Deep down, Maggie knew that her mother was right, but still she felt their absence.
Minutes after the children’s postcards had arrived in Coventry, Eric was shaking Danny’s arm, to wake him. The child stirred and looked up at him sleepily. The bed was warm and he was reluctant to be disturbed.
‘Come on,’ Eric told him. ‘It’s your first day at school today so you don’t want to be late, do you? I have your breakfast ready downstairs when you’ve washed and dressed.’ Without another word he turned and left the room.
Danny stretched and yawned lazily as he looked towards the window. Great fat raindrops were lashing against the glass and the sky was leaden and grey. Swinging his legs out of bed he shuddered as his feet came into contact with the cold lino. The water that he dipped the flannel in was even colder, and by the time he’d struggled into his clothes he was shivering. Dragging a comb through his hair he lifted his shoes and headed for the kitchen. At least it would be warm in there.
Eric had a huge pan of creamy porridge bubbling on the stove, and when Danny appeared he nodded towards the table. ‘Sit yourself down. This will soon warm you up.’ Ladling a generous portion into Danny’s bowl he then picked up the sketches that Danny had left lying about and began to thumb through them.
‘You know, these are actually very good. Have you ever thought of trying your hand at painting?’
Danny nodded eagerly through a mouthful of porridge. ‘Oh yes, I got to do paintin’ at me old school sometimes. Not at home though. Me mam couldn’t afford all the brushes an’ paint an’ such so I just used to sketch at home.’
‘Mmm. Then how would you feel if I were able to supply you with some?’
Danny stared at him as if he could hardly believe what he had just heard. Was Eric playing some sort of practical joke on him? When their eyes met he nodded cautiously. ‘I’d love to have some paints,’ he admitted, ‘but they’re very expensive, yer know.’
Eric waved aside his concerns. ‘Don’t you get worrying about that. I think you have a flair for art that should be encouraged.’
Danny’s chest puffed out to almost twice its size in delight, and seeing his reaction, Eric nodded. ‘Right, that’s settled then. I’ll have some ready for you when you get home from school. I’ll be able to give you a few pointers in the right direction if you’d like me to.’
‘Why, do yer know how to paint, then?’
A flicker of amusement played around Eric’s lips. ‘You could say that. But never mind that for now. You’ve got your first day at school to get behind you first. I’ve done you a packed lunch over there on the dresser. You know where the village school is, don’t you?’
Danny nodded as he spooned the last of his porridge into his mouth then slid smoothly from his chair. Picking up his lunchbox, he eyed a huge brown envelope that was lying beside it. The sight of it made him think of the postcards he and Lizzie had posted off to their mother on Saturday.
‘Eric,’ he asked tentatively, ‘how long do yer think it would take fer a postcard to reach me mam from here?’
‘Oh, not more than a couple of days if the post is getting through all right, I shouldn’t think,’ Eric told him.
Danny smiled. If Eric was right, then his mam might be reading them right now. The thought made him feel closer to her somehow.
‘Thanks fer this.’ He waved his lunchbox at Eric, then moving towards the door, he told him, ‘I’ll see yer later then. Ta-ra.’
Again he thought he detected a flicker of amusement as Eric raised his hand. ‘Ta-ra.’
Once outside, Danny pulled the collar of his blazer up, and with his head bent against the rain, began the steep descent down the hillside. He’d gone no more than a few yards when he heard something and paused.
‘Pssst . . .’ There it was again. Glancing into the trees that bordered the road, he smiled with relief as Soho Gus appeared, sporting a brand new haircut.
‘Thought yer might like a bit o’ company walking to school, seein’ as it’s yer first day,’ Gus told him cheerfully.
Danny dragged his eyes away from his friend’s hair and grinned as Albert’s little white head appeared from the top pocket of Gus’s blazer. The pocket had now stretched to at least three times its original size, which was hardly surprising when Danny came to think of how much time Albert spent in there.
‘Don’t the teachers mind yer takin’ Albert to school?’ he asked with a broad grin on his face.
‘They ain’t gorra a whole lot o’ choice in the matter,’ave they?’ Gus sniffed. ‘Where I go he goes, an’ that’s the end of it, though I admit I do pop him in me desk during the day.’ He fell into step beside Danny and soon the village came into sight far below them as they splashed through the puddles.
‘So how’s it goin’ back there then?’ Gus asked inquisitively. ‘An’ have yer found out why Eric locks himself away in that big outbuildin’ yet?’
‘No,’ Danny admitted regretfully. ‘But he ain’t half bad when yer get to know him a bit. In fact, he’s offered to set me up with some paints an’ brushes when I get home from school this afternoon.’
Gus’s eyebrows disappeared into his short fringe, which up to now, Danny had tactfully refrained from mentioning. ‘I wouldn’t have taken you for one o’ those arty-farty types,’ he teased.
Danny shrugged defensively. ‘I like to sketch an’ paint if it comes to that. Always have done. There’s nowt wrong with that, is there?’
Not wishing to offend his newfound friend, Gus hastily shook his head. ‘No, ’course there ain’t. I were only teasin’.’
As he spoke, he noticed Danny looking at him and his hand self-consciously flew to his freshly shorn hair. ‘Yer can blame that sister o’ yourn fer this haircut. All hell were let loose at Derwen Deg last night, I’m tellin’ yer. That nutty Mrs Evans come chargin’ in sayin’ as your Lizzie had got nits off me an’ somethin’ about Lizzie goin’ missin’. She reckons as Eric had her up at Tremarfon.’
‘Lizzie did come to see me without telling Mrs Evans she was going,’ Danny said, ‘but it weren’t Eric’s fault. In fact, he got the car out an’ took her back.’
‘Well, I got the blame fer the nits. Mad old cow, that Blodwyn is,’ grumbled Gus. ‘The second she’d gone the old woman were snippin’ at me hair like she were shearin’ a bleedin’ sheep. An’ she made me wash it in carbolic soap,’ he added, deeply aggrieved.
‘Did she find any nits?’ Danny asked with a twinkle in his eye.
Gus wiped his nose along the length of his blazer sleeve, leaving a slimy trail. ‘As it ’appens she did,’ he said with dignity. ‘But that don’t mean to say your Lizzie got ’em off me, does it? I might’ve got ’em off her, beggin’ yer pardon, that is.’
Seeing as how Lizzie and he had mixed with no one else since arriving in the village, Danny thought it highly unlikely that she could have caught them from anyone else. But he cleverly changed the subject by asking. ‘What did you mean just now when you called Mrs Evans a mad old cow?’
‘Exactly what I said. Everyone knows that she’s barmy. Apparently she lost a kid some years ago, an’ accordin’ to the villagers she went a bit funny in the ’ead like. She had two lads an’ all, but they scarpered as soon as they were old enough to leave ’ome. She’s got a lot o’ nerve though, to come up to Derwen Deg like that.’
By now they were on the road that led into the village. Other children had appeared from nowhere and were heading in a steady stream towards the village school. Not one of them so much as looked in their direction, which Danny found rather strange. Back at school in Coventry, a newcomer was eyed with curiosity, but he and Gus might have been invisible.
‘As yer can see, the Welsh kids ain’t too fond of us foreigners,’ Gus commented. ‘It ain’t too bad though. We evacuees get to go in a separate class, so the only time we really see ’em is durin’ break and lunch-hour.’
At that moment, they saw the cottage door next to the blacksmith’s open and Mrs Evans appeared
, clutching Lizzie’s hand. Lizzie spotted the boys almost immediately and would have waited for them, but when she paused, the huge woman bent to whisper something in her ear and then hauled her on.
‘Didn’t I tell yer she weren’t all the ticket?’ Gus snorted. ‘Their cottage ain’t a stone’s throw from the school, so why is she walkin’ her there?’
Having no answer to Gus’s question, Danny merely shrugged as they hurried to try and catch Lizzie up.
It was as they were passing the village hall that Gus told him, ‘They’re havin’ a dance there on Sat’day night. I dare say the Thomases will be goin’. They reckon they have a rare good time, jitterbuggin’ an’ everyfink. Problem is, they won’t let kids go so I’ll probably get left at home on me own.’
‘I’ve never been to a dance,’ Danny said, ‘but I did used to go to the pictures back home most Saturday mornings. We saw some crackin’ good films. Don’t they have a picture-house here?’
‘Nah. Yer have to go into Pwllheli. Mrs Thomas goes sometimes, ’specially if there’s a Humphrey Bogart film on, but there’s nuffin’ like that here in Sarn-Bach. Nothin’ excitin’ ever happens here - we’re stuck in the back o’ beyond.’
Danny thought that Sarn-Bach was the most beautiful place he had ever seen but decided against saying it.
The school playground was teeming with children of all shapes and sizes. It was surrounded by tall metal railings that made it look a bit like a prison. Danny was looking around with interest when Lizzie spotted him. Pulling her hand away from Mrs Evans’s larger one, she hurtled towards him.
‘Danny!’ Her face lit up at the sight of her twin. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?’ Danny blushed with embarrassment as some of the children looked towards him. Thankfully, just then a bell sounded and the Welsh children instantly began to form straight lines. His embarrassment faded away to shock when the same wizened-up little woman who’d met them off the train appeared in the school doorway.
‘That’s Miss Williams,’ Gus hissed in his ear. ‘She teaches the evacuees ’cos she can talk English. The other teachers gabble away in Welsh all the bleedin’ time, an’ yer can’t understand a word they’re sayin’.’
Danny nodded as Miss Williams began to herd the evacuees into a separate line. She glared at Mrs Evans, who was once again clutching Lizzie’s hand, and the woman turned the colour of a beetroot as she reluctantly loosened her grip.
‘Now then, children. Follow me,’ the teacher commanded, and so began one of the strangest days Danny and Lizzie could ever remember as she marched them into the school. The Welsh children were herded into classrooms whilst the rest of them, children ranging from five to fourteen years old, were left standing in the hall.
‘Ain’t we going into separate classes?’ Danny managed to whisper to Gus.
Gus answered him from behind the back of his hand. ‘Gerroff wi’ yer. This is as good as it gets.’
Danny thought it was very strange. Back at school in Coventry, all the children in his class had been roughly the same age, but here it seemed that age was irrelevant. Still, he decided, with a shrug of his shoulders, they were all in the same boat so he might as well just get on with it.
They were led into a room with three lines of desks and chairs set out in regimental rows. It was a small room compared to the rest of the classrooms, but because of its high ceiling it still managed to be cold.
‘Crikey, yer could freeze in here,’ Danny commented quietly to Gus.
‘Right,’ Miss Williams rapped with authority. ‘Less talking now, boy. You are not here to talk - you’re here to learn. Little ones to the front, older ones to the back.’
The children quickly slid behind their desks as Miss Williams began to hand out paper and pencils, and soon they were busily doing arithmetic.
It was playtime before Danny and Lizzie got to meet their classmates properly, but the second they were outside in the playground, Gus began to introduce them.
‘That’s Nick over there.’ He pointed to a boy who was rampaging around the play area like a mad thing. ‘An’ her over there is Audrey, an’ that’s . . .’ He rambled on as Lizzie and Danny looked on. They were sure that they would never remember everyone’s name but didn’t want to offend Gus by stopping him.
‘An’ this,’ Gus told them finally, ‘is Sparky, me mate. He’s from the East End an’ all.’
The twins nodded at a solemn-faced, dark-haired little boy with startling blue eyes. He was considerably smaller than Danny and looked just as untidy. But there was something about him that didn’t seem quite right, and this was borne out when Gus whispered behind his hand, ‘Sparky is a bit slow, like. Yer know? A bit doo-lally.’ He tapped his forehead to add emphasis to his words. ‘On top o’ that, he was what they call a blue baby when he were born so he gets out o’ breath real quick. But he’s harmless enough really. He tends to get picked on, so I stick up fer ’im.’
When Lizzie smiled at Gus admiringly, the small boy felt as if he would burst with joy. She looked absolutely beautiful today. Her long fair hair was tied into plaits with shiny blue ribbons, and she was wearing one of the dresses her mother had painstakingly stitched for her. Gus knew for sure that she was the prettiest girl in the whole of the playground. In the whole of the world, if it came to that, but of course he didn’t tell her so. He didn’t want Sparky and Danny to think that he was going soft.
‘What’s a blue baby?’ Danny asked inquisitively.
‘It means he were born wiv a hole in his heart,’ Gus informed them knowingly. He was about to go on when someone called Lizzie’s name. They looked towards the sound to see Mrs Evans waving at them over the railings.
‘Oh no.’ Lizzie felt embarrassment flood through her as she reluctantly walked towards her.
‘Tut tut.’ Mrs Evans frowned as she approached. ‘Whatever are you doing out here without your coat on, Lizziebright? You’ll catch your death of cold, so you will. But never mind that for now. See? I’ve brought you a nice apple to eat in your break. I don’t want you getting hungry and it’s a long time until dinnertime.’
Lizzie awkwardly reached through the railings and took the proffered fruit, wishing that Mrs Evans would just leave. None of the other mothers or carers had come and she could hear children sniggering behind her.
‘Thank you,’ she muttered, and to her relief, Mrs Evans turned and began to stride away. ‘I’ll be here to meet you at lunchtime,’ she called over her shoulder.
‘Oh no, really. There’s no need. I know the way—’ Lizzie began, but it was no use. Mrs Evans was already out of earshot. Mortified, she pushed the apple into the pocket of her dress and crossed to join the others.
‘What was all that about?’ Danny asked as she drew abreast.
‘Oh Danny, I don’t like living with Mrs Evans.’ Lizzie’s voice faltered.
‘Why not?’
‘She’s . . . well, she fusses over me all the time.’
‘That’s hardly a bad thing,’ Danny sensibly pointed out. ‘It just means that she likes you, that’s all.’
‘No, no, it’s more than that. It’s like . . .’ Lizzie struggled to find the right words to describe how she felt. ‘Last night I woke up an’ she was standin’ over me bed stroking my hair.’
Danny sighed. ‘What’s so terrible about that? She was probably just checking that you were all right.’
‘But she kept calling me Megan. She does it all the time, especially when Mr Evans ain’t there.’
Danny scratched his head. It did sound strange, he had to admit. However, the conversation was stopped from going any further when a teacher appeared and began to ring a bell, heralding the end of break.
‘We’ll talk more about it later,’ Danny assured her, then taking her firmly by the hand he led her back to the classroom.
Chapter Twenty-One
Closing the stairs door softly behind her, Maggie looked across at Jo, who was sitting at the kitchen table, lis
tening to the radio.
Maggie had a mountain of sewing to do now that she’d put Lucy to bed, but first she was going to treat herself to a well-earned snack.
‘Do you fancy a sandwich, Jo?’ She went towards the pantry.
‘Sshh,’ Jo said immediately as she hung on the broadcaster’s every word.
Maggie shrugged as she took the loaf from the bread bin and lifted two plates down from the dresser. She had just smeared a meagre amount of butter onto two slices and begun to spread them with fishpaste when the broadcast finally ended and the haunting strains of Joe Loss’s Orchestra playing ‘I’ll Never Smile Again’ echoed around the small room. Sighing deeply, Jo joined her at the kitchen table.
‘Things are goin’ from bad to worse,’ the girl said gloomily. ‘Apparently the Italians attacked Greece today. Some of our warships are on their way out there right now to give Greece some back-up. The King an’ the Prime Minister have both pledged to give full aid to the Greeks. It seems the whole world is gettin’ drawn in. Ugh, it don’t bear thinkin’ about really, does it?’
‘No, it doesn’t.’ Maggie’s thoughts went to Sam and David. Were they on their way to Greece right now, in some great battleship? There had been no news from either of them and she was beginning to worry. She hadn’t really expected Sam to get in touch, but she thought it strange that David hadn’t written to his mother again at least. She said as much now to Jo, who listened soberly.
‘Well, whether they are still alive or whether they ain’t, there’s not much you can do about it, is there?’
Maggie was forced to agree. In the short time that Jo had been lodging with her, the two young women had become very close. Courtaulds factory had been bombed, and Jo now worked in a small but select dress shop on Primrose Hill, which was just as well, for she had moved in with Maggie with nothing but the clothes she had stood up in. Working at the shop had enabled her to buy herself a few new clothes each week from her meagre wages, plus Maggie had made her some smart skirts from offcuts of material that she had got from Coventry market for a snip. Initially, Jo had borrowed some of Maggie’s clothes, which had hung off her, for she had lost an enormous amount of weight.
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