The Lights Go On Again

by Kit Pearson

  A letter for him! He tore it open. Good—his Mysto-Snapper Membership Badge for Orphan Annie’s Secret Guard had arrived. Tim had got his two days ago. Gavin crammed it back into the envelope. Then he noticed something else lying on the hall table.

  A yellow envelope. The kind of envelope a telegram came in.

  Everyone knew what a telegram meant. Gloria Pendleton’s family had received one last year when her father had been killed in France.

  Bosley whined and looked anxious, the same way he had when they heard Aunt Florence crying. Now Gavin realized that, again, someone was crying. The sound came from the den. Aunt Mary, he guessed, listening hard.

  “No-o-o …” she wailed. Then Norah said, “It’s not true! I just can’t believe it’s true!” Aunt Florence’s voice, broken and bitter, croaked, “What a waste. What a wicked wicked waste.”

  Hanny came out of the kitchen. At the sight of Gavin she sobbed and held up her apron to her red, swollen eyes.

  “What’s wrong?” said Gavin. “What happened?”

  “I can’t bear to tell you. Go into the den. They’re all in there.” She ran back to the kitchen, crying even louder.

  Andrew … It must be Andrew.

  Gavin thought of Andrew’s laughing face two summers ago when he’d taken them all sailing. Then he thought of Norah. Tears formed in his eyes.

  He should go straight into the den and join them, but his feet seemed stuck to the floor. He stood there and stared at the yellow envelope. The silver bowl of roses on the hall table gave off a heavy, dizzying smell.

  Sir Launcelot would be brave. He wouldn’t cry; he would go and comfort his sister. Gavin took a deep breath and walked into the den.

  Norah was sitting stiffly on the edge of the chesterfield. When she saw him she winced as if she’d been stabbed. Her eyes were filled with such acute pain he had to look away. This was how much she had loved Andrew.

  “I can’t tell him,” she whispered.

  “I’ll tell him,” said Aunt Florence. “Come here, sweetness.” She sat down and held out her arms. Gavin walked slowly towards her. It was just like the day he’d entered this room for the first time and Aunt Florence had summoned him into the protection of her strong embrace.

  He stood in front of her. Her firm hands gripped both his shoulders while she spoke. On the small table beside her chair lay the telegram, but he couldn’t see the print clearly.

  “Gavin, I have something terrible to tell you. You’re going to have to be very brave.”

  “Yes, Aunt Florence,” said Gavin. “Is it Andrew?”

  “Andrew!” She looked bewildered for a second, then let go of his shoulders and sighed heavily. “No, pet. It’s not Andrew. It’s—it’s your mother and father. They’ve been killed by a flying bomb in England.”

  He couldn’t have heard her properly. He stared, then finally whispered, “Killed?” Aunt Mary began sobbing again.

  “Yes, pet,” said Aunt Florence gently. “Your grandfather sent us a telegram. Do you want to read it?”

  Gavin took the telegram from her. For a few seconds the black letters danced against the yellow background, then were still.

  REGRET MY DAUGHTER AND SON-IN-LAW KILLED BY V-1 STOP PLEASE TELL CHILDREN AND CONVEY OUR LOVE AND SORROW STOP LETTER FOLLOWING JAMES LOGGIN

  Gavin handed it back. “Do you understand, pet?” Aunt Florence asked him.

  “Yes,” he whispered. Aunt Florence pulled him onto her knee as if he were five again. He felt babyish, perching there, but he couldn’t protest.

  “Damn this war!” sobbed Aunt Mary. “Damn, damn, damn! Why should such a monstrous thing happen to two innocent children?” Gavin gaped at her. Aunt Mary never used words like that!

  He slid off Aunt Florence’s lap, but she kept her arm around him. Norah still sat in her frozen position; he couldn’t look at her face again. Aunt Mary was beside her, but she seemed afraid to touch her.

  Hanny brought in a tray of tea. “You and Norah have some too,” she urged them. “I made it good and sweet—who cares about rationing at a time like this?” She sat down with them while the adults talked in low, shocked voices.

  My mother and father are dead, Gavin said to himself, sipping the hot sugary liquid. He tried to make himself cry.

  “I think you two should go up to Norah’s room,” said Aunt Florence, when they’d finished their tea. “I’m sure you want to be alone together. We’ll call you for dinner.”

  Gavin trudged up the stairs after Norah, thinking regretfully of Tim and Roger waiting for him in the park.

  Norah sat on the window-seat in the tower, staring at nothing. Gavin tried to think of something to say.

  “Is it really true, Gavin?” She kept her eyes away from him.

  Gavin shivered at how strange her voice sounded. “It must be,” he said carefully. “The telegram said so.”

  “But maybe … maybe it’s the wrong family! Maybe they sent it to the wrong address!”

  “It had our grandfather’s name on it.”

  “Yes. So it must be true,” she said dully.

  She was quiet for a long time. So was Gavin. Bosley had followed them to the tower. He jumped up beside Norah and rested his head on her knee.

  Finally Norah broke the silence. “I knew it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I knew they’d be killed,” she said slowly. Her voice was singsongy and faraway. “I’ve had a nightmare about it for years—I never told you. A nightmare that their house was bombed and they were all killed. Except Grandad isn’t dead. That’s right, isn’t it?” she asked, as if she were asking herself, not him. “He sent the telegram, so he can’t be dead. That’s the only thing that’s different from my dream. And listen to this, Gavin.” She twisted a corner of the curtain in her hands and her voice became shrill. “I dreamt it again two nights ago. I hadn’t had the dream for almost a year, but then I did. Maybe that’s the day it happened! Maybe—”

  “Stop it, Norah!” Gavin put his hands on her shoulders and shook her hard. “I don’t think you should talk about your dream!”

  She looked right at him for the first time—as if he’d woken her up. “Sorry, Gavin,” she said softly. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” She sighed. “You’re right. What’s the use of talking about it now?” She picked up his hand. “Oh, Gavin … I just can’t believe it! Can you?”

  Gavin shook his head.

  Norah went over to her bedside table and took out a letter from the drawer. She brought it back to the window-seat and gazed intently at it. “This is Dad’s writing. The last letter from them before they died. Do you want me to read it to you?”

  “If you want,” whispered Gavin.

  Norah began to read the letter. Gavin had already heard its contents, of course, when it arrived in February. His parents were full of excitement about the black-out finally beginning to be lifted in England: churches could let their stained-glass windows show and car headlights no longer had to be masked. The Home Guard was disbanded, so Dad could stay home in the evenings. “The world is getting brighter and soon you will be with us again,” read Norah’s quavering voice. “Best love to you both, D-Dad and Mum.”

  Norah began to shake. Then she erupted in tears. She threw herself on the window-seat’s pillows as her body heaved and shuddered. “Oh Dad … Mum …”

  Gavin clenched his fists, trying to stop the wave of fear that broke over him. “Don’t cry, Norah,” he said, patting her back as if she were Bosley. “Don’t cry.” Bosley tried to lick her.

  But she kept on crying for a long time while Gavin sat awkwardly beside her. Then she raised her wet face. She stumbled into the bathroom and blew her nose loudly. “I’ll tell you one thing, Gavin,” she sniffed, coming to sit down again. “Wh-whatever—whatever happens to us, we’ll always stick together. No one is going to s-separate us, all r-right?” Her body shook with dry sobs.

  “Of course not!” said Gavin with surprise. “What do you think will happen to us?” he
added. A wonderful thought came to him. “Will we—will we stay in Canada now?”

  “No, we won’t!” Norah’s anger froze her sobs. She looked so fierce that Gavin felt ashamed. “Don’t ever think that! We’re English! England is our home! We’ll go back and live with Grandad, of course.”

  “Oh.” So everything was the same. When the war was over he still had to go back to England.

  Norah thumped the pillows. “I wish we knew more about how it happened! Then it would be easier to believe.

  Why didn’t Grandad say more?” She sighed. “I guess we’ll just have to wait for his letter.”

  “Why don’t we phone him?”

  “They—M-mum and Dad—didn’t have a phone. And we don’t even know if Grandad is in the house any more. We don’t even know if the house is still there …” She picked up Dad’s letter again. “I still can’t believe it! I need to be alone, Gavin. Tell them I don’t want any dinner, okay? We’ll talk again in the morning. Will you be all right?”

  Gavin nodded. He wasn’t all right, but he could never tell her why. Not because he felt sad about his parents. Because he didn’t feel anything at all.

  GAVIN AND NORAH stayed home from school for the rest of that week. Aunt Florence arranged a memorial service for Saturday. “They’ll be having a funeral in England, of course, but we have to do something too. It’s important for the children to go through a ritual,” Gavin heard her say to Aunt Mary. Both of them seemed grateful to throw themselves into getting ready for the service.

  Norah stalked around the house with puffy eyes, breaking into torrents of tears with no warning. The adults kept handing her fresh handkerchiefs and tried to comfort her. Gavin wished he could escape from her pain, but he forced himself to listen every time she wanted to talk.

  “If only I’d told them!” she agonized.

  “Told them what?”

  “Told them about my dream! Then it might not have happened!”

  Other times she talked about how she shouldn’t have argued so much with her mother. “I was awful to Mum our last night at home,” she moaned. “I hardly spoke to her, I was so mad they were sending us to Canada—and that was almost the last time I saw her!”

  Gavin tried to comfort his sister, but his words bounced off her grief—as if Norah were enclosed in a box that shut him out.

  Almost worse was how everyone in the family kept asking how he was. He muttered, “I’m okay,” but they didn’t seem to believe him. He knew they wanted him to cry. But however hard he tried, he couldn’t.

  If only he could go out and play with his friends as if this hadn’t happened! Aunt Florence even suggested it, but Gavin didn’t know what he’d say to them.

  Instead he spent long hours in his room, making a difficult model or reading until his eyes stung. At least next week he’d be allowed to go back to school. But that would be different as well, he thought drearily. Now everything was different.

  ST. PETER’S CHURCH was packed. Gavin sat in the front pew with Norah, the Ogilvies, Hanny and her husband, and Uncle Reg, who’d come to represent the Montreal relatives. He sneaked some looks behind him while they were singing “The Lord Is My Shepherd.” Tim was there beside his parents, and Roger with his mother. He avoided their eyes. He also spotted Mrs. Moss, Mr. Evans, Paige and her family, and Dulcie and Lucy. Even Miss Gleeson, the public librarian whom Norah and Gavin had got to know over the years, was there.

  Gavin tried to pay attention to when he was supposed to stand and sit and kneel. He tried not to think about musketeers or baseball or the new trick he was teaching Bosley.

  “Let not your hearts be troubled,” said Reverend Milne. He looked down at the front pew with such a concerned expression that Gavin flushed and hung his head.

  The last hymn was “Abide With Me.” Aunt Florence and Aunt Mary kept dabbing their eyes with their handkerchiefs. Norah didn’t sing but held her head high. “She’s being so brave,” Gavin heard Hanny whisper to her husband.

  “Where is death’s sting / Where, grave, thy vic-tor-y …” Gavin shifted with impatience; what a slow hymn. Half the people in the church were weeping while the ponderous melody droned on. Gavin could feel the whole congregation’s pity pressing against his back. Why did his parents have to go and die and put him through this?

  A GRAVE, DARK-CLOTHED CROWD filled the Ogilvies’ house after the service. Norah was safe in a corner; Paige and Dulcie and their sisters surrounded her protectively, warding off sympathetic adults. Gavin wasn’t as lucky. He had to shake hands and say “thank you” again and again, as one person after another came up and said “I’m so sorry.” Women kept glancing at him and wiping their eyes.

  Tim and Roger approached with their parents. Gavin turned as crimson as if he’d been found out about something he’d done wrong. His friends looked just as embarrassed.

  Tim’s father put his hand on Gavin’s head and Tim’s mother hugged him wordlessly. Roger’s mother clasped his hand and murmured something about “this terrible war.” Then the three adults waited for Tim and Roger to say something.

  “I’m sorry about your parents,” mumbled Roger, his head down and his fingers scratching rapidly at the skin on his thumbs.

  “Me too,” said Tim. “Was it a V-1 or a V-2 bomb?”

  “Tim!” cried his parents, pulling him away.

  “He hasn’t cried yet,” Aunt Mary was telling Paige’s mother. “We’re not sure it’s sunk in.”

  “He doesn’t have to cry, Mary,” said Aunt Florence. “He hardly remembers his parents. I’m much more of a mother to him now.”

  Gavin chewed on a sandwich, the crumbs sticking in his throat. Aunt Florence was the only one who understood.

  6

  Try to Remember

  On Monday Norah said she couldn’t face school yet and no one made her go. Gavin, however, was out of the house as soon as he finished breakfast. He took his bike and didn’t pause to wait at the corner for Tim and Roger.

  After the bell he sat at his desk, lowering his flushed face, while Mrs. Moss told him in front of the whole class how sorry they were. At recess all of grade five avoided him, as if he had some disease. At lunchtime Tim and Roger gave him clumsy smiles, then quickly bicycled away.

  Finally Gavin couldn’t stand it. After school he went up to Tim and Roger at the bike stands.

  “Hi.” He tried to smile nonchalantly, but his cheeks burned.

  “Oh, hi, Gav,” mumbled Roger.

  “How are you?” added Tim.

  “I’m all right. Look …” Gavin paused. Then he rushed out his words before he lost his nerve. “Look, let’s just forget about my parents. I mean, not forget about them … but let’s just act like before. Okay?”

  “Okay!” said Tim. “Do you want to go to the fort? One wall needs fixing.”

  “Sure!” said Gavin.

  “Uh-oh … Mick’s standing over there by the corner of the school,” whispered Roger.

  Tim swung his leg across his bike. “Who cares? All for one and one for all!”

  Gavin glanced at Mick. The bully was staring intensely, at him. He cycled fast to catch up with Tim and Roger.

  All week teachers and some of the older girls came up to Gavin to say they were sorry. But now that he had his friends back he didn’t mind as much. He was practised at smiling sadly and saying “thank you” every time someone mentioned his parents’ death. Otherwise he acted so normal that soon everyone at school seemed to forget about it.

  WHEN THE LETTER from Grandad finally arrived, Norah asked Aunt Florence to read it to them. She sat beside Gavin on the chesterfield, gripping his hand and crushing his fingers together.

  Aunt Florence’s voice was quiet and steady as she read:

  Dear Norah and Gavin,

  I find it very difficult to tell you about Jane and Arthur’s death, but it has to be done. There isn’t much to say about it. On Monday, March 12 your parents were having their noon meal at home. I was out at the pub when I heard the infernal tick
ing of a doodle-bug. We thought they were all over. There’s a few seconds of quiet before the damned thing drops. When the explosion came so close we all rushed out of the pub and I ran home.

  The house was smashed—just like my house in Camber was. So this is the second time I’ve escaped a Jerry bomb by being out. I want you to know I would gladly have gone in their place. It’s so bloody unfair that an old man like me survived and they went.

  They were killed instantly and would have felt no pain. Thank God you young ones weren’t there as well. I never wanted you to go to Canada but since it probably saved your lives, I’m glad you went.

  But now it’s time for you to come back. The war’s nearly over and you belong here. I know there still could be some danger, but everyone says that bomb was a fluke. We haven’t seen any since and anyway, lightning never strikes twice in the same place. I am living with Muriel but I’m planning to rebuild the house. There’s a lot that can be salvaged. I would like you both to live there with me. It’s where you belong. Muriel and Barry and Tibby agree that would be best. We will all look after each other.

  Regards to the Ogilvies. Please let me know immediately when you are coming back. We can all stay with Muriel until the house is rebuilt.

  Your affectionate grandfather,

  James Loggin

  A heavy silence filled the room. Gavin pretended to inspect Bosley’s toenails. What did his guardians think of this rough-sounding man who said “damned” and “bloody”?

  Aunt Florence spoke first. “Norah, dear, do you want to read the letter again alone?”

  Norah took the piece of paper from her. Her face was almost as white as it was. “I’ll read it again but we can talk now. How soon can we leave?”

  “Norah!” gasped Aunt Mary.

  Norah turned to her. “I’m sorry, Aunt Mary. I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful. But we have to go home! Grandad needs us. And we can help him build the house again,” she added, her voice breaking.

  “Building the house isn’t going to bring back your parents, Norah,” said Aunt Mary gently.

  “I know … but we have to go home,” Norah pleaded. “Don’t you understand?”