Whistling in the Dark (17 page)

David put Raffles on his lead.

“Got to be getting back,” he said. “I’ve got lots of sorting out to do.”

“You will hang onto your record collection, whatever happens, won’t you?”

“Hope so.”

“And the piano?”

“Not so sure about that.”

She watched him walk away, then set off briskly in the opposite direction. She managed to put a good distance between them before she started to cry.

Saying goodbye to Doreen was far, far worse. The Russells’ move was planned for the spring. The “for sale” notice was already up outside their house, and they had found temporary rented accommodation on the other side of Liverpool, where they were more or less unknown – except, of course, to the police.

Doreen was somehow managing to put a brave face on things, at least in public.

“I only hope there’s a decent cinema somewhere near there,” she said to Joan. “But it won’t be much fun going on my own.”

“We can talk on the phone. I’ll give you a full rundown on what’s been showing at the Queensway,” Joan replied. “Although I don’t suppose I’ll be going there often either. It won’t be nearly so much fun without you.”

“Same here. The only really good thing about leaving is not having to see Angela Travis and her gang ever, ever again.”

“You could give her a stink bomb as a goodbye present.”

“Good idea. But there’s sure to be another Angela Travis at my new school. There’s always at least one of her type wherever you fetch up. Ania found that out all right.”

“Perhaps it’ll be nicer out there. Further away from the Blitz,” said Joan.

“Maybe. But I’ll miss this place. I’ve never lived anywhere else, you see. I’ll miss our house, and looking out at the muddy old estuary, and my bedroom, and, most of all, my friends – you and Ania and Ross and Derek. Especially you.”

“We’ll meet in Liverpool,” said Joan. “Go to a matinée at the big Odeon cinema, perhaps. They have a cafe there, and a cinema organ, and two feature films with an interval in between. And those usherettes in classy uniforms.”

“Sounds great,” said Doreen. But Joan could see that her bravery was beginning to crack, and there were tears in her eyes.

They had reached Joan’s house now, and hovered by the front gate, both completely lost for words. In the end, Doreen turned and walked away without saying anything, waving casually over her shoulder as she always did, but not looking back.

Brian and David had never been such good friends as Joan and Doreen were, but they had become much closer since the case against Mr Russell had become public knowledge.

“He doesn’t want to talk about it,” Brian told Joan while they were washing up. “And I don’t blame him. The one thing none of them can bear is all this local gossip. But there’s one weird thing I found out. You know when Ronnie was being investigated by the police for being
the
Mr Black Market? Well, it turns out that he was pretty small beer compared with Mr Russell. And David says that Ronnie never split on him, never told them anything that might incriminate him or any of the Russell family. In that respect, at least, he was a loyal friend. So perhaps the old blighter had a bit of good in him after all. Although,” he added, “that doesn’t rule him out as being the biggest creep in the Western hemisphere in all other respects!”

CHAPTER 28

I
t was a beautiful spring that year. Even the intensified ferocity of the Liverpool Blitz could not completely spoil it, except, of course, for those brave survivors who had seen their homes wrecked, shops and businesses ruined, friends and relatives killed or injured.

The Russells’ departure from the district had been accomplished so swiftly and quietly that hardly anyone noticed the removal van parked in the drive outside their house, and their final exodus. Mrs Russell did call in one last time to say goodbye to Mum; a visit that reduced them both to tears.

For Joan it was a huge relief when the school term ended and the Easter holidays began. She missed Doreen terribly and hated having to turn up to class every day to find her no longer there. She had plenty of other friends, of course, but no one to amble home with after school, or share confidences, or make her laugh as Doreen did.

They spoke on the telephone sometimes.

“It’s like a morgue here,” Doreen told her. “Pine trees, sand hills, lots of houses with big gates and notices saying, ‘Beware of the dog!’ We can’t very well have one on our gate because Raffles is much too daft and friendly to pick a fight with anything, not even a Nazi parachutist – well,
especially
not a Nazi parachutist.”

Their plans to meet in Liverpool were out of the question at the moment. It was far too dangerous, even in the daytime.

Joan spent a lot of time in her attic studio. She was trying her hand at fashion drawing now, much influenced by the effortlessly flowing lines of the drawings that she pored over in old copies of
Vogue
. It was exciting to try to draw the kind of clothes that were now quite impossible to buy, even if she had the money. And if one day in the far future she could afford them, the fashions would certainly have changed by then.

Audrey was so depressed about this situation that she could hardly bear to look at fashion ads. To her, gifts of clothing coupons from generous family members – Mum, mostly – were like manna from heaven. Joan mostly made do with school uniform or hand-me-downs, but she didn’t let it bother her unduly.

When the first fine spring weather arrived, so did Lukasz, turning up on their doorstep whenever he had time off, armed with a garden fork and spade. Ania came with him. They both turned out to be natural gardeners, and enthused Mum with the idea of making over the back garden into a vegetable patch.

This required an enormous amount of heavy digging. Mum joined in with them whenever she could, and took to poring over seed catalogues in the evenings. Joan helped, and even Judy did too, pottering about with her bucket and spade. But Ania seemed to know more than any of them about planting and growing. Wearing an old pair of men’s trousers and her hair tied up in a scarf, she worked untiringly.

Brian popped out from time to time and looked on encouragingly, but when it came to joining in on Saturday mornings, he usually seemed to find a pressing need to get on with his homework. And Audrey opted out altogether on account of ruining her carefully preserved nail varnish. Nevertheless, there was a huge sense of achievement when the planting was done and the first green shoots began to appear.

“The carrots seem to be coming up splendidly,” said Mum. “Perhaps we could even try for some runner beans?”

“Maybe,” said Lukasz judiciously, sipping a cup of tea. “It is possible. We ‘dig for victory’, as the posters tell us, yes?”

“Oh, yes!”

Dai had only one short leave that spring, and it was over all too soon. Audrey had built up to it with such an intensity of vital choices about hairdos, and what to wear, and whether she could get hold of some really good nylons that when the time came to say goodbye, the aftermath was all the more gloomy. She had taken to playing “Goodnight Sweetheart”, sung by Al Bowlly, on her portable gramophone in her bedroom over and over again until the rest of the family were sick to death of hearing it.

“Can’t you play some Glenn Miller for a change?” Brian complained. “Or Harry James?”

The trial of Mr Russell was a lengthy one. It was reported in all the national newspapers, but Joan didn’t follow it. She and Doreen simply avoided talking about it altogether in their telephone conversations. At last, the proceedings came to an end.

The two main culprits were given a four-year prison sentence, but Mr Russell got off more lightly with two years’ imprisonment. Mum said that it was because of his excellent track record and the fact that he’d been such a vital part of the community.

Happily, his punishment was later amended to a suspended sentence, which Mum explained meant that he would be allowed out on parole, providing that he regularly reported to the local police. Mum heard from Mrs Russell that he had since involved himself wholeheartedly in voluntary work, helping to re-house families who had been rendered homeless by the Blitz.

But, according to Doreen, things were very tight for them financially now. “Mum’s thinking of doing a secretarial course in shorthand and typing, and giving up her voluntary work to get a paid job,” she told Joan. “We need the money really badly. She’s never worked in an office in her life, and heaven knows how she’ll get on in the typing pool. But at least there are plenty of jobs for women of her age now, because so many younger women have gone into the services.”

“You’ll have to get your own tea now, when you come in from school,” said Joan.

“David and Dad’s too,” said Doreen gloomily, “knowing how hopeless they are at knocking up a decent meal, and then blaming it all on rationing. But at least there’s one bit of good news. The history teacher at David’s new school has persuaded him to try for the Cambridge scholarship after all.”

“Oh, good,” said Joan. She nearly added, “Give him my love,” but then didn’t, in case it sounded soppy.

CHAPTER 29

T
here were no letters from Dai. Every time the postman came, Audrey rushed to the door, but there was nothing for her.

“Don’t worry, love,” Mum kept saying. “You know how it is. There’ll be a big batch arriving soon, I’m sure.”

Audrey fretted. She kept in close touch with Dai’s parents, but they’d heard no news either.

Joan, Ross and Derek still pushed the handcart occasionally on Saturday mornings, mostly out of habit. It was good to be out doors now, in the last days of April, when the spring sunshine danced over the estuary and even the local ladies, queuing grimly outside the shops, had dispensed with their headscarves and shapeless overcoats and were attempting a more summery appearance.

One morning Ross turned up with a grin on his face. “My dad’s been promoted!” he told them proudly. “Made a sergeant! Mum’s ever so chuffed! It means better pay and all! And he’s due to come home on leave soon.”

“That’s
great
,” said Joan.

“He’s being sent down to Dorset on a training course. Then, well, we don’t know where he’ll be posted. Abroad, maybe. But we’ll see him before that.”

As Joan walked home for her dinner, she found herself thinking a lot about her own dad and how much she still missed him. She kept a clear picture of him in her mind, helped by his photograph on the front-room mantelpiece. And she could remember all sorts of precious shared moments − like when he played with her, and took them all on picnics (though never to go swimming, because he said he saw enough water at sea to last him a lifetime), and how he could always make everybody laugh.

There weren’t too many laughs to be had at home these days. The comedians on the radio worked hard to keep people cheerful. They toured the country, did shows for the workers in munitions factories, getting everyone to sing along. But the effect wore off pretty quickly. She couldn’t help envying kids of her age who still had a dad, even an absent one or someone who couldn’t live up to the huge standards you set for them when you were little.

Somehow she had felt so much older since that day, only last autumn, when she had heard Lukasz whistling to her in the dark. Such a lot seemed to have happened since then. Now, with Doreen gone and Mum always trying to put on a brave face, and Audrey waiting anxiously for a letter from Dai, Brian was about the only person she could rely on to be consistently cheerful. Nothing seemed to get him down for long, and he was good at really silly jokes.

When Joan arrived home, she was met by a delicious smell of onions frying, so she knew Mum was getting the dinner ready. Perhaps there might even be some lamb chops, as it was Saturday. Audrey was laying the table when the telephone rang and she ran to answer it. It was a brief call.

“That was Dai’s dad,” she called out to Mum when she rang off. “He’s coming round.”

“Hugh Davies? Coming now? It’ll be lovely to see him, of course. Is Gwyneth coming too?”