An Orphan's Winter

by Sheila Jeffries

  Everyone looked gloomy.

  ‘You can buzz off now.’ Nan put the lid back on the OXO tin. ‘I’ll expect you to come back at tea time with some ideas.’

  ‘But Nan, my mother is coming tomorrow. I’m supposed to spend time with her,’ Lottie said.

  ‘Pick her brains,’ Jenny said. ‘She must know how to make something.’

  Lottie frowned. ‘She won’t understand why we need to.’

  ‘Then tell her,’ Nan said, picking up her flower basket, scissors and raffia. ‘I shall be in the garden. You could come and help me, Lottie, couldn’t you?’

  ‘Okay.’ Lottie relished the thought of spending time with Nan in amongst the lavender heads and the montbretia and marigolds. She loved to stand under the massive spires of echium and hear the bees working away inside its blue flowers. Even taller were the dracaena palm trees with their great trusses of creamy white flowers, their heady perfume making the air deliciously fragrant. The tropical garden was Nan’s pride and joy. It grew in its own microclimate, in a hollow sheltered from the sea winds by an arc of thick tamarisk and cypress trees. Enormous succulents grew there with crimson-black rosettes of shiny leaves, and in the south-facing, sun-baked rockery grew masses of daisy-like flowers in the hottest colours, tumbling down over the rocks. It was a perfect place to hide and dream on a hot afternoon.

  Olivia can wait, Lottie thought. She suspected Nan knew she didn’t want to see her birth mother and had deliberately led her into the tropical garden to lift her spirits. Jenny would deal with her, Lottie thought confidently. She had gone into the kitchen to make biscuits, with Tom helping her. They’d pack them in little squares of butter muslin tied with scraps of bright ribbon for Nan to sell.

  Everyone was busy and no one noticed Warren slipping away in his bare feet, his shoes hanging around his neck from the knotted laces. Despite the hot sun, he wore his cap and jacket and over one shoulder carried the piano-accordion, its keys and pearly buttons glinting in the sun as he lugged it down Foxglove Lane towards the town.

  Hearing the brisk trot-trot of the milkman’s pony and the jingle of glass bottles, Warren darted through a gap in the stone hedge and hid there, enjoying the morning sun on his face. While he waited for the milkman to come back down the lane from Hendravean, Warren set about putting his shoes on. Jenny had given him an old pair of Tom’s and he wasn’t used to them. All his life he’d gone barefoot or worn plimsolls, and the leather shoes made a lot of noise when he ran. Hearing his own footsteps, loud and important, was something new, and Warren wasn’t sure it suited him.

  He brushed the grit from between his toes and pulled on the grey socks Jenny had given him too. Wearing socks was also a new, luxurious experience, for he’d never had a pair, even in winter. The feel of them was soothing, like damp sand. He shivered with pleasure as his feet slid easily into the shoes, then he struggled to tie the laces. Today he wanted to look smart, and he wanted his feet to be cushioned for the long walk. He thought about hitching a lift on the milk cart, but he didn’t like the milkman’s eyebrows. Crows’ wings they were. Always angry.

  Once the milk cart had gone, Warren picked up the piano-accordion, hung it around his bony chest, and set off again. He glanced back a few times but no one was following.

  In his loud shoes, he marched along Fish Street and down to the busy harbour. An enormous heap of pilchards glittered on the quayside, some of them still squirming and alive, a circle of women gossiping and laughing as they packed the freshly caught fish into barrels. None of them noticed Warren and neither did the group of artists setting up their easels along Wharf Road. He marched on determinedly, past the church and the lifeboat house, past Pedn Olva point where, according to Nan, the rocks were different. Blue Elvan, she’d said, but the rocks didn’t look blue.

  At last he came to the granite steps that led up to the railway station. Climbing them with the weight of the piano-accordion was hard, but he managed it. A train was coming. He heard the whistle of it coming through the wooded cliffs of Carbis Bay and he felt excited. The station was busy with people in clean clothes waiting on the platform and others hurrying to catch the train.

  Pleased with himself, Warren found a niche in the sunny rock face close to the entrance gate. He sat down, took off his cap, turned it over and put it on the ground at his feet. Then he opened the bellows of the piano-accordion and played a long, breathy chord. Heads turned as people walked by, gazing in astonishment at the tiny, raggedy boy half hidden behind the beautiful, shimmering instrument with its black and white keys and mother of pearl buttons, the bellows creasing and stretching as he began to play. First ‘Trelawny’, then ‘The Skye Boat Song’ and ‘Greensleeves’. A few tourists actually clapped and it wasn’t long before a lady in a flowery dress opened her shiny handbag and threw a silver shilling into Warren’s cap. He rewarded her with the wild, engaging smile that came from doing what he loved, there in the morning sun, and getting paid for it.

  The gathering pile of coins winking in the sun inside his cap added fire and energy to the music. His small fingers flew, his body shook with the rhythm and his normally pale face glowed with joy. Inspired, he played his repertoire of tunes over and over again, adding new ones as he remembered them. Between trains it was quieter with fewer people and Warren took short breaks, gathering the coins from his cap into the pockets of his jacket and putting the cap out again, empty.

  The station porter eyed him from a distance but didn’t intervene. Live and let live was a deeply Cornish attitude encrypted into his character. He didn’t know where this bony little boy had come from, or even if he was allowed to be there, but the tourists were loving it.

  Warren was thrilled when a plump and portly lady threw half a crown into his cap. He thanked her with his brightest smile.

  ‘Aw, bless ’im,’ he heard her say to her friend. ‘He’s all knees and elbows.’

  By mid-morning, Warren found he simply couldn’t play any more. His arms ached and his fingers were weak and shaky. He was too hot and savagely thirsty. The long walk back to Hendravean was daunting. He climbed to his feet and stretched, searching around for the nearest tap. There wasn’t one. He looked at the neat row of red fire buckets on the station platform and made his way towards them.

  ‘Oy!’ The station porter was watching him. ‘Don’t you drink that, boy. The water’s been in them buckets since Christmas! Thirsty, are you?’

  Warren nodded.

  ‘Wait there – I’ll get you a mug of water.’ He looked at Warren kindly. ‘Don’t be scared, I ain’t gonna tell you off. Enjoyed your music, I did. Lovely. Made me morning, it did. You wait there. Don’t go runnin’ off now.’

  Reassured, Warren stood, trembling a little, the piano-accordion at his feet. He watched the porter’s rotund figure go into the back door of the ticket office and emerge with a white tin mug full to the brim with clean water. It felt like a gift from the gods. Warren took the mug, the enamel deliciously cool against his hands, and drank it down. Jenny had taught him how to say thank you. It was two words. Not one. Not ‘Ku’, but two words, with a smile. He decided to try it out on the porter.

  ‘Th . . . th . . . thank – you.’ It was such an effort that he forgot the smile, but the porter looked pleased.

  ‘‘Ope to see you again one day.’

  Warren picked up the piano-accordion and hung it over his shoulder for the walk home. It felt heavier than ever, and the four pockets of his jacket were weighed down and bulging with money. One had a hole in it and Warren could feel the coins working their way through and accumulating inside the lining of his jacket. Exhausted by two hours of performing in the hot sun, he trudged homeward, longing to lie in the dappled shade of the pear trees and rest. Several times he paused, thinking he just couldn’t walk another step, then dragged himself on with his heavy load. Picturing Nan’s face when he tipped the money out of his pockets and onto the table was what kept him plodding determinedly on.

  Nan was hard to please, but Warren p
assionately wanted her to accept him. He wanted her to treat him the way she treated Lottie, reading stories and explaining the secrets of flowers and animals. At first he’d hated her for being so cold and contemptuous towards him, but gradually it had changed as he witnessed her love of magic and her tenderness towards birds and animals. He reckoned it was humans Nan didn’t like, especially him. Then he’d made her cry just by playing music. The way the tears glistened on her aged skin and the way she suddenly looked vulnerable was something Warren would never forget. The bond forged between them in those moments was precious.

  Jenny had explained to him how Nan had given up her solitary life and shared her home and everything in it with them when they might have been homeless. When he saw Nan holding the money tin and asking for help, Warren knew he could quickly make some cash by busking. He’d done plenty of busking in his short life, though never on his own. It had been scary, sneaking downstairs with the piano-accordion, but he wasn’t stealing it, Warren reasoned. He was borrowing it.

  As he trudged up the lane, hungry and exhausted, he dreamed of the way he would scoop the money out of his pockets. It was a lot. He didn’t know how much exactly, but it was more than Nan had in the OXO tin. It would fix things. It would make Jenny smile, and Lottie, and Tom. Smiling at him.

  It would be a transformational moment, boosting his confidence, establishing him as a worthy member of the family he had grown to love.

  Tired as he was, Warren walked on up the lane with a happy heart. Until, with no warning, it all changed.

  First there was a smell, an old remembered stink of nicotine, beer and sweat. Then a shadow on the lane, overtaking him on soundless feet, and a fist coming out of nowhere, punching him on the side of his head, hurting his ear, knocking him to the ground. The piano-accordion crashed onto the tarmac, his stash of hard-earned money spinning and tumbling into the lane. He tried to escape by wriggling out of his jacket but the man caught him in an even harder grip, leaving the jacket lying in the grass.

  It was over. Warren’s dream of happiness, his life with Jenny, Lottie and Tom, his chance with Nan, his safe haven. Gone in an instant. Too exhausted to fight, too terrified to shout, Warren crumpled, whimpering as he was dragged away and hurled into the back of a covered wagon waiting behind the hedge. Nan’s piano-accordion rang and rattled, dumped beside him on the dirty floor. His jacket with the precious hoard of money was left behind, his little hands tied cruelly together with a rope, cutting and scorching his skin.

  With his eyes glistening, the man climbed into the driver’s seat and cracked a whip in the air, making the pony set off at a brisk trot down Foxglove Lane.

  *

  ‘I’ll go and look for him, Mum, don’t you worry.’ Tom looked solid and reassuring as he helped Jenny wrap the biscuits they had made. The first batch was already in a box on Mufty’s cart, along with the herb and flower posies Lottie had made. She and Nan were on their way down to the town to sell their wares. It was the holiday season and there were tourists everywhere.

  ‘You look out for Warren,’ Jenny had said, but Lottie was on edge and hardly seemed to register what Jenny was asking, and Nan didn’t seem bothered about Warren. Jenny felt she was the only one who cared about him.

  Then Tom discovered the piano-accordion was missing.

  ‘He can’t have taken it – surely not,’ Jenny said. ‘It’s so heavy and cumbersome.’

  ‘But he can play, Mum. He’s good. Gooder than me,’ Tom said.

  ‘Better than you he certainly is, and we don’t know who taught him. Has he told you?’

  Tom shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘Are you sure he didn’t tell you anything – about what he was planning to do today? He seemed worried about Nan’s money talk,’ Jenny said. ‘But he sat there listening. Then he just – vanished. Tom, he must have said something to you. Come on, think.’

  ‘I dunno.’ Tom’s brow puckered. He hesitated.

  ‘Come on, Tom, you must tell me, even if it seems unimportant.’

  ‘He did say he used to go and play music in the street – with his dad. “Uskin”, he called it.’

  ‘Uskin? Oh, busking. That makes sense, Tom. So what happened to his dad, I wonder?’

  ‘Warren hates him,’ Tom said. ‘And he’s scared of him. That’s why he lived wild.’

  Jenny stared at him. ‘I wish you’d told me that before.’

  Tom shrugged. ‘Didn’t matter, did it?’

  ‘Of course it did.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Don’t be so tiresome,’ Jenny snapped. ‘Go and look for him, will you please? And talk to people. Ask if anyone’s seen him.’

  Tom sighed. ‘I wanted to play with me friends.’

  ‘Tom, Warren is missing. Don’t you care?’

  A sullen silence hung between them.

  ‘Tom?’

  ‘No,’ he said bluntly. ‘He’s not my brother, is he? I just put up with him, Mum.’

  ‘Just go!’ Jenny turned away, angry at Tom’s honesty. She saw it as resentment. It raised another issue: had she neglected Tom and favoured Warren? Was Tom jealous? Was she making the same mistakes she’d made with Matt?

  Overwhelmed and annoyed with herself, Jenny felt weary and wanted some peace. Her leg ached and she wanted to lie down on the sofa.

  I’m useless, she thought, watching Tom stomping across the yard. In her pre-polio days she would have been down there energetically searching for Warren. Talking to friends. Sharing the burden. Again she found herself longing for Millie. If only she could find her.

  The summer afternoon seemed endless. Jenny wandered around the perimeter of Hendravean, half hoping to find Warren hiding somewhere. The air shimmered with heat and the wings of bees, and the sea was a tranquil green-glass lagoon, the tide rising like well water, silver-lipped and clear. The church clock struck five with timeless resonance.

  And still Warren had not returned.

  Jenny could see Mufty’s cart coming slowly up the lane. Had they found Warren and brought him home? Jenny hobbled to meet them at the gate. Tom was there, helping Nan to push the cart up the slope to help the patient donkey.

  ‘No sign of Warren, Mum. Is he back?’ Tom called.

  She shook her head, disappointed. It seemed so final. Warren had gone. He wasn’t coming back. Jenny knew it.

  Nan’s face was serious. ‘We’ve lost Lottie as well,’ she said. ‘She’s gone out with Matt on the boat. I tried to stop her, but she’d set her heart on going and she’s worked hard helping me all day. I couldn’t say no.’ She handed Mufty’s reins to Tom. ‘Can you sort Mufty out, please? Unhitch him, take his harness off and rub him down – and give him a drink.’

  ‘Right. Can do.’ Always pleased to be trusted with a major task, Tom took Mufty away, his hand on the tired donkey’s fuzzy neck.

  Nan patted the leather bag she wore over her shoulder and it jingled impressively. ‘We sold all the biscuits – and lots of posies. It’s been a good day.’

  ‘Not for me it hasn’t,’ Jenny said. ‘I’m worried sick about Warren. He hasn’t come back, Nan. Something’s happened to him. I know it has.’

  Nan looked at her searchingly. ‘You look very tired, Jenny, and upset – I can see that. Now . . . I did hear something about Warren. That woman – Morwenna’s mother, Cora Bartle – came over to speak to me and she said she saw Warren busking outside the station, and he had a pile of money in his cap. Cheeky little toad. With my piano-accordion.’

  ‘Oh, Nan – he must have been doing it to help you, after what you said this morning. He took it all to heart, Nan, I watched his face. So where is he now?’

  ‘Cora said he’d gone by mid-morning. She tried to ask him what he was up to, but you know what the boy’s like. You can’t have a conversation with him. My guess is he’ll come home when the money runs out.’

  ‘No, Nan. Warren wouldn’t know how to go into a shop and ask for something. He’s a sitting target for some opportunist crook. Buskers get rob
bed all the time. And with his talent someone might have kidnapped him or robbed him on his way home and left him injured somewhere.’ The worries poured out of Jenny and she fought to control her frantic tears. ‘We’ve got to do something, Nan, before dark.’

  Nan hesitated. Then she said, ‘I believe Warren belongs to the travelling folk – the Romany gypsies. I like the real, genuine Romanies, and when they’re in St Ives I make it my business to talk to them. At first they tried to ignore me, but when they saw Mufty’s cart and realised I was hawking my wares, some of the women would sit and talk to me. They’re fascinating people, remarkably wise, and intuitive too.’

  ‘I was brought up to keep well away from them,’ Jenny said, uneasy.

  ‘Well, you should open your mind if you want to help Warren. What if he’s one of them?’

  Jenny nodded thoughtfully. ‘The fair is down there right now – on the island as usual.’

  ‘The Fair folk are not Romanies,’ Nan said, ‘but I did hear about a Romany woman marrying one of them. I hear all sorts of tales from the travelling folk, Jenny. I haven’t told you this but I went off in the car one day and drove around some of the villages, trying to find out if anyone knew of a boy like Warren.’

  Jenny stared at her. ‘I never know what you’re up to, Nan,’ she teased.

  Nan’s eyes twinkled. ‘I’m a devious old crone,’ she cackled with laughter, ‘but life is never dull.’

  ‘But we must take some action,’ Jenny said. ‘I’m going to ring the police.’

  ‘Go on then – do it now. I agree with you,’ Nan said, ‘but I don’t want them up here with those great dogs they’ve got, upsetting the chickens and the cats. I won’t have dogs galloping all over my vegetable garden. They’ve got paws like African lions.’

  Jenny bit back a sarcastic retort and headed indoors for the phone. At least Nan agreed with her.

  There were no dogs or sirens. The search for Warren began with the local bobby on a bike puffing up Foxglove Lane in the heat, a pencil and notebook in his pocket and a mildly sceptical glint in his eyes when Jenny tried to explain how a wild boy who couldn’t talk had come to live with her, despite her iron leg, despite her being a widow. And how this ten-year-old ‘wild boy’ had the grit and the confidence to steal a piano-accordion with mother-of-pearl buttons and go busking.