Safe. The word sounded good. I hadn't felt safe for ages. France hadn't sounded very nice when Daisy had been talking about what she had heard on the radio, what with the concentration camps and all, but Nan wouldn't have wanted to go there if it was worse than here. She was a grown-up. She knew about these things. It was good to have a grown-up with us again, especially when she was Nan.
I got up. I went downstairs. Ben took me out into the garden. Nan was digging a hole in the corner with one of those little garden forks.
"Good afternoon," she said. That's what grown-ups say when you get up late, but I don't think she was teasing me as it really was afternoon and it would have been silly if she had said good morning.
"Why are you digging a hole in the garden?"
"To get my money back."
"Why have you buried it in the garden?"
"People have been in and out of the house, looking for money and food. They don't even care that I'm here; they just walk in, look around, take what they want, and go. It's disgusting. I've buried the money in the garden to keep it safe until you were here. I thought your father could look after it for me when he got here, but I guess I'm going to have to look after it myself now."
I looked at Ben. Nan thought that going into other people's houses was disgusting. I decided not to tell her that we had been living in someone else's house in Canterbury. She might be cross with us.
Her fork hit metal. After a lot more scraping, she uncovered a small biscuit tin and picked it up out of the ground. Nan is supposed to have that illness where your bones are old and bad, but she was pretty good at digging as far as I could see. She opened the tin, and took out her purse, which looked much fatter than Mum's purse ever did. I think there must have been quite a lot of money in it. I hoped there was enough there for us all to go to France.
"Done. Okay boys, let's go."
We left. I felt sad leaving the house behind. We had spent so long trying to get home, and now we were going again. I didn't know whether I would ever see it again (I don't think I will now). I knew we were going to France to be safe, but it had felt pretty safe at home, just for that one night, back in my own bed, with Ben in the room with me, and Nan upstairs. The only thing missing was Mum and Dad.
Nan walked even slower than me. It was nice not to be the one holding people up for a change. Her knees are bad like mine, and she's got that "old" thing as well, that hurts her knees as well as her hands. Arthur something, it's called; I can never remember what.
Considering her bad bones, she managed to get over the rubble at the end of the road pretty good. Better than Mum. She didn't fall over once.
"Nan? Why were you at our house?"
"The question is why weren't you?"
"We went to Canterbury to find you."
"And I came here to find you. I'll tell you all about it later. I need to save my breath for walking. I'm not as young as I used to be."
That's another thing grown-ups say that doesn't really make any sense, as no-one's as young as they used to be, so what's the point saying it?
"Do you have anything to eat?"
"I'm afraid not, Love. I brought some food with me, but I finished it off last night before I went to bed. I wasn't sure if you were still coming. I was worried that something might have happened to you. I thought that if you were still coming, then maybe you would be bringing food with you."
"I'm sorry."
"Oh, don't apologise. It's not your fault. It was up to your Dad to keep you fed. You're just children."
"Dad couldn't. He was -"
"I know, I know. It wasn't his fault. I'm just saying, that's all."
We walked on. Even with Nan walking so slowly, it wouldn't take long to get to the beach. I used to think it was a long journey, and hated it when we didn't drive, but I'd been to Canterbury and back since then and it didn't seem very long at all now.
I thought about the boat waiting for us on the beach. And France. There were no bombs in France, from what I could make out. I didn't like the idea of going to another country and leaving Mum and Dad behind here, but I knew it was the best thing to do. It wouldn't take long to get there on a boat, as boats go quicker than cars.
By the time it was dark again, I would be safe, which was my new favourite word.
I wasn't safe, though, was I? Everything's been so horrible since then. I really, really, really wish I had stayed at home. But it was too late. It was way too late for all of us.
#
What with Nan having bad legs, it took about three quarters of an hour to get to the sea-front. There's a cliff-top you walk along on the way, with a railing along it, where you can look down on the beach. I always liked looking over it, because you can see way out to sea, as well as seeing the beach, the harbour and everything. It's really nice when the sun's out.
I ran ahead to be the first to look over the edge (old habits die hard, my Dad would have said). And what I saw worried me. It wasn't the wrecked harbour way over to my right, as I had seen that already when we walked through it in the dark on our way home the night before. It was that the beach to my left was jam packed with people. There were millions of them (well, maybe not millions, but an awful lot of them anyway). Thousands at least.
Nan and Ben joined me at the railings. I heard Nan swear under her breath, which surprised me as I'd never heard her swear before. It was the B-word that rhymes with "rugger" (like in rugby).
"Are they all waiting for a boat, too?" I asked her.
She nodded. "I think so."
"Is it a big boat?"
"Let's hope so."
We walked down the hill towards the harbour. There were people sitting down in the road in groups. I guess the beach was too crowded to sit on, so people had to come here for a rest from standing up.
By the time we got to the bottom of the hill, it was hard to move through the people as they were standing so close together. I had been wondering earlier where everyone had gone, as quite a lot of people live in Ramsgate, and the people from Canterbury and from the tent village must have been coming here, but now I knew. Everyone was here, by the harbour. Everyone was here, waiting for the same boat that we were waiting for.
"We'll never catch a boat here," Ben said.
"Of course we will," Nan told him. "We just have to be patient, that's all. Everything comes to she who waits."
Back before the bombs, I would have listened to Nan. She was the grown-up, and grown-ups knew best, most of the time at least. But me and Ben had been through a lot together, and he had looked after me, and he had made a pretty good job of it. And there were an awful lot of people crowded round the beach. What if he was right and she was wrong?
"Are you sure, Nan?" I asked her.
"Positive, young man."
"Shall we just wait here, then?"
"Yes. I'll need a sit-down. My legs are killing me."
My legs were hurting, too, but I didn't say anything. I had stopped complaining quite a long time before. But it was nice to rest them, even though I was worried that we might miss the boat while we were sitting down.
We walked a couple of dozen metres back up the hill, where it was a bit quieter and there was less chance of someone accidentally standing on us. We sat down.
"How come you were at our house?" I asked again. "We went to Canterbury to find you, and your house was blown up, so we thought you might be - might be - poorly."
"Oh, I know what you thought I was, young man, but it takes more than a few bombs to flatten me. When they started bombing - how long ago was it now? - I tried to call your Mum, God rest her poor soul. But the phones weren't working. I couldn't decide whether to come and look for you, or whether to sit tight, as I knew your Mum would come looking for me if I didn't get to yours first. There was no picture on the telly, but I got some news on the i-pad."
"You've got an i-pad!"
"Yes, hold the front page, Nanny happens to own an i-pad! Don't look so shocked. I'm not that old! Anyway, where was I? Oh y
es. I heard on the radio that the ports were being bombed, so I thought maybe it was worse for you than it was for me, and I stayed put for a while to see if you would come over. But you didn't."
"Dad said not to."
"Did he now? Well that's unfortunate. After a while, I got tired of waiting, and I started to worry that maybe you weren't coming, or that something had happened so you couldn't travel, and I decided to come and see you instead.
It just so happened that my next-door neighbour has a motorbike, and he was going to leave Canterbury as well, and he offered to take me. That was really nice of him, don't you think? His name is John and he's seventy three, but he can still ride a motorbike! What do you think of that?
A lot of people would have left me to it, and used the extra space on the bike for luggage or something, but John's always been a gentleman and he knew I was worried about you guys and he said that he would give me a lift.
"You came all the way here on the back of a motorbike?"
"You're sounding surprised again! How old do you think I am? No, don't answer that, I'm depressed enough already! It wasn't easy, holding on, what with my bad hands, but sometimes you've just got to bite the bullet, so I managed fine, thank you very much.
Well we made it halfway to Ramsgate, and I thought we will be there in a jiffy and we'll all be together again. But then these two men flagged us over, and we stopped because we thought they were in trouble, but they dragged us off the motorbike and they rode off on it. I couldn't believe it! In broad daylight! Bold as you like! But there are no police around anymore, that's the problem. People think they can do whatever they like. I hope they broke their necks on the way home.
We carried on walking, but it was hard, what with my Arthur and everything (she didn't say Arthur, but it was something like that, and I can never remember the word for her illness). And then we saw a plane up ahead, over the tree-tops, and it was firing at someone on the ground and we thought that maybe there were soldiers in the road or something.
We kept going, and when we eventually got to where the plane had been we saw the road was all churned up, and there were corpses all over the place, and we realised that that plane had been attacking ordinary people like us."
Ben pointed at the two of us. "We were there. And Mum and Dad. It was firing at us. We nearly got killed."
"You were there?"
"Yes."
"Oh, my poor babies. It must have been terrible. Terrible. Why didn't I see you? Tell me we didn't walk past each other in the crowds!"
"Dad said we should turn off on to another road, so it would be quieter and there was less chance of us getting attacked again."
"Your Dad was right. He was being very sensible. But it's a shame, all the same. If only you had stayed on the main road, we could all have met up and there would have been no need for you to go Canterbury to look for me. And maybe they'd both be alive now."
"Dad didn't know that!" cried Ben. He sounded cross. I think he thought that Nan was being nasty, but I don't think she was.
"I know that. Didn't I just say that he was being sensible? I'm not blaming your Dad for anything. It seemed like a good idea at the time. All I'm saying is that - with hindsight, which is a wonderful thing - it might have been better to stay on the main road."
"But he -"
"Let's move on, shall we? I think we're both saying the same thing, but in different ways. I've lost my train of thought now. Remind me where I've got up to."
"Dad taking us off the main road."
"Oh yes. Well, my neighbour and me, we kept walking and it took us ages to get here. I felt really guilty, because I was the one who told him to stop for those men, but he never blamed me, not once. He was such a nice man, John. A lot of people would have gone off in a huff and left me to it.
When we got here, we split up. We found the house empty, with the door all smashed in. I wanted to stay here and wait for you. He wanted to go and look for a boat. He wanted me to come with him; he said it wasn't safe here, all on my own, but blood is thicker than water so I waved him off and waited for you.
I can't even start to tell you how messy the house was! Someone had been here, and pulled all the stuff out of the cupboards and the books off the shelves. It was awful. Your Mum's never been one for tidying - thank Goodness for your Dad when it comes to that - but I hate mess so I spent most of the first day tidying up your things for you.
It was bit of a shock when people started walking into the house and helping themselves to your belongings, making everything messy again. I shouted at them at first, but they just laughed at me, and after a while I gave up and let them get on with it. There was nothing worth taking anyway.
The first time round, I had my money and my food (not much of it, but it was all I had) hidden in the house, but they weren't here long and they didn't find it. I think they were on drugs or something, by the look of them. A lot of young people are, you know, and now the police aren't around it can only get worse. That's when I decided to bury the money in the back garden, to keep it safe. I hid the food in my clothes so I didn't have to keep digging it up whenever I was hungry. It wasn't all that hygenic, putting it in my clothes (especially when I haven't been able to wash them) but I figured that was the least of my problems. There's no need to pull that face, either. It was all gone pretty soon anyway, so I didn't have to worry about that for long.
And I waited, and I waited, and you didn't show up. And I started to think that you weren't coming. I cried a lot about that. I love you all to pieces, you know that, don't you? But I'm not getting any younger and I can't last for long without food. So last night was going to be my last night in the house, and I decided that if you weren't there by the morning I would go in search of a boat. And maybe even see John again, if he hadn't caught one already.
And you turned up, just in time. Ben gave me such a fright. I woke up, and I could hear someone breathing, and I thought that I was going to be attacked in my own bed, and I may have screamed a little, but then it turned out that it was the two of you, and here we are, together again."
She gave us both a hug.
And then there was shouting, round the corner, from where the beach was.
"Now what's going on over there?" Nan wondered.
Ben stood up, walked to the bottom of the road, and peered round the corner. He came back at a run.
"It's a boat! Jack, they're saying it's a boat!"
#
I can't remember being so excited as I was then. I had been worrying about what France would be like, but I knew I didn't want to be here in England anymore. The Russians were here, and people were dying, and Mum and Dad had gone.
When we got to the bottom of the hill, we could see everyone pushing forward, trying to get nearer the beach. It was like the time outside the shop, when those two men were hitting Dad, but this was worse because there were so many people there. Everyone was trying to push their way towards the beach, even though there were thousands and thousands of people in front of them, blocking their way.
Nan held our hands. Her hand was all bony. "Stay with me. I'll never find you if you get lost. Keep hold of my hands, okay, no matter what?"
We joined the back of the crowd. Ben was going to start burrowing in, like Mum did at the shop, but Nan had hold of his hand so he didn't get far. Nan was standing there, like she was in a queue at the Post Office.
"Can you see the boat?" Ben asked her. "How big is it? Is there room for everyone?"
She tried to stand on tip-toes, but the people in front of us were taller than her so she still couldn't see anything. She moved around a bit to try to get a better view. Other people were coming over, and took our place as soon as we moved, so we were even further back than we were before.
"I - can't - quite - see. Did you see it, Ben? You said you saw a boat?"
"I didn't see it. I heard people saying there was one."
"You shouldn't always believe what people are saying. Especially when they're not even sa
ying it to you."
She stopped trying to look over people's heads. "Shall we just sit down, and wait for things to calm down a bit? If there is a boat, I'm sure someone will come ashore and make everyone queue up."
"Nan!" Ben was starting to sound cross again.
"Don't take that tone with me, young man. Grown-ups know best, you'd do well to remember that."
He opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it again, thinking better of it. Dad used to do that sometimes when he was having arguments with Mum. He was a lot like Dad. Nan wasn't anything like Mum, though. I know that Mum would have been dragging us through the crowds, making sure we got on that boat whatever happened. She never liked the idea of queueing.
Ben let go of Nan's hand. She started walking back to where we had been sitting before the boat turned up. Ben started trying to squeeze between two men in front of him, to get a better look what was happening.
And then there was a plane overhead, moving really fast, much faster than when we were shot at on our way to Canterbury. It swooped over our heads, and flew out to sea. A lot of the people in the crowd started shouting, and some started running away, which meant that we would have been nearer the front of the queue if Nan hadn't walked off. Most of them stayed, though, and I could see them looking up, but they were taller than me so I couldn't see what was going on.
There was a boom, and then the sound of a big gun being fired, over and over again, but I still couldn't see anything. More and people in the crowd were shouting things out, like "take the B-word down" and "have him" and lots and lots of swearing.
I needed to see what was going on. I jumped up and down at the back of the crowd, trying to see more, but it was no use. Sometimes, it's horrible being little.
More firing. And then there was another plane overhead, but this time some of the people were cheering it, and others were asking whether it was one of ours, and some people said it was and some people said it wasn't.
More firing. And then one of the planes - I wasn't sure which - was flying back over our heads, higher up this time, and the other plane was not far behind.
It went quiet for a bit. The planes had disappeared, and everyone was looking in the direction they had gone, and Ben took the chance to slip through the crowd while they were looking away. I didn't know whether to follow him or not. I really wanted to see the boat, but I knew Nan would be cross with me if I left her on her own.
The English Refugee: The Day It Happened Here Page 16