War Baby (32 page)

Deciding a suitable amount of time had passed, she let herself back out into the shop. Bettina Hicks was standing straight and tall despite her arthritic hip. Gertrude had always envied Bettina her height and the thick head of hair she'd had when she was young – a kind of apricot colour back then. Off-white now of course and not nearly so glossy.

Her face was without emotion. ‘I'm sorry. She's asleep. I'm reluctant to wake her. She's not been well.'

‘Is that so?'

Bettina noted the sharp lines radiating from Gertrude's pursed purple lips. Only lips long used to being held in abject disapproval could look like that. They certainly weren't so prevalent in people who smiled a lot. It came to her that Gertrude never smiled – not in her presence anyway.

Gertrude's eyebrows arched in thin dark lines. ‘Are you calling me a liar?'

Bettina almost smiled. ‘I could call you a lot of things, Gertrude. Liar might very well be one of them. Sanctimonious, certainly. Bitter and twisted, yes. No wonder you have to go to church so often. You need to pray for forgiveness. You need to be forgiven more than anyone else I know!'

Bettina turned abruptly, clamping her lips together, though heaven knew it was too late now. She had said more than was prudent. But there it was, she thought as she jerked open the shop door; Gertrude Powell brought out the worst in her. She'd never liked the woman even when they'd been children, but later on she'd come to dislike her even more.

She pushed the memories of that time behind her. Mike was happy now and would never know the truth, not if she had anything to do with it. However, Gertrude Powell was the weak link, the woman who would hurt them all if she could.

 

 

OUTSIDE THE SHOP
Paul stood with his hands in his pockets, his eyes flickering in Frances's direction.

‘I'm sorry, Frances. I shouldn't have left him. I didn't think. I mean, people don't steal babies, do they?'

Frances glared at him. ‘Are you totally stupid?'

Paul's face took on a flat look as though she'd hit him hard with the base of a frying pan.

‘I said I'm sorry.'

Frances shook her head and looked away.

‘How about if we walk down to California Pit? The boys might be down there, or will be soon when school comes out. They'll help us look for him. They can go faster than grown-ups, and so can we.'

Frances threw him another icy glare. ‘I am not a child, Paul.'

‘Neither am I.' Paul could feel his face getting hot. He'd so wanted to impress Frances at how grown up he was, but every so often he slid back to being a boy again, thinking the way he always had, doing the things that were so familiar. ‘Fran, I feel so bad about this. If you don't want to come with me, I'll go by myself. I'll look for him. If it takes all night, I'll find him. I swear I will!'

He started to walk away, hands shoved back into his pockets, head bent. He looked totally dejected.

‘Wait.'

Frances fell into step beside him. She couldn't help blaming him for this. It was silly of him to slope off, but then it was hardly the first time she'd left Charlie outside the shop. He'd always been there when she'd come back out. Always. Except for today.

‘How many boys will be in the den?' She'd finally stopped sniffing and stuffed her handkerchief in the pocket of her dark red coat. The well-worn coat had belonged to Ruby and was a little big for her. Ruby had offered to cut it down a bit but then reconsidered. ‘It might have to last until this war is over, and goodness knows when that's likely to be. I think we should leave it alone,' she'd said. ‘Yes. I think we'll leave it alone. Anyway, you'll grow into it.'

Frances had taken advantage of the fact that the coat was too big for her and worn thicker jumpers, though the shoulder pads were still too large for her frame, sagging a bit down her arms.

They hurried down Court Road and up the other side, following the lane at the side of the church and the old manor house. The path across the field was uneven and there were sharp rocks sticking out between mounds of dug earth. Trees, their roots barely holding on to the earth, leaned over each and every ditch, chasms that might once have been firm ground. The deep ditches were ideal for making into a den by enterprising youngsters. They'd been making dens here for generations.

The path down to their particular den, the one they called the Dingle, was steep and stony, a definite asset in dry weather, but treacherous when the ground was covered in frost or when it was damp as it was today.

Frances took small, careful steps, her arms held out on either side of her like a tightrope walker. Paul followed on behind with trudging steps, automatically grabbing her upper arm when it seemed she might slip.

‘I never used to slip,' she said indignantly.

‘You never used to wear shoes with heels,' returned Paul.

Frances noted his tone. She'd noticed that men often adopted a tone like that when women were talking about shoes and clothes, subjects that obviously bored them. The shoes belonged to Mary who said she could borrow them for special occasions. Frances counted taking Charlie for a walk as good an occasion as any.

The thorny bushes to either side grabbed at the hem of her coat. The coat had been made before guidelines had been passed on how much material could be used. Coats these days were a lot skimpier than they had been.

Finally they were on level ground, high stony banks and foliage rising to either side of them.

A mist swirled around the roots of the trees and lumps of rock pierced the dark earth where whole sections of farmland had sunk down into the old mine shafts. The corridor it formed was a dead end. That's where the Dingle was situated. Nobody could recall who had first decided to build a den here. It seemed as if it had been here for ever, refurbished and redesigned in consecutive summers by a new generation of kids.

Formed over a large ditch about four or five feet deep, the twisted roots and spindly trunks of dead trees formed a framework for a roof of corrugated iron and tarpaulin. Various pieces of old carpet and linoleum covered the dirt floor and there were bits of wood laid on bricks to form benches. An old chair took precedence at one end of the room, the preserve of the gang leader – whoever that happened to be at any specific moment in time.

‘You used to be the gang leader,' Frances said suddenly, shaking him from his thoughts.

‘Yeah. When I was a kid. It's Billy Tanner now.'

Billy Tanner was the son of the porter down Bitton Railway Station. Frances guessed he might be a popular choice on account of all the railways bits and pieces stored at the back of the signal box just a quarter of a mile down the line. Dens were only as good as the material they were made from and Billy had access to broken and disused railway sleepers.

The darkness intensified the further in they went, the stringy branches interlocking overhead like so much woven raffia. Even though the branches were bare, they diminished the daylight into twilight and shadows into darkness. Anyone who didn't know the den was here would never find it.

A bird flew from a low hanging branch at their approach. Something scuttled into the undergrowth. By virtue of the rock and earth strata on either side, no wind disturbed the peaty air.

Frances suddenly stopped in her tracks, aware that she'd heard something, but not quite sure what it was.

‘Singing,' she said softly. The sound made her tingle all over. ‘I can hear somebody singing.'

Paul looked terrified. ‘Is it a ghost?' His eyes were round as the marbles he used to roll along the gutter.

Frances frowned. It was a woman's voice singing softly. She recognised a lullaby the twins used to sing to her when she was smaller.
Hush! my dear, lie still and slumber.
All at once it stopped. The voice that had been singing was now saying something, though Frances couldn't quite make out what it was. And then it came to her. Cooing. Baby talk. Somebody was talking to a baby!

She looked at Paul and pointed in the direction of the den. ‘Someone's there,' she whispered.

The sound ceased. Whoever was inside had heard them. For a moment there was silence, and then …

‘Hello! Is somebody there?'

‘Yes. Is that you, Miriam?'

‘Yes. Yes, it's me.'

The voice seemed to fall away as though Miriam regretted having spoken.

Frances pressed on. ‘It's Frances Sweet. I'm looking for my nephew. Have you seen him?'

There was the sound of movement, things bumping. There was also the unmistakable sound of Charlie chortling good-naturedly between sharp cries and unintelligible sounds that weren't quite words.

‘Charlie!' Before she had chance to get down on her knees and crawl forward, there was Charlie, his face beaming with smiles and arms outstretched as he toddled towards her. Feeling relieved and too excited for words, she bent down so he could run into her arms. ‘Charlie,' she shouted again.

Charlie didn't hesitate. Gurgling and laughing, he started towards her, tottering along on legs that were becoming stronger every day.

‘Thank God for that,' she heard Paul say.

Hugging her nephew to her breast, she squeezed her eyes shut and offered up a prayer of thanks. Charlie hadn't been taken by the gypsies or fallen into a stream and drowned and neither had he been spirited away by the fairies; he was here, in her arms, happy as could be.

On opening her eyes she espied the figure of Miriam Powell, her black coat dragging in the dirt as she crawled out from the entrance to the den.

‘I found him,' said Miriam once she was on her feet. Her smile was hesitant as were her movements. She took a step or two forward, wringing her hands, then stopped before taking two more. ‘He was lost. But I found you, didn't I, Charlie? I found you.'

She reached out to stroke the chubby hand that lay on Frances's shoulder.

Frances glared at her. ‘I don't want you touching him.'

‘But I found him, and Charlie likes me. Don't you Charlie?' Totally disregarding Paul, she turned back to Frances, her face shining with delight. ‘I think he thinks that I'm his mother.'

Frances fancied she could smell coal dust. Miriam's hands were dirty, her fingernails black. Her face was streaked with black dust and so was the funny old hat she was wearing which resembled a tea cosy. What had she been doing? Frances wondered. Living in the coal shed?

‘Where did you find him?' Paul asked.

Joyful at finding her nephew, Frances had almost forgotten about Paul but was grateful to hear his voice, glad he was asking a sensible question. In other circumstances, she would have asked the same question, but her nerves were still on edge. Things could have worked out so differently.

‘In the churchyard. I found him there. He goes there with Mr Sweet sometimes. I've seen them. Mr Sweet talks to his wife. I know she's dead, but that's what he does – talks to her as though she were alive. He's not mad, mind you. It's easy to imagine somebody you love and to talk to them. Very easy.'

‘I know,' Frances said quietly. ‘Why did you bring him here?'

‘The Dingle is a safe place, just for kids,' said Miriam, half turning and glancing at the makeshift structure with something approaching affection. ‘I used to play here when I was a child. We all did. We had fun here. It was better than home. When I could get away,' she added. She looked this way and that as though half expecting to be discovered and dragged off home. ‘My mother didn't like me coming here. She stopped it. She didn't like me going to stay with Gran either. She stopped me doing that too.'

Resentment briefly flashed in Miriam's eyes, but it didn't last. Miriam was in the habit of bowing to her mother's dictates. Nothing was going to change that. Her face, then her whole body, seemed to crumple.

Frances turned to Paul. ‘I think we should go. They'll be looking for us, and everyone's worried enough as it is without it looking as though we're missing too.'

Paul agreed with her. Carefully, so as not to slip especially now she had Charlie in her arms, they wound their way back along the path, away from the tangled roots and branches of the copse and back into the open field.

As they picked their way, Charlie waved at Miriam and muttered what sounded like ‘mum' but could just as easily have been ‘mmmmm'.

‘He was ever so good,' Miriam called out as she followed on behind, picking her way along the path.

‘He is good,' snapped Frances.

She hugged Charlie tightly against her chest, extra careful now not to slip.

Miriam tried again to make polite conversation.

‘I think Charlie is looking after his son. He's an angel. Angels can do anything.'

Frances quite liked the thought of her cousin Charlie being an angel, but didn't want to be drawn into a conversation with the woman who had found her nephew. She was feeling bad enough about it as it was. And somehow she didn't believe that Miriam was entirely telling the truth.

It seemed Paul was having the same doubts. ‘Seems a long way for a baby to wander in that time.'

It made Frances wonder. She might have wondered some more if she hadn't heard Miriam let out a loud yelp.

Both she and Paul turned round to see Miriam's hat had been pulled off her head by an overhanging branch. There it was, swinging from a twig. What was even more surprising was that her hair was cut very short and not glamorously so. It stuck up all over her head in short tufts. Here and there were brown patches – scuds. Frances had grazed her knees in the past enough times to know what they meant. Blood. Miriam's hair had been cut short and whoever had cut it had not been gentle.

Looking despairingly distraught, Miriam snatched the hat from the twig using both hands to pull it firmly down on her head. Her eyes fluttered and her face turned pale.