by Katie King
Barbara drew her children close again. She was at a loss as to what to say when she thought about all the things they had just described to her. Roger and Mabel seemed so pleasant that it beggared belief that their only child, Tommy, was so ill behaved and seemed to have such a conniving and remorseless nature. He appeared to have the potential to be quite a sophisticated criminal-in-the-making.
Barbara felt in a quandary. Tommy would be coming back from his grandmother’s very soon, and then what would happen? Were Roger and Mabel simply turning something of a blind eye, or did they really have no idea as to how Tommy liked to behave? He sounded a deceitful and manipulative, cruel youngster, with a yen for pranks that were much more horrible and potentially dangerous than any ten-year-old boy should really be coming up with. But he wasn’t very old and so maybe this was just a stage he was going through, and perhaps overall he wasn’t as bad as Connie and Jessie patently now believed.
Parents didn’t like to hear bad things about their children, Barbara knew, not least as she could acknowledge that she herself didn’t care in the slightest to be told horrible news of either Connie or Jessie, and she didn’t expect Roger and Mabel would prove to be any different when it came to being informed of anything less than complimentary about their own lad.
And of course the situation was made worse by Jessie and Connie being themselves caught between a rock and a hard place. The rectory was probably not the ideal billet for them long-term (although Larry’s certainly sounded much, much worse), what with Tommy living under the same roof too, and there was very little chance of them finding a new billet together as the Air Ministry employees were now getting first dibs on accommodation, let alone the children managing to transfer to a billet where Peggy could also be.
Yet, if Barbara buckled and took the twins back with her to Bermondsey, that course of action was most likely to prove to be a much more dangerous and possibly life-threatening option.
‘It sounds as if it has been very difficult for you both, but if anything like this ever happens again, you absolutely must tell Peggy, or else a teacher, do you both understand? Whatever it is that Tommy might say to either or both of you, or attempt to use against you in the future, even if it is something to do with the coming baby, you really must go to Peggy as your first port of call – and no arguments about that – as she is clever and wise, and very good at knowing what to do or what to say in any situation. I do want you both to remember that at all times,’ Barbara said in what she hoped was a firm but calm voice.
Then she added, ‘But that’s enough on this subject for now. Shall we go and find ourselves some lunch? I’m so hungry my belly thinks my throat’s been cut,’ said Barbara with a final squeeze of the bony shoulders of her children as they nestled against her body, as a way of making the children think of happier things by using a phrase that they would remember Ted saying.
She wanted a little time to mull over these events that Connie and Jessie had told her about, and she had decided she would speak to Peggy first, and maybe she could also have a word with Aiden, before broaching a conversation about the scrumping with the Braithwaites. And meanwhile there was Angela’s mother, and the condition of poor Angela to take into consideration too. What a God almighty mess she had found waiting for her in Harrogate.
Barbara thought she might need a few extra days in the town, and she wondered if that would be okay with the Braithwaites if Connie came into her bed, and Angela’s mother went into Connie’s. Honestly, the war was making everyone move round in larger houses as if they were playing musical chairs.
Chapter Twenty-seven
By the evening several things had been sorted.
Barbara had agreed with both Mrs Truelove when she had telephoned her at the haberdasher’s, and later with a very anxious-sounding Ted (she’d been able to hear the clink of glasses and the hum of conversation at the Jolly in the background as they had talked), and then with Roger and Mabel that it was a good idea for all concerned if she extended her stay in Harrogate for a little longer.
Barbara had also talked to Ethel Kennedy, Angela’s mother, who had been fetched to a vicarage near to where she lived in Bermondsey at Roger’s request. The upshot was that Mrs Kennedy was going to come up by train to Harrogate the next day, with Ted standing her the cost of buying the train ticket, and Barbara taking the cost of it from the church emergency fund.
Roger and Mabel had been very obliging, saying that of course Barbara could stay a little longer, and that Ethel should definitely stay with them too. Barbara felt almost tearful at their generosity, and quite awkward too as she knew that at some point she would have to talk to them about what had gone on between Tommy and the twins. She heard herself babbling anxiously about the expensive telephone calls, saying some years went by during which she never used the telephone, not even once, but Mabel touched her on the arm to reassure her, and Barbara found herself able to stop obsessing about the cost of the calls.
Jessie and Connie, and Peggy too, were clearly thrilled she was going to be with them for a couple of days more, and so Barbara decided to concentrate for a little while on having as good a time as she could with her children and her sister.
So in the late afternoon they enjoyed a rousing game of cards, and divided into two teams for an I-Spy marathon that got everyone roaring with laughter. It seemed quite like old times at number five Jubilee Street.
‘Why do you not like this Aiden Kell? Has he done something bad that you know for an absolute fact?’ Barbara asked Gracie, after Peggy had volunteered to oversee the children’s reading practice in the room above the stables, while Roger prepared his sermon for the coming Sunday and Mabel was out doing ‘good works’, which was organising something or other to do with the local Women’s Institute (was it borrowing a canning machine to make sure the last of the locally grown produce from the early autumn didn’t go to waste? Barbara rather thought that was what Mabel had said).
Barbara and Gracie had the kitchen to themselves and were doing the washing-up after tea, and Barbara had already broached the slightly thorny topic of Connie having sent Gracie to Coventry for a while, with Gracie laughing and saying it was all over, once Gracie had given both Connie and Jessie some chocolate that she had bought for them on the way home from the greengrocer’s one day.
Earlier Peggy had reiterated Gracie’s animosity towards the lad, but Connie and Jessie seemed of a different opinion as to Aiden’s likeability, with Connie saying they would have been sunk without him on the final day of the scrumping, and Jessie describing him as ‘all right’. Connie had obviously felt affronted by Gracie’s resolute attitude against the boy as Barbara couldn’t remember another instance of Connie having decided not to speak to someone, although fortunately that stand-off now sounded as if it had been neatly put to bed by Gracie.
Peggy had admitted to Barbara that she had pussyfooted hopelessly around the issue, giving Gracie several opportunities to explain her dislike of the boy, but without being quite brave enough to frame the words into a direct question and with nothing coming back in her direction as to specifically why Gracie felt so strongly. Gracie had proved a tough nut for Peggy to crack in this respect, resolutely refusing to pick up on any of the hints or opportunities Peggy kept introducing into their chat designed to encourage her to open up a little about Aiden. The most that Peggy knew was that June Blenkinsop had told her that at one point Gracie had been walking out with William, Aiden’s elder brother.
Now, Barbara decided to take the bull by the horns and ask Gracie more directly about her feelings regarding Aiden Kell.
Gracie didn’t seem perturbed or shocked by the question. ‘I know yer Connie’s keen on ’im but, pure an’ simple, ’e’s jus’ from bad stock,’ she said simply. ‘In fact, t’whole Kell family’s rotten t’core.’
‘Jessie and Connie say that when Tommy ran away it was Aiden who help—’ Barbara’s words withered on her lips as unfortunately just at that moment the kitchen door from the hallway s
wung open abruptly.
Roger was helping one of his parishioners to hobble across the kitchen to sit by the warm range. The tottery elderly man was very chilled and more than a little drunk, to judge by the look and the smell of him, but Barbara was touched to see the gentle care with which Roger helped him towards the warmest place in the kitchen, eased him into a wooden chair, and then tenderly tucked a woollen plaid blanket around his knees before going to see if there was any tea left in the pot.
Barbara was just about to quietly bring Gracie back to Aiden Kell again when Mabel bustled in in her usual energetic albeit very slightly clumsy way, as she’d just come in from her WI canning discussions, and now wanted to sort out dividing off the yeast starter mixture from the continually multiplying master starter for the next day’s bread.
With the calm of the kitchen now well and truly shattered it effectively cut short the confiding conversation that Barbara had been hoping to have with Gracie.
Barbara looked across at Gracie, who shrugged at Barbara, and then mouthed ‘no good’ once more in her direction.
Not much the wiser, Barbara smothered a sigh of frustration, and then she left Gracie to wipe down the surfaces as she retraced her steps back across the yard to the room above the stables to rejoin Peggy and the children.
Several hours later an overexcited and by now slightly argumentative Connie and Jessie had been persuaded that it was high time for them to go to bed, especially as they had already been reminded that they were on the early shift the next day at Cold Bath Road Elementary.
Roger had telephoned the hospital for an update on Angela – there was no change, and she would be operated on first thing in the morning – and, just like the previous evening, the sisters were sitting together in the warmth of Peggy’s bed with a tray of tea and parkin balanced on their knees. They had a lot to talk about.
‘Connie and Jessie finally began to talk properly to me about the scrumping when I got them from school,’ said Barbara, after they had chatted about the children’s school work and how thrilled the children were to have the opportunity to see their mother.
‘It seems that when Tommy realised – this is my interpretation anyway – that Connie was just starting to smell a rat and perhaps not do what he wanted, then he promised he would harm your baby when it arrived, if they didn’t do what he said.’
‘Oh no!’ exclaimed Peggy. ‘What a simply dreadful thing for him to say. I had no idea.’
‘I’m sorry, Peg. I wasn’t going to tell you about what Tommy said about the baby as I knew it would be upsetting, but then I thought it best that everything comes out into the open,’ said Barbara. ‘I doubt Tommy really meant it as a proper threat. To me, it sounds like the most heinous thing he could think of that would make Connie and Jessie bend to his will. Nothing could have been further from my thoughts when I was hearing all about this, but now I wonder whether in some ways this whole sorry experience could actually become something that teaches my two a thing or two – such as not to be stupidly gullible and take things at face value, and how something can escalate very quickly into something dangerous.’
Peggy shot Barbara a questioning look.
‘I think Connie was a bit too cocky in the past, as she was aware that she knew how to wrap those London bullies around her little finger, but it’s been different for her here,’ Barbara explained.
‘With Jessie, although he went along with the scrumping, he thinks Tommy cowardly for running away, and he doesn’t seem to have been left feeling particularly frightened of him or, it has to be said, Larry. Maybe I am grasping at trying to find the silver lining inside the cloud, but maybe our job – and by “our”, I mean me, and you too, Peg – is to help the children all learn from what has happened in order that they don’t make these mistakes again.’
The sisters ate some parkin.
‘I don’t think Tommy is a bad lad at heart,’ said Peggy reflectively, ‘as I have heard him and Jessie having what has certainly sounded like real fun playing with Tommy’s soldiers, and I don’t believe any ten-year-old is that good an actor. Certainly he’s been perfectly foul and a terrible bully (nobody could deny this), but do you think that perhaps really it’s mostly been about Tommy trying to get some attention from his parents?’
Barbara frowned as she thought about her sister’s comments. It was an audacious thing for her to have said.
Peggy took a quick swallow of tea, and then she went on, ‘Roger and Mabel seem to be truly decent people who care about those who are far less able to cope than they are. I think the generous-spirited way they have welcomed us all to Tall Trees bears full witness to that as nobody could have done more to help us settle in. But the Braithwaites are so busy with everyone else, and so it seems to me that Tommy does at times slip through the net rather.’
The sisters talked further on this for a little while, and then Barbara mentioned Aiden Kell again, saying she thought she might go to the school the next day when the afternoon session was let out, as she wondered if she might have a word with him, although she didn’t want to say this to Jessie and Connie, and she was a bit worried as to how she would recognise Aiden.
‘Oh, that won’t be difficult in the slightest. He’s a head taller than anybody else, with skinny legs and knobbly knees, and a nose covered with freckles and an absolute shock of red hair. He’s impossible to miss,’ said Peggy with a smile.
She added that she had never spoken with the boy but there was something about him that she rather liked the look of.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Latish the next morning, Roger and Mabel sought Barbara out as she was making a real indent into the ironing, the Braithwaites having flatly refused to accept any money for her keep while she was in Yorkshire, and so she had been trying to subdue a mountain of clean but unpressed washing that she had found stacked in a tottering and precarious pile on the scullery draining board as a helpful surprise for them.
Peggy was over at June Blenkinsop’s café for her daily lunchtime stint on the till, and Roger had already telephoned the hospital to ask about Angela, but she wasn’t out of the operating theatre yet. Her mother would be arriving in Harrogate on the early evening train.
‘Ahem.’ Barbara looked up as Roger cleared his throat rather tentatively. He paused and then Mabel, who was standing just behind her husband, gave him a fierce look, although he couldn’t see this as she wasn’t in his eyeline, and then what looked like a sharp prod with a finger, and so he went on more boldly, ‘Mrs Ross, er, Barbara, I wonder if we might all have a word together about the incident with the apples and what our children got up to?’
‘Yes, good idea. Actually, I had been going to suggest the same myself, although ideally I had wanted to have a word with Aiden Kell first,’ replied Barbara, who felt a sudden lurch far down in her belly as she knew that they were about to embark on what would potentially be an extremely tricky conversation where it would be very easy for either side to take offence. And so she added, ‘But before we go into any of this too deeply, I would like to say how very grateful I am to both of you for looking after Connie and Jessie so well, and my sister too of course, and so that stands no matter what we might be about to discuss or say to each other.’
The three of them looked at each other rather awkwardly, and Barbara realised that Roger and Mabel felt uncomfortable about what Tommy had done and probably therefore weren’t going to be turning a blind eye to his misdemeanours with the sort of ‘boys will be boys’ platitudes said by them to her that some parents might have employed. She decided to take this as a positive sign.
‘We’re very happy to be able to help you and your family in any way that we can, as wartime does, we like to think – and Roger reiterates this in his sermon every Sunday – mean that we all need to be pulling together, and not against each other. We hardly have the words to say how very sorry we are that there has been some trouble amongst the children, not least as I think that your twins and our Tommy are still a bit too young t
o grasp the meaning of the sense that we are all in this together and so they must put any petty tiffs aside. I can’t help but blame me and Roger for not keeping a closer eye on the children,’ said Mabel.
‘I think Peggy blames herself too for what happened, although I’ve told her she mustn’t, especially as I see now that I should have taken more time to talk through what she had to look out for with the children, as although of course she knows Jessie and Connie well, she doesn’t have any children of her own yet, and obviously the signs that something might be wrong might be very small at first. I’m cross with myself as well for not making sure my pair knew absolutely that they shouldn’t do anything so stupid, or so bad,’ said Barbara, who had nodded along in agreement with Mabel’s previous comments.
‘I mean, I had told them they were to be good and not get up to any mischief, but I don’t think I appreciated quite as much as I should how difficult it might be for them to integrate into new surroundings and a whole group of new children of their own age. The more I think about what it must have been like for them all, the more I suppose that this sort of thing is more likely to be the norm, much more so anyway than for the children all to love meeting each other and thereafter play together as nice as pie.’