Jess Budd, who had

her baby Maureen at home, was entitled to go, and so was

Nancy Baxter, who had Micky and Vera, but Jess said she

was happy with the Anderson, and Nancy had her own

reasons for not wanting to be stuck in a tunnel all night.

Everyone was wondering if America would come into the war. Already their aircraft were patrolling the North

Atlantic, searching for U-boats, and their forces had joined

British and Canadian troops in Iceland to help its defence.

All young American men of twenty-one and over were

compelled to register for the ‘draft’ and it seemed as if they

might be preparing to join the Allies. Yet still they held off.

The Japanese threat was one they didn’t want to confront,

and it was feared that if they declared war on Germany it

would open the way for fighting in the Far East.

‘It’s all so complicated,’ Cissie complained. ‘The Japanese

are attacking China now. I mean, what do they have to do

with it all? Why make it all worse?’

‘That’s just what they want to do, isn’t it?’ Dick said,

blowing his nose. The summer weather helped his chest but

now he had hay fever and hardly dared venture outdoors to

enjoy the sunshine. ‘They reckon if they go into China now,

while we’re all busy in Europe and Africa, nobody will be

able to stop them. And they don’t like the Yanks having all

those bases in the South Pacific, either. It’s a bit too close to home for them.’

Cissie was reading the local paper. ‘The Evening News says we’ve got to register for new ration books, by the end of this week, or we won’t get them. What would someone do

who didn’t know, or forgot? Would they just starve to

death?’

‘Nobody’ll be able to forget, with notices up everywhere

and the paper putting in these big adverts,’ Polly said. ‘And

the WVS and Citizens’ Advice Bureau are helping people