How the Penguins Saved Veronica

by Hazel Prior

  This afternoon it was Mum’s turn.

  “I’m so sorry you’re unhappy, my darling, but this is the reality of wartime. We must count our blessings.”

  “Count them? I can’t think of any at all!” I moaned, not caring if I sounded like a drama queen.

  “Don’t say that! You know there are plenty,” Mum scolded. But she’s incapable of being harsh. “I’m sorry about Aunt Margaret. I know she’s not much fun, but she isn’t used to having anyone else in her house. She probably finds it just as difficult as you.”

  I suppose Mum’s right. She’s good at thinking about other people; much better at it than me.

  She went on. “Dad and I have managed to find something that might cheer you up. Every Saturday afternoon there are dance lessons in Aggleworth village hall, just a fifteen-minute walk from Aunt Margaret’s house. Would you like to learn how to dance?”

  “Yes!” I shrieked down the phone the minute the words were out of her mouth.

  How I long to dance!

  And at the lessons there may be boys . . .

  Sat, 21 Sept 1940

  Aunt Margaret’s

  Unbelievable. I’ve started dance lessons and THERE ISN’T A SINGLE BOY! I should have guessed, because the whole thing is run by church workers. We have to partner up with each other, taking it in turns to be the man. There’s only an old gramophone and a limited selection of records.

  Oh well, it’s still good to move to music. We’re learning the quickstep, waltz and fox-trot. I don’t want to boast, but I honestly think I’m the most graceful in the class. The other girls are so slow to pick up the steps.

  At least they’re friendlier than the ones at school. Last Saturday I walked back part of the way with a girl called Queenie. We were arm in arm and laughing gaily and I thought she might become a friend, given time. But then an old man stopped us in the street. He was really cross. “Don’t you know there’s a war on?” he demanded.

  I was very put out by it. I said to Queenie: “Lord, everyone keeps saying, ‘Don’t you know there’s a war on?’ I’m so sick of the phrase. Of course we know. We could hardly miss it!”

  But Queenie had gone quite cold and sullen. It seems that nobody is allowed to enjoy themselves anymore.

  • 22 •

  Patrick

  BOLTON

  I can’t get over it. Why has she let me into all this? It’s the last thing I’d expect from somebody like her, total trout face and iciest ice queen on the planet. There’s no doubt about it, Veronica McCreedy is not your everyday, common or garden grandmother. First disappearing off to Antarctica and then sending me her teenage journal. Why the hell would she do either of those things?

  I can’t believe the withered old crone I know is the same person as this silly, pretty fourteen-year-old. Young Veronica was one hell of a snobby madam, for sure, but it looks like she had a big heart back then. She cared about animals at any rate, and she loved her parents. Seems like what she really needed was friends.

  I don’t know what to make of it. All these feelings keep firing at me. Like the feeling that I shouldn’t be eavesdropping on this girl’s thoughts, even if the adult Veronica has OK’d it. And the feeling that I’m tuning in to her loneliness. And the feeling that I’ve been given some kind of rare opportunity . . . but I’m not sure what exactly.

  There’s a letter tucked into the pages of the diary, written in spidery letters across old, browning paper. I pull it out.

  Dearest Very,

  We have such good news! You have probably already opened the package we’ve sent with this letter. Yes, it actually is what it says on the jar. Strawberry jam! I wish I could see your face now, Very! How long is it since you’ve tasted such sweetness? We knew you’d be pleased. Have it all to yourself or share it with your friends, whatever you want. It comes from my cousin in Australia. He sent it over when he heard about the sugar ration, a special treat for us all. He also sent a pot of black treacle. But I hope you don’t mind, I have kept that back for your mother. We are both well, but not getting as much sleep as we’d like. There is still antiaircraft fire through the night, but we take flasks into the Anderson shelter and tuck ourselves in with blankets. We play whist or ludo when it’s too noisy to sleep. We look after each other as well as we can. Mum is still loving her ambulance driving. She comes home with dreadful stories of people with missing limbs and blood spouting everywhere, then still manages to cook dinner. She’s discovered a recipe for glycerin cake. Not as bad as it sounds! I wanted to post you some, but she says it would be stale by the time it reached you. You know Mummy! Always practical!

  ARP work is much the same. People take stupid risks sometimes but keep up their morale amazingly well when you consider everything that’s happening.

  I hope you are keeping up your own morale, dear girl, and that the dance lessons are helping. Mum sends love and says she will write next time. We both hope that you are working hard and enjoying the almost-castle. We think of you every day, Very, and we look forward to hearing all your news. Do write soon.

  Your ever-loving father

  Fri, 4 Oct 1940

  Dunwick Hall

  Dad truly is the best dad in the whole world.

  I’ve just ripped open the parcel and have the pot of jam in my hands. “Have it all to yourself or share it with your friends.” Typical of Dad to assume I now have friends. He can never grasp that I’m simply not popular. I’ll confess I’ve cried a little. I wish this stupid old war would end and I could go home.

  I’ve just taken the lid off, stuck in a finger and scooped out a mound of sticky red paradise. I let it sit on my tongue, trying to make it last, resisting swallowing for as long as possible. The taste is exquisite. Strawberries and summer and pure joy.

  But I mustn’t eat any more. I have a plan.

  Sat, 12 Oct 1940

  I was feeling light-headed as I jumped down from the milk float and ran to Aunt Margaret’s house this morning. Aunt M looked nonplussed when she answered the door. She didn’t even recognize the young lady in front of her. Then she suddenly did.

  “What in the name of all that’s holy has happened to you?”

  “I’m just keeping up with the others,” I said, brushing her cheek with a dutiful kiss.

  My new haircut accentuates my high cheekbones and delicate jawline. My hair sweeps up from my brow in a great chestnut swathe and nestles behind my ears in short, glossy coils. Everyone says how much it suits me. It’s especially good when I complement it by staining my lips deep red. Lipstick isn’t available, of course, but beetroot juice is almost as good. They grow beetroots on Janet’s farm.

  Yes: I have a friend. No: friends, plural! Janet, the broad-faced, upturned-nosed girl who sneered at me at the beginning, classifies as a friend now. So does her sidekick, Norah, the one with the freckles. I had to surrender most of my strawberry jam, but it was a small price to pay.

  Janet says I make her laugh. She especially likes it when I play tricks on the teachers. Like when I put a blob of glue on Miss Philpott’s chair last Wednesday . . .

  It was Janet and Norah who suggested the haircut. I somehow think they weren’t expecting me to come out of it quite so adult looking and alluring.

  “What is the world coming to!” Aunt Margaret exclaimed on the doorstep. “I pray for you every night, Veronica, and look what you’ve gone and done to yourself!”

  She believes that fashion and corruption go hand in hand; one is scarcely possible without the other. I tried to explain. “There’s nothing wrong with the way I look, Aunt Margaret. They were making fun of me before.”

  They still do, actually, and they still think I’m a prig, but at least I fit in more than I did.

  Before bed, Aunt Margaret made me go down on my knees in front of the wooden cross in the drawing room. She knelt beside me. She read a
few prayers from her old black prayer book and finished, as always, with the Lord’s Prayer.

  “‘Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.’ Think about those lines, Veronica. While your father and mother are working in London and our brave men are fighting in the fields, think about those lines. Think about them and stay away from bad influences.”

  “Yes, Aunt Margaret,” I answered, good as gold. “Of course I will.”

  Of course I will not.

  Monday, 21 Oct

  Hooray! I don’t have to go back to Aunt M’s every weekend anymore. Janet has invited me instead to her home, Eastcott Farm. It’s only three miles away. Norah already goes there every weekend. Like me, her home is some distance away, so she only goes back in the holidays.

  First thing on Saturday morning the three of us were picked up by the farm cart at the park gates. I was so excited! The cart was pulled by a lovely dappled horse. Janet’s father and older brother are away, working in the air force, so the cart was driven by Janet’s other brother, Harry. He’s sixteen. He’s large and clomping, with the same wide face as Janet, but his nose is all right. His ears stick out too much and his skin is bad, but otherwise he’s quite nice to look at.

  The route to Eastcott Farm winds through green pastures and hills dotted with sheep. The road eventually turns into a wide track with twisty hawthorns on either side. Harry was shouting at the horse and flicking the whip over its neck to make it trot faster.

  “Don’t hurt it!” I shouted at him.

  “I’m not. It don’t feel a thing,” he said. “C’mon, you lazy beast!” he added to the horse.

  “Stop showing off, Harry,” Janet scolded. “We don’t need to get home any quicker. It’s lumpy and bumpy enough as it is!”

  When we got off among a sprawl of farm buildings, Harry’s eyes were roving all over me. I stared right back at him.

  Janet and Harry’s mother, Mrs. Dramwell, came out in her apron to greet us. She isn’t just broad in the face but broad everywhere else as well. Her hair is rather greasy, but she seems nice enough.

  She invited us in and gave us mugs of hot milk but didn’t sit down herself. I know from Janet that things have been hard at the farm since her dad left. Two land girls stay there, and a prisoner of war is sent over daily from the camp just over the hill for the hard manual labor. Otherwise it’s just Mrs. Dramwell and Harry trying to keep the food production going. So we girls helped all we could. It was tiring but good fun. I’ve learned how to milk a cow! Dad and Mum won’t believe it when I tell them. I fell about laughing at those udders to start with (they were so huge and floppy), and I couldn’t believe I had to squeeze them to get milk out. But after Janet showed me how, I managed to do it.

  Later she took us to see the pigs. I’d never seen an actual pig before. They were sweet but very, very dirty, all grubbing about in smelly muck. One piglet had fallen into a kind of rut thing and couldn’t get out. It was really upset.

  “Poor little thing!” I cried.

  “Why don’t you go in and get it out?” Janet said, amused that I cared so much.

  I hopped over the fence.

  “You can’t do that!” screeched Norah.

  “Watch me!” I said. I worked my way through the sea of pig muck and hauled the little creature out of the rut. He squealed and wriggled. I gave him a big kiss on the snout and set him loose. How we all laughed!

  I was in such a mess afterward. My shoes, my socks and the hem of my skirt were all encrusted with stinky mud. I had to scrub them and leave them to dry by the stove and borrow some clothes of Janet’s in the meantime. The piglet was happy, though.

  Monday, 28 Oct 1940

  I’ve just returned from my second weekend at Eastcott Farm. Janet’s brother, Harry, fetched us and took us back in the cart again.

  “So, what do you like to do with yourself, Veronica?” he asked when I got down at the farm. He said my name with a slight sneer, but then Janet and Norah do that, too. It seems they can’t help it.

  I told him I like drawing and science, but my chief love is animals. This didn’t seem to be the right answer. So I asked in turn what he likes doing.

  “Well, when there’s time off from the farm I make models of airplanes,” he answered. “Just out of bits of old junk I find around.”

  “He’s obsessed with them,” Janet told us.

  “They’re all very good, very clever,” Norah added, keen that I should register she was here first. “Will you show us them again, Harry?”

  Harry led us to a small back room that smelled of wood and glue.

  “That one is a Wellington. It took me ages. This is the one I’m working on at the moment.” He picked up a model gingerly. “It’s a Spitfire. You can hold it if you like.”

  I took it and held it up to the light. It was carefully cut out from old tin cans, matchsticks and nails bent to shape. I could appreciate the ingenuity, but it’s not really my sort of thing. I prefer pigs. I saw, however, that it was important to him, so I pretended to be interested. Janet pretended to yawn. Norah was pretending the hardest. She was pretending to be absolutely fascinated. I passed her the precious object. Norah looked as if she’d been given the crown jewels.

  “Marvelous, really marvelous!” she repeated again and again. I’m laughing my head off right now, just remembering it.

  Tuesday, 29 Oct

  I can’t believe I was happy only yesterday. I’m so stupid, so clueless.

  I’ll never be happy again.

  I’d give anything to be back there, stuck in yesterday forever.

  How can I face anything? How can I go on? This happens to other people. Not to me.

  God, oh God.

  • 23 •

  Patrick

  BOLTON

  DECEMBER 2012

  Veronica’s upset, really upset. I don’t like it. But I realize, with a start, that I can’t carry on reading right now because it’s time to go to the thing at Gav’s. I’m already running late.

  I’m kind of creeped out by it all, though. That guy, Harry. Could he be my grandfather? Is Harry’s blood running in my veins? As I pull on a clean shirt, I look over at my reflection in the mirror. You couldn’t say my face is broad, not really; and my skin isn’t too bad. Still, I could have got those things from my mum’s side. Do my ears stick out a lot? Hard to say. I turn my head about, trying to make it out.

  That thing with the model airplanes is just the kind of thing I’d be into. It’s weird. I don’t know what I’m hoping. I’m not warming to Harry much, but it’s clear he fancies the pants off Veronica. I have to say I’m rooting for her. I hope she doesn’t rush into things. She’s way too young.

  This whole thing is getting under my skin. Oh well, whether I like it or not, Granny V’s teenage life will just have to go on hold. Needs must.

  Gav seems to have got the idea I’m in need of company. At least, I presume that’s why he invited me to dinner. Gav’s a star to be thinking of me when he’s got so much stuff going on in his own life; it must be a fricking nightmare dealing with grief for his mum and worry about his daughter both at the same time.

  To be honest, I’d be much happier meeting him down the pub for a pint. I’m not blessed with great social skills, and I’m hopeless at dinner party chitchat. Still, there’ll be kids there. I find kids much easier to talk to than adults. There’s no pressure to be cool or anything with kids. They just accept you as you are.

  I cycle to the address. Gav’s place is third along in a terrace of mushroom-colored ex–council houses. A stack of bicycles against the outhouse is a giveaway I’ve come to the right one. They’ve made an effort with the front patch of garden. There’s a neatly trimmed hedge, some flower beds and that.

  When I ring the bell, the door is opened by a little girl in a red dress with ladybird patterns all over it and sh
iny red sandals to match. She has huge eyes but no hair. A faded blue cloth is wrapped tightly around the top of her head.

  “Hi there!” I say.

  “Mum!” she shrieks. “He’s here!”

  Without waiting for any answer, she takes my hand and leads me through the hall and into the sitting room. “You are Patrick,” she tells me, “and I am Daisy. This is the sitting room. This is my dad, but you know him already from bicycles.” Gav leaps up from his chair and squeezes my hand but can’t say anything yet because Daisy is in full flow. “This is my brother, Noah, but you don’t need to take any notice of him”—here a small boy with his head in a comic lifts a hand and waves it in my direction but doesn’t look up—“and this is my doll, Trudy, who is my daughter—not my real daughter, actually, but she is like a daughter to me and I look after her.” (Trudy the doll, a bigheaded, bulbous-eyed thing, is clearly more important than Noah the brother.) “The only other people left for you to meet now are Mummy and Bryony. They’re in the kitchen, making the pudding look nice and drinking wine. Mummy and Bryony, that is: both of them.” She’s very emphatic.

  “Oh, right. I’ve met your mum before,” I tell her, recalling the waiflike woman who sometimes appears in the shop when Gav’s forgotten something. “But Bryony?”

  “Bryony’s a friend,” Gav explains with a bit of a sly grin. “We invited her, too, because she’s been at a bit of a loose end lately.”

  “Bryony’s very, very pretty,” Daisy tells me. Her eyes wander across my face, taking in my features. “And you are quite handsome,” she eventually decides.