Catching Falling Stars

by Karen McCombie

“Are you looking forward to this?” asks Lil – Lily – as we make our way around the green towards the church hall.

  There’re no cabbages or dancing cabbage whites any more, of course. But the flower beds are very pretty, and I saw a lovely red admiral butterfly when I sat on the bench there the other day.

  “I’m very much looking forward to it,” I tell Lily, looking ahead of us and seeing the sign strung above the road, fixed between the Co-op and the newly renovated Swan. It’s a “gastropub” now, apparently, whatever that is.

  V.E. DAY: 1945-2015, 70th ANNIVERSARY the sign reads in blocky lettering.

  “Do you remember the actual V.E. Day celebrations?” asks Lily.

  I like that she’s curious. She’s fourteen and doing a project on World War Two at school just now, so I suppose today will help her with her work.

  “As if it was yesterday,” I tell her, and smile to myself as I recall the decorated tables in the street, Lawrence helping his dad push Auntie Sylvia’s piano out of the cottage, me and Archie dancing and dancing till our feet hurt, not wanting to waste a moment of our time together.

  We knew that the end of the war was wonderful for the world, and terrible for the two of us. He’d be staying on at the farm, since his mum had remarried and moved away, and didn’t seem much interested in her eighteen-year-old son.

  And I’d finally be heading back to London, with Rich…

  But we were lucky. Most evacuees went back to their families in London when they turned fourteen, and could go out to work. Auntie Sylvia and Mr Wills wouldn’t hear of us leaving Thorntree till the fighting was over. So Archie worked on the farm, becoming a bit of an expert at repairing the machinery when it broke down, while I got a job helping out in the grocer’s shop.

  “Wasn’t it at the V.E. party that Great-Aunt Lil got engaged?” asks this Lil. Lily, I mean.

  “It certainly was,” I laugh, thinking of the scandal it caused. My sister had only known her G.I. boyfriend Vinnie for six weeks – he was stationed at the American base down the road – and next thing he’s on his knee proposing to her in front of the whole village and whisking her off to live with him in Wyoming.

  I never went to Wyoming, and Lil never came back to visit London – or us here – for years and years. But I’ve stayed with her in Florida plenty of times since she and Vinnie retired there. She’s ninety-two now (can you believe it?) but she’s still the same. I bet she’ll be celebrating V.E. Day by sunning herself on her lounger by her fancy pool, while Vinnie dozes and snores beside her.

  “Was Harry very hurt when Lil left him for Vinnie?” asks Lily, as we walk through the metal gates and into the yard that was once my makeshift school playground.

  “Oh, I think he must’ve been,” I reply. “But he was off in the army by that time, remember, serving in the Far East.”

  We’ll miss him today. So many of us from the old days here together, and Harry so far away in Australia. He’s very frail now, but happy enough, Lawrence says, living in his “granddad” flat at the ranch on the vast sheep farm his family still run.

  The two brothers talk on the phone once a week, though Harry’s so deaf he can hardly hear what Lawrence is saying any more. Though Lawrence isn’t much better – ha! He never turns on his hearing aids. When he came for tea last week, I had to ask him five times if he wanted more cake. By the time he finally understood, his son Jack had come to take him back to Eastfield and he had to eat it in the car.

  “Here … here we are,” says Lily, pushing the door open for me.

  The racket inside the church hall hits me straight away. The whole village is here, crowded around long tables, some taped music of wartime songs jangling in the background.

  I like the red, blue and white paper streamers draped from the rafters, though they’re not a patch on the handmade bunting Auntie Sylvia and I sewed together for the celebrations back in 1945.

  “At last!” Lawrence bellows from the table where all of my family and friends are sitting. Instead of a wave, he gives me a thumbs-up hello, as usual. “Where have you been, Glory?”

  “Making myself beautiful, of course!” I tease him, as Lil helps me into the spare seat that’s been kept for me.

  “You’re always beautiful, my s-stargirl,” says Archie, smiling at me.

  And I can sense everyone around us smiling at each other too as my darling husband and I press thumbs together. Well, I’m more than happy to amuse them. It’s another habit I’m too old to give up! In fact, ten years ago, when Archie and I had the party here for our diamond wedding anniversary, our daughter Sylvie – cheeky thing that she was – went and had a photo of us touching thumbs enlarged and put on the wall of the hall. Can you imagine?

  “Isn’t this great, Glory?” Rich says, bending over the table towards me. “All of us here together?”

  He means the family, of course. He loves to be surrounded by all his nieces and nephews, his great-nieces and -nephews, and their children, whenever there’s an excuse to get together.

  “Yes, yes, it’s lovely, Rich,” I say, patting his hand. Sylvie laughs at me sometimes, saying I still treat her Uncle Rich as if he’s seven years old, not eighty-two.

  But apart from the laugh lines and lack of hair, Rich looks much the same to me. He’s the fittest of us all as well, going for long walks over the common and the fields every day with his dogs. (I’ve lost count of how many he’s had – and adored – over the years.)

  But as I say, we’re not ALL here.

  I mean, everyone I cared for survived the war, luckily. Maybe it was thanks to my wish, and my lucky star-shaped scar, perhaps? (Though that’s quite well hidden these days, due to wrinkles!)

  Our parents stayed safe, happy for the rest of their lives in their little corner of North London – though they never quite forgave the three of us for not coming home to them. Though me and Rich did, I suppose … for a little while, at least.

  Little Rich was absolutely miserable being away from Thorntree and the countryside. And much as he loved Mum and Dad – and our cats, Betsy and Buttons – he only lasted a few months before our parents and Auntie Sylvia came to an arrangement and he moved back permanently.

  I left with him, since I couldn’t stand being away from Archie a moment longer. Reverend Ashton married us on my eighteenth birthday, and we moved into the cottage, since Auntie Sylvia – and Rich – were now living at Eastfield Farm.

  Auntie Sylvia … my kind, wise owl… I miss her so badly today, although she’s been gone years now. Not far, though; she and her Joe are buried in a plot together in the churchyard next door, roses twining over them.

  And there’s one other person I think about and miss, of course.

  I never did catch up with Jess back in London … nobody had her address. But there were rumours about what became of her. One of my old Thorntree classmates bumped into her in Peterborough sometime in the 1960s, I think it was. Her family’s flat was hit during the Blitz, Jess told him, and after the war, like half the East End, they’d been moved out to a new housing estate in the town.

  Then around the 1970s, someone in the village heard she’d become a seamstress, and ended up working as a costume maker for theatre shows in London. Fancy that! I often wondered if Auntie Sylvia making her that beautiful parachute dress inspired Jess’s choice of career…

  “Mum!” says Sylvie, from the other end of the table.

  She says something else, but it’s so noisy in here I can’t make it out. Though I do love that tune they’re playing now. “You Are My Sunshine”… Rich will be yodelling along to that any minute, I bet you!

  “MUM,” Sylvie calls out more insistently. She pointing towards the door.

  I shuffle round to see what she’s on about.

  And then I gasp.

  A tall man is pushing a wheelchair into the hall.

  The white-haired woman in the whe
elchair, she’s wearing a leaf-green velvet dress and the most fantastic chunky floral necklace – pansies, they look like – in shades of green and purple.

  She’s looking around, staring, searching for someone.

  Searching for us.

  “Jess!” I call out sharply, pushing myself out of my seat.

  She sees me, my eyes crinkling with pleasure.

  I hurry through the hall as fast as my stiff legs will carry me.

  We’re hugging before I know it, laughing and crying.

  “So, fancy meeting you here!” she jokes as we break free to look at each other. “Nothing changes round here, eh? Same music, same people…”

  She’s looking behind me, and I turn to see Archie, Lawrence and Rich hurrying over, shock and delight written all over their faces.

  “And did you keep your promise to me, Hope ’n’ Glory?” she asks.

  “What was that?” I frown, trying to remember.

  “Did you give Popeye the pig a big kiss from me?”

  We dissolve into giggles, turning into our thirteen-year-old selves.

  I reach out with my thumb and without a second’s pause, she presses hers against it.

  “You are my sunshine…” voices begin to boom around us, as the music is turned up and the villagers sing along.

  Sunshine and falling stars, I think, as Rich and we Outsiders gather together once again.

  Yes, sunshine, falling stars and these lovely people … they’ve always been the bright spots in my life, haven’t they?

  And what a wondrous, wonderful life…

  Acknowledgements

  I’ve always been a history geek – especially interested in the lives of ordinary people – but never attempted to write a historical novel till my lovely editor Helen Thomas said, “Hey, have you ever thought...?” Huge thanks to Helen for nudging me backwards in time!

  Thanks also to the Archive Department at Bruce Castle Museum in Tottenham, who hold on file the most wonderful first-hand accounts from local older people who were themselves evacuees. I loved immersing myself in their varied stories.

  Two books that also helped me enormously with visualizing and understanding the reality of wartime and evacuation were Harringey at War by Deborah Hedgecock and Robert Waite, and the utterly fascinating Send Them To Safety by James Roffey of the Evacuees Reunion Association.

  Finally, a huge thank you to my neighbours Roger and Bryn, who both took time to talk to me about their own experiences and memories. And an especial thanks to Bryn for reading an early proof copy and putting me right on several important details which would have left me blushing if they’d stayed there!

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  First published in the UK by Scholastic Ltd, 2015

  This electronic edition published in the UK by Scholastic Ltd, 2015

  Text copyright © Karen McCombie, 2015

  The right of Karen McCombie to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her.

  eISBN 978 1407 15514 2

  A CIP catalogue record for this work is available from the British Library.

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, incidents and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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