by Roma Tearne
And still the waiting had continued.
From the White House, President Roosevelt sends a personal appeal to Hitler.
By now the world’s oracle was undeniably the wireless, its sound impossible to escape, its news carrying across the open sun-soaked fields of England. The whole country had been living in such a state of anticipation for so long that it almost passed for ordinary living. London transformed itself in the minds of busy Londoners. Until this moment it had been taken for granted. The idea that it might soon be in mortal danger was unthinkable. Overnight the city became infinitely precious. Never in the history of British conflict had so many understood what might well be lost.
And all the time the question when?, when?, cried out from every sweltering street corner while the desire to carry on calmly still remained the order of the day. It was part of the terror of having to wait. Part of the blindness.
At the National Gallery, at the very moment the city became bloated with protective sandbags, Kenneth Clark was making plans for part of the collection to travel to Aberystwyth.
‘World Shocked!’ cried the news vendors.
For now there was a new word on every pair of lips.
Poland!
The colour green in a school atlas.
There came across the towns and villages of England the oddest of hushes, as though the very trees and streams, the green-hinged country lanes, the orchards, heavy now with fruit, were bracing against an unknowable horror. Loyalty flowed gently in its ancient rivers, love for home, fierce and invincible, was stamped on every face. If the Germans came, would any of this remain in a thousand years? Would it look different, were it to belong to others? Would the foxgloves bloom again on some other lovely summer’s day?
All over England excited children ran amok, their gas masks thumping against their backs, singing songs not sung since 1914.
‘Be prepared,’ Brown Owl warned.
And now at last everyone had heard the name Mussolini.
In Suffolk there were those who laughed at the mountain of sandbags in London. Here, everyone had a sandbag or two, in case of flooding. In Bly, the Molinellos were disappointed with their Pope. His broadcasted appeal for peace, in terms so general and trite, had almost passed unnoticed by the world. But the people in the town, not knowing about the Molinellos’ disappointment, began to look strangely at them. Were they related to that chap called Mussolini?
Parliament has been recalled. The British government, the Prime Minister has announced, will not go back on their obligations to Poland. All railway stations will now have their blue anti-glare lights fixed.
‘Blacker and blacker,’ said Selwyn, but how much blacker could the news really get?
This is a special announcement. From Friday, August 25th, the BBC will begin broadcasting news bulletins from 10.30 a.m.
Kitty, back from Exeter and listening to one of the news bulletins over supper, turned away to clatter plates in the scullery. Then she came back with the summer pudding.
‘People are collecting tinned food in the cities,’ she said, pouring custard made from fresh cream.
Nobody made summer pudding like Cook.
No one had seen Robert Wilson for some days.
‘He’s gone to see his boss in London,’ Kitty told them.
‘He’ll be back in time for the match, won’t he?’ Agnes asked.
‘Why does he have to come?’ Cecily asked. ‘He’s boring.’
‘Because,’ said Rose with an odd gleam in her eyes, ‘he likes Aunt Kitty.’
No one spoke. Agnes went to put the kettle on.
‘You haven’t finished your pudding, Rose,’ she said, finally. ‘Robert Wilson likes us all, not just Aunt Kitty.’
‘You can have mine,’ Rose told Tom, holding out her plate.
She looked pale and angry. Perhaps she was sickening.
‘As a matter of interest, what’s our friend Mr Wilson up to?’ Selwyn asked, lighting his pipe.
No one was interested but Aunt Kitty stared hard at him with a look that she usually reserved for Rose.
‘Tom, dear,’ Agnes said, with a crack in her voice. ‘Eat a little more.’
Tom grinned. Don’t worry about me, his grin said. I’m rather excited.
‘Don’t you have a meeting tonight?’ Agnes asked.
Selwyn shook his head and helped himself to seconds. Not tonight.
Cecily watched Tom slurping up raspberry juice at the bottom of his cut-glass bowl. There was no need for anyone to eat out of tins when the orchard was bursting with fruit. The orchard always reminded her of Carlo. Of late, since the accident, when she had had to have stitches, he had been very solicitous towards her. Thinking of him made Cecily blush.
‘I say,’ Tom was saying, ‘did you know that Bly fire station has got its anti-glares already? And is it true that the old school will be used for Top Secret missions?’
‘It’s a Top Secret!’ Selwyn joked.
But it wasn’t a joking matter.
‘My nerves are in shreds,’ Agnes confessed.
Mussolini has informed Hitler that Italy is in no position to render Germany any military assistance.
‘Captain Pinky’s done a bunk. Hurrah!’ Rose said out of the blue, forgetting what could and could not be said.
She was sounding a little hysterical, Cecily felt. Tom kicked her under the table but if Rose saw, she didn’t care. She had on a Black Look over her summer dress that made Kitty laugh in an oddly bitter way.
‘Thank you, Rose,’ Agnes told her. ‘Robert Wilson has been very supportive of this family.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Selwyn, non-committal.
He looked as if he could say more. On the table there were seven fresh flowers. Aunt Kitty was going out later.
‘Off out to see her admirer, I bet,’ Rose said, adding, in a nastily under-breath voice that only Cecily heard, ‘but who it is this time is anyone’s guess!’
In fact Aunt Kitty was only going to play bridge over in Bly.
On the news there were the usual stories of ‘incidents’ on the frontiers between Poland and Germany.
‘Just a minute,’ Selwyn said, raising his hand. ‘I want to hear the latest news bulletin.’
‘I bet you do,’ muttered Rose.
What in the world was the matter with Rose?
‘Shush!’ Aunt Kitty said crossly.
This is the BBC. Hitler has sent orders to halt the attack on Poland scheduled to start at 4.30 tomorrow morning.
‘Who does she think she is?’ muttered Rose, glaring at their aunt.
Luckily only Cecily knew of her sister’s own undercover plans.
‘Our ambassador has gone back to talk to Hitler.’
‘Well, the next three days will be important,’ Selwyn agreed. ‘Let’s stay hopeful until then.’
‘I’d like to have a word with Mister Hitler!’ Kitty said.
‘And me!’ agreed Cecily.
Everyone was amused, even Agnes, and all at once the atmosphere changed and became happy and glorious again.
‘What would you say, C?’ Tom asked, joining in.
Cecily hesitated. On the one hand she would have liked to fool around and make them laugh but on the other, she knew if she did, everyone would continue to treat her as though she was a child.
‘She’d vomit on him,’ Rose cried.
She had found a Don’t-Care straw hat and wore it rakishly over her Black Look.
‘Be quiet,’ Selwyn admonished, turning the radio up and they were all silent, listening to the boring voice.
President Roosevelt was urging peace. Great efforts were being made to preserve it by all the Scandinavian countries, too.
When supper was finally over Agnes went off to complete her Mass Observation entries. Then she promised Rose she would finish her dress. Rose’s dance dress was straight out of a fairy tale. Cecily’s a mere cast off.
Then, in spite of what he had said earlier, Selwyn put on his bicycle clips and went out into
the lovely evening, disappearing amongst the dusky dog roses. He had so much to do before the harvest began on Monday.
‘Let’s meet in the den tomorrow,’ Tom hissed.
Cecily nodded.
Afterwards, in no time at all, the harvest arrived and for a whole week the farmhands worked furiously to finish the job. Bellamy was paid extra by Selwyn to join in, simply because he was such a good strong worker. Always the first to arrive in the coolness of dawn, he was also the last to leave, working steadily, wasting no time and speaking to no one. The helpers, aware of his unpredictable moods and made uneasy by his brute strength, gave him a wide berth. Often he would be found standing stock-still, as if in a dream, staring across the waves of softly undulating white oats in the blaze of sunshine. In contrast to the gentleness of the abundant countryside, Bellamy’s scythe sounded harsh against the wheat stalks. There seemed always to be a glint of anger in his eyes.
Soon the swathes lay yellow and beautiful on the stubble. The local girls began making the bonds, the mothers binding the sheaves. And except for the noon rest and the mid-morning break and the pauses for the drinking of tea, the work went on all day until darkness fell.
One afternoon during that week, Rose came out into the field where Bellamy was working. She was carrying the tin pot of tea.
‘Hello, gipsy,’ she called, her voice rising like a lark over the translucent light.
She had not seen him since their row.
Bellamy took the pot from her. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. Then he threw the tea in a wide glittering arc across the stubble. Cecily, hurrying across to the secret hiding place she now shared with Tom, saw them and stopped. Bellamy and Rose were fighting.
‘Still in your silly mood?’ asked Rose.
She didn’t sound as if she cared much.
‘If that’s what it pleases you to say,’ Bellamy answered.
The threat in his voice threw itself across the field.
Until this summer Bellamy had always gone to Bly fair with Rose. They went after dark because Rose thought fairs were more fun if you sneaked up on them. When it arrived, she used to climb down through the bedroom window and the two of them raced off to the seafront. Then with no warning she withdrew her friendship and developed another interest.
‘It wasn’t Joe you saw,’ Bellamy said.
‘Shut up!’ Rose whispered savagely.
In the stillness of the air, her voice carried all the way to Cecily.
‘You like that idiot? You really like him?’
‘What if I do?’ asked Rose. ‘What will you do?’
‘I’ll… I’ll…’ Bellamy grabbed her wrist, leaning towards her.
Cecily heard Rose’s careless laugh as it skirted his threat.
‘It’s nothing to do with you, you fool.’
‘Yes it is. Everything about you is my business. If I find it’s true…’
Rose laughed again. Then she pushed him away with surprising force.
‘If you want to kiss me, kiss me, then,’ she said. ‘Don’t creep all over me.’
But Bellamy’s attempt to kiss her was not successful, either.
‘Why don’t you wash?’ Rose snapped, suddenly. ‘You smell something terrible.’
Bellamy experienced a moment of confusion. He had been drinking beer and the strangely repetitive taste of the hops began to rise and quarrel with another sensation just above his heart.
‘I have,’ he lied.
‘No you haven’t,’ she said furiously. ‘You’ve been here all day. And I’ve already told you I don’t want to go on the rides with you any more.’
Bellamy was silent.
‘You can’t go on your own,’ he said mildly, adding, ‘I’ve nearly finished for the day and I’ll wash in the stream if you like.’
‘If I like! You smell like a pig, like… like the poacher you are. I’m sick of it.’
They had moved away from the stocks and the sun was full and harsh on them. Bellamy looked at her upturned face. The expression on her face was one of supreme indifference. The flat, faint impression of her voice carried sharply across to Cecily. Her sister’s sudden rage, which Cecily had been well used to since childhood, seemed to have on this occasion come from nowhere. It wasn’t Bellamy who usually angered Rose.
‘But you know I poach,’ he said, frowning. ‘You’ve always known. What’s wrong?’
‘Well I’m tired of the way you are. I’m tired of doing the same things with you, tired of your stupid habits.’
He seemed to digest this.
But they had been friends forever, thought Cecily in dismay. Been inseparable since they had been children, since Selwyn had first employed Bellamy on the farm. No one, not even Agnes, had been able to break that. Palmyra Farm and all of the surrounding countryside that they had roamed together was Bellamy. Cecily could not imagine a life in which he did not exist.
‘Don’t be silly,’ he was saying.
‘I’m not being silly,’ Rose cried. ‘I’ve already made up my mind. The time has come for me to go to the fair on my own this year.’
‘What?’
‘Yes. I shall meet the Molinello boys, they’ll bring me back. I don’t need you.’
Her cruelty winded Cecily. It seemed to render Bellamy speechless too.
‘So that’s it,’ he said, dully. ‘The Eyties? Those fools?’
‘Don’t you dare call them fools!’
There was a silence. Cecily shivered.
‘Go then,’ Bellamy said at last with a sudden flash of anger. ‘Bugger off.’
And he pushed her so hard that she almost fell. Turning, Rose marched swiftly in the direction of the house.
Bellamy hesitated. He seemed uncertain as to what to do next. As he dropped his beer bottle into his jacket, a young rabbit started out of the shadow of a stock and came towards him, running in blind terror. He had stopped poaching for some time, being afraid of getting caught by Pinky Wilson, but seeing the rabbit so close was clearly more than he could resist. Oh no! thought Cecily, knowing what he was about to do. She saw him drop flat onto his stomach and in one swift movement pin the rabbit to the earth, cracking its neck with his hands in a sound that echoed through the air. Then, getting up, he swung the soft body over his shoulders. There was a look of strange elation on his face until something made him look belatedly across the field where Cecily stood. She froze, but with an indifferent shake of his head, Bellamy picked up his scythe and spat on it. Then with slow deliberation he disappeared in the opposite direction.
Tom was waiting in the den. The den was really the hollow of the old hornbeam. Since Cecily had decided to share the place with him, he had turned it into a boy’s hideout of his own. It no longer felt like Cecily’s secret place where she came to escape from Rose or their mother, to read or dream of things beyond her reach. The den had turned into the sort of play area she might have liked a year ago but in truth had now outgrown. There was an overturned crate doubling as a table and two broken footstools Tom had found in the barn. He had discarded the rag rug Cook had given Cecily, saying it was just for sissies. Tom was beginning to bore Cecily. But in the absence of any other company what else was she to do?
‘Who’s there?’ Tom asked as she approached.
Cecily sighed. She had forgotten his password and she knew this would prolong the agony.
‘Woodstock,’ she said.
‘Wrong,’ Tom cried.
‘Harris?’
‘No!’
‘Hannibal?’
‘Nope!’
‘Well what is it?’
‘You tell me,’ Tom said.
‘Well I’ll go home then,’ Cecily said crossly.
‘Rabbits,’ he allowed, reluctantly. ‘But we’ll have to change it now.’
On one of the footstools was the book he was reading. Uncommon Danger, a crackerjack of a spy story. Tom was going to be a spy himself one day.
‘Were you talking to Bellamy?’
Cecily sh
ook her head. When she sat down on the floor of the den she was now so tall that she had to fold her knees right up to her chin. Tom frowned. He was considerably smaller than she was.
‘Have you been growing since Sunday?’ he asked.
Cecily didn’t answer. Her height embarrassed her.
‘Bellamy’s had a fight with Rose,’ she said at last.
She was still upset and couldn’t simply put it down to the rabbit that had been killed.
‘It isn’t Bellamy you should be worrying about,’ Tom told her.
He spoke with portentous deliberation.
‘I think,’ Cecily said, slowly, half to herself, ‘Rose doesn’t like Bellamy any more. I think she prefers Carlo.’
There! She had said it. But the lump in her chest seemed to have grown heavier. Tom was busy whittling his pencil to a sharp point. Then he held out his hand.
‘Give me your finger,’ he said sternly.
‘What for?’
‘We have to swear a solemn oath. That’s what spies do.’
‘I’m not a spy,’ Cecily said.
She felt suddenly utterly weary of this game. Tom reminded her of a small bluebottle, impossible to swat and constantly buzzing in her ear. Perhaps, she thought, there was going to be a thunderstorm, after all.
‘Because,’ Tom was saying, ‘I have something important to tell you about your sister.’
He took her hand in his and with a sudden, quick movement ran the blade of the knife across first her little finger and then his. Cecily gasped but Tom put a finger to his lips. Then he touched the bead of blood that was on Cecily’s finger with the one on his own.
‘Right,’ he said, triumphantly, ‘now we are blood brothers. And what I have to tell you, as a result of my research, is that Pinky Wilson is trying to turn your sister into a traitor!’
It was perfectly clear, wasn’t it, from all the evidence he had gathered?
Pinky Wilson was following Rose.
Everywhere!
Tailing her,
stalking her
talking to her,
biding his time as though she was prey.
Momentarily startled out of her own preoccupations, Cecily stared at Tom who nodded triumphantly.