by Katie King
As she got back into bed and settled herself under the covers, she had a pang of homesickness when she caught a whiff of Barbara’s cologne, normally only dabbed on for best occasions. But it was a pang that was quickly subsumed by the excitement of having the little box room all to herself.
Connie’s ruminations were interrupted by a delicious smell of baking wafting up the stairs to her room, and immediately she realised that in spite of eating so late the previous evening she was peckish once again. She hoped it was almost time to get up and have some breakfast.
Down the corridor Jessie had been awake for nearly as long as his sister, the cockerel having roused him. He too had been lying in bed, looking around at his bedroom.
It was a large room, and very untidy, with clothes and various bits and pieces strewn around willy-nilly. There were lots of comics, and some boys’ adventure books. Jessie could see a cowboy hat and neckerchief, and poking out from beneath the neckerchief what looked as if it could be the barrel of a toy gun. There was a large magnifying glass lying on the floor right beside Jessie, in the middle of a slew of brightly coloured Dinky cars; in addition there were some boxing gloves chucked on a wooden chair that had a raffia base which was coming unravelled, and a chart on the wall that showed how to read a compass and track a variety of wild animals by being able to recognise their footprints.
It was obviously the bedroom of a boy as there was nothing girlish anywhere that he could spy, and Jessie realised that this was the first time he had slept in such a masculine environment – and that he liked it very much indeed.
Jessie had gone to sleep snuggled with his teddy bear, but now he propped it up on the pillow beside him, just in case Tommy woke suddenly and caught Jessie holding it. He didn’t want to be seen as a namby-pamby.
He thought about his sister – this was the first time he could remember that he had woken up without her being in the room.
Connie was a strong personality and back home the boys would look up to her. But as far as Jessie was concerned, these qualities of his sister’s only emphasised how lacking he was in the boyish skills. He’d often thought that if only he’d had more boys’ things or that if Ted would have properly taught him cricket or rugger, then he might have had more of a chance in finding his place amongst the local children.
He looked up and stared at Tommy’s foot poking out from under the covers. Jessie didn’t know why but he fancied it looked very much like a foot that belonged to a boy.
He wondered how he and Tommy would get on. He’d always rather liked the idea of having a brother. Of course, Connie was a wonderful sister and she could beat many boys at their own games, but now that he was in a proper boy’s bedroom with a real boy actually in it, he could see that what he had known up until now just wasn’t the same as having a brother.
Might Tommy feel the same? He was an only child after all, and so it might be possible. Could Jessie maybe grow in time to think of Tommy as a brother, or would he and Connie be going back to London soon, making all of this merely a blip in time for each of them? Or, if they stayed, would he and Tommy perhaps not get on? And if he and Tommy did get on, how would that be when they had to be parted when Jessie and Connie had to go home? And how would Connie fit into all this?
Jessie tried to imagine what he would feel like if he had had to have a boy move into his bedroom back in Jubilee Street, and he realised that he would have felt quite strange. There would be opportunities for some fun, sure, but it would be odd to have somebody else on your patch, and to be demanding attention from your parents, and so Tommy would be feeling uncertain too, Jessie guessed.
At the thought of Jubilee Street, and Barbara and Ted, and even little Fishy, Jessie felt a wave of homesickness. He reached for the knitted teddy he had found hidden in his suitcase and, putting his head under the blankets as he tried to be as quiet as possible, he gave into a few shuddering sobs at his sudden sense of violently missing all that he knew and the unsettling feeling that his childhood was slowly slipping away from him, and there was nothing in the world that he could do to prevent this from happening.
Chapter Fourteen
Above the stables Peggy spent a restless and disturbed night, by far the worst night of the three evacuees, and so much so that Gracie had got up at one point and had fetched her a drink of warm milk from the rectory as well as several cushions to put under her feet as her ankles felt so tender.
Peggy couldn’t get used to the different smells and sounds of Harrogate.
Bermondsey had a sooty waft about it that lurked in the background aroma always, and in warm weather this was punctuated by a rich and slightly putrid odour rising off the River Thames.
And Bermondsey was never really completely quiet. Whatever time of day, there seemed to be people about somewhere or other, and in the summer when it was hot, voices could be heard talking through their open windows or out in their yards. It was very difficult to keep any secrets in Bermondsey as around where the Rosses and the Delberts lived the houses were small two-up, two-downs that were very tightly packed together, and although this could feel claustrophobic and aggravating at times, right at this moment Peggy was incredibly homesick and longing to hear the familiar sounds of neighbours bickering or laughing.
Here it smelt fresher and greener somehow, with only an occasional slightly metallic tinge to the peaty air.
Roger and Mabel had been welcoming and very pleasant, that was for certain, and Peggy had absolutely no complaints about either them or the quality of the digs they could offer, and of course it was wonderful that she and the children could remain united.
In fact, Peggy couldn’t imagine hosts who could have gone out of their way to be nicer to their new arrivals, even if much of what they were saying to each other came across to her as gobbledegook.
But everything felt so different, with even the tea tasting strange, and this had meant that Peggy had gone to bed feeling very disorientated.
Gracie proved indeed to be quite a snorer, and so Peggy had to content herself with listening to her alternating deep and high rumbles, which to Peggy’s surprise worked quite well after a while as the regular rhythm proved surprisingly soporific, and eventually Peggy was able to drift off.
Still, it wasn’t a restorative sleep as she had a mess of jumbled dreams, the most vivid of which was her trying to tell Roger the difference between vicarages and rectories, and he turning into Tommy, and then Tommy turning into Bill as she stood in a church with amnesia, with the pupils who had travelled with her in the rail carriage crying when she couldn’t tell them about the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
She felt totally exhausted when she awoke to Gracie getting up when it was still not quite light, and Gracie whispering that Peggy wasn’t to mind her but she was going ‘to help Mabel with the bread’, after which she was going somewhere (Peggy couldn’t make that out) and Roger and Mabel were going to – was it Leeds?
Peggy was too half-asleep and groggy to do more than nod in Gracie’s direction and settle back down for an hour or two, distracted and then soothed by a couple of fluttery movements deep within her bulging stomach.
The next time she woke the sun was blazing in through the window and Gracie was placing a cup of tea on her bedside table with, ‘I’m off now, Peggy, to t’greengrocer’s where I do a few ’ours. Mabel thought you should ’ave a lie-in, but it’s now pas’ ten and you need t’get kiddies t’church ’all fer ’leven.’
Peggy realised she could hear whoops of children’s laughter coming from the garden, and when she hefted herself out of bed and looked out of the window as she brushed the sleep from her eyes and then rubbed the aching small of her back, it was to see the three children larking about on the swing.
They looked very happy playing together, Tommy obviously having been allowed an hour or two off school that morning in order to help Connie and Jessie get used to things where they were going to be living, and Peggy thought it seemed as if the youngsters were settling into the new
regime much better than she.
*
After Peggy had hurriedly got herself dressed, she made her way down the steep and rickety stairs from the room above the stables and across the yard to the back door to the kitchen of the rectory, the delicate teacup that Gracie had brought over rattling rather precariously in its saucer in time to the rumbling of Peggy’s tummy as she was feeling distinctly peckish. On entering the kitchen she found that it was deserted.
The breakfast plates were stacked neatly on the draining board but hadn’t actually been washed up yet, while the used knives, forks and spoons were still lying haphazardly on the table accompanied by quite a lot of breadcrumbs scattered around.
There was a wet dishcloth lying in the butler’s sink, some cracked eggshells in the sink, and a crumpled tea towel was lying carelessly on the floor, which Bucky, the cat, was gnawing at, at the same time as paddling it furiously with his hind feet as he pretended it was some poor defenceless animal he needed to punish.
Peggy made a shushing noise and Bucky scampered away with an indignant purp and an angrily twitching tail, actions clearly designed to admonish her for stopping his fun with the tea towel.
She decided not to take it personally – befriending Bucky might be a long-term project, but Peggy knew that he had met his match in her.
She was delighted to discover standing on the kitchen table a huge teapot, which still had hot tea inside that had been kept warm by an alarmingly cheery knitted tea cosy plonked over it that had a multitude of decorative many-coloured frills adorning it (Peggy betting to herself that this cosy had been a rather exuberant gift from a grateful parishioner as the clashing tones of the wool were a very bold – some might say garish – choice if Mabel had knitted it herself). Alongside the teapot, and a clean cup and saucer, was a loaf of bread upended on its cut end to stop it going stale that was sitting invitingly on a wooden board so used and worn that the corners went up and the top edge of the sides dipped down almost to the table. In a china dish nearby there was butter, and beside it a bowl containing a dollop of strawberry jam that had a muslin cloth over it to keep any flies off.
Peggy realised she was starving and so she set about tucking in with gusto as she thought about the possible mechanics of how the pupils of St Mark’s would be integrated into the very probably quite limited confines of the other primary school.
The plan was, she thought, that all of the St Mark’s evacuees, herself included, would meet up at the Odd Fellows Hall again at eleven, and then from there they would be walked over to their new primary school. The headmasters of the merging schools would have met first thing to discuss whether the class sizes should be doubled up, or whether one school should have the use of the school premises for the morning and the other for the afternoon. In fact, by now the decision would almost certainly have been taken as to how it was all going to work.
There weren’t going to be any lessons today, Peggy knew, and so all the St Mark’s children would be returning to their billets for their lunches and presumably would be allowed to play with one another after that.
She wondered how the children from London had fared overnight. Many, if not all of them, would never have slept away from their homes prior to then, let alone have spent a night without their parents nearby; and some of the children were only five and so it would surely have been a very big thing for them to get through, and actually many of the older children would also be feeling similarly, she was sure.
Without exception, the school pupils had looked very forlorn and down in the mouth when they were lined up at the reception centre the previous evening, she’d thought, while some of the host adults hadn’t seemed at all keen either on having to provide billets, although others – like Roger and Mabel – had walked in with big smiles and had gone out of their way to be as nice and as pleasant as possible during what was a pretty soulless process.
Roger had explained that local people had been told they would be taken to court if they refused to take in evacuees if they had the space, and this strong-arming on the part of the authorities had led to some people’s noses feeling very put out of joint, with them claiming that having to have strangers move into their houses was a step too far on the government’s behalf.
Peggy had winced visibly, as she could very much sympathise with this point of view.
Seeing her response, Roger quickly added that this reaction had been by no means universal as plenty of other people had said to him that they were proud to be of service in whatever way they could be for the war effort, and so were extremely happy to be able to help those who needed to get out of London. Of course, they weren’t going to sniff either at the money they would receive for each person billeted at their homes, which was 7s. 6d. each week for children, and a bit more for adults.
Roger then realised that this last comment might intimate that he and Mabel fell into that second category rather than the first – well, the second of the second category, and not the first of the first category, was what he wanted to say – and he dug himself even further into this bit of a tangle, saying next that of course he and his wife had to support their parishioners of all opinions to do with the evacuation, even though they were delighted to have living with them three members of such a lovely family as Connie, Jessie and Peggy were by all accounts, even though there may have been a plethora of good reasons that they hadn’t been chosen by the time he and Mabel arrived, and it was really no trouble at all for the Braithwaites to take them in.
Peggy couldn’t help laughing just as Mabel said, ‘Roger, give over!’ and it was to the relief of all when a visibly chastened Roger said nothing for a moment, before coming up perkily with, ‘Parkin? And a hot cup of tea? Just the ticket after jacket potatoes I always think.’
This was a very sweet couple who had taken them in, Peggy decided, even though she had absolutely no idea what parkin was, although she assumed it was something nice to judge by the happy looks of anticipation on her hosts’ faces.
She wanted the Braithwaites to know that tired and grumpy as she and Jessie and Connie were, they did appreciate what was being done for them.
And so Peggy said that it was herself and her niece and nephew who should be trying to make Roger and Mabel and Tommy feel at ease, as they were all very – no, extremely – grateful for their kind gesture in providing them with such a lovely place to stay, they really were. And what was parkin, by the way?
Feeling much chirpier this morning in spite of her irregular night, Peggy ate her breakfast quickly and then popped the bread, butter and jam she hadn’t consumed into the larder. Next, she swiftly did the washing-up and then she stacked the clean and dried crockery and cutlery away in what she hoped were the correct cupboards and drawers – it was hard to tell as none of the cupboards seemed to be organised according to any system that Peggy could fathom, being cluttered with all manner of bric-a-brac – and just as she was wiping down the draining board, a large grandfather clock in the hall outside the kitchen door struck a quarter to, and Peggy put her head out of the back door to call the children in.
Sure enough, after Tommy had shown Jessie, Connie and Peggy how to retrace their footsteps back to Odd Fellows Hall, and he had bade them a hasty cheerio before trotting off into school himself, Peggy had a quick word with the children as they stood grouped together on the pavement, each watching Tommy’s jaunty walk as he headed away with both hands in the pockets of his dark grey short trousers and whistling something a bit tuneless.
Peggy said that before they went inside the hall to say hello to everyone from St Mark’s, she wanted to grab a private word with Jessie and Connie to see if they had each passed a good night.
Connie replied that she found her little box room to be very nice, and Mabel had told her she could leave her clothes untidy if she wanted, but she wasn’t impressed with the cockerel; and then Jessie told his auntie about the no-farting rule and then the burping attempt to out do each other that Roger had joined in on.
‘A
h. Well, thank you, Jessie – I don’t think I need to hear any more on your and Tommy’s bedroom rules just now, do you, particularly the letting-off bit? Connie, I’m very pleased that you like your room; I would have loved it too at your age but maybe we won’t mention to Barbara about you not having to put your clothes away as, knowing your mother, she’ll have something to say about that. I have got a nice bed too, and Gracie seems pleasant enough, and Roger and Mabel very welcoming, and so Tall Trees doesn’t seem too bad as far as we all are concerned, does it?’ said Peggy, and both Connie and Jessie nodded their agreement as their aunt added, ‘I think we might just have landed on our feet.’
Chapter Fifteen
Peggy’s cheerful mood wasn’t to last for long, though, as immediately she was inside the hall and Connie and Jessie had drifted over to talk to Angela Kennedy about what their various billets had been like, and the breakfasts they had been given, she could see that some of the Bermondsey children looked to have had quite a testing time of it over the previous twenty-four hours, if their pale faces and baleful expressions were anything to go by, with one or two having obviously long ago that morning given in to snivels and teary cheeks.
Suddenly something caught Peggy’s attention. She was shocked to see that Larry had an absolute shiner of a purple and magenta black eye, with him now sporting an eyelid that was so swollen the skin was shiny, half-shut and looking stretched almost to breaking point.
It had to be tender and extremely painful, and when she asked Larry in a concerned voice – he wasn’t one of her favourite children as she knew how very mean he had been to Jessie over recent months, but no child deserved this sort of treatment – what on earth could have gone on for such an injury to have happened, Larry replied sullenly that he’d been told after his tea the night before to take a bucket with some scraps and potato peelings out to the compost heap. His billet was a small-holding and nobody had talked to him other than to tell him to get some firewood in and take the peelings out.