The Runaway Children

by Sandy Taylor

  ‘Getting some drinks in.’

  ‘I’ll help him,’ said Robert, standing up.

  I watched Robert as he walked away. He was tall, his shoulders were broad and he moved with confidence through the crowd. I thought he looked more of a man than Jimmy and it wasn’t just because he was older, it was more than that. The word ‘experience’ popped into my head. Robert was fighting a war – he’d seen things that Jimmy had never seen. Maybe Jimmy just had a bit more growing up to do. But Jimmy was wise and kind and I wondered if Robert was too.

  Jean sighed. ‘I’m in love, Nell,’ she said.

  ‘With Eric?’

  ‘Don’t you think he’s dreamy?’

  ‘You can’t be in love, Jean, you’ve only just met him.’

  ‘Don’t you believe in love at first sight, Nell?’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘Well, I’m living proof of it. Do you think he likes me, Nell?’

  ‘I’m sure he does.’

  ‘No – really likes me. Really, really likes me?’

  ‘From the way he was looking at you, I’d say he likes you very much,’ I said, smiling at her.

  ‘Do you think he’ll ask to see me again?’

  ‘He likes you, Jean, what more can I say? I’m not a fortune teller.’

  ‘We should go and see a fortune teller, Nell, and find out what our future holds – you know, when we’ll get married and how many kids we’ll have.’

  ‘I don’t believe in all that stuff,’ I said. I could almost hear Lottie’s voice saying, It’s a load of old rubbish, Nell.

  ‘Would it be too forward if I did the asking?’

  ‘There’s a war on, Jean, I think all those sorts of rules have gone out the window.’

  ‘I’d rather he did the asking though.’

  ‘That would probably be better.’

  ‘What about you and Robert?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘But you like him, don’t you? Oh do say you like him, Nell, we can go around in a foursome – wouldn’t that be fun?’

  I stared at her.

  ‘What?’ she said.

  ‘Oh, nothing.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you’ve got someone else, Nell, that will spoil everything.’

  ‘Just a friend,’ I said.

  The band was playing an upbeat number. I caught hold of Jean’s hand. ‘Come on, let’s have a twirl together.’

  ‘My feet are killing me,’ she said, making a face.

  ‘Tough,’ I said, ‘because I’m in the mood for dancing.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said, dragging herself up. ‘But only one.’

  I danced with Tom and Bryan and complete strangers who came up to the table with big smiles on their faces so that I couldn’t refuse them, but I saved the last dance for Robert. The lights had been turned down and the orchestra was playing ‘We’ll Meet Again’.

  ‘Can we?’ asked Robert.

  ‘Can we what?’ I replied.

  ‘Meet again,’ he said, smiling into my eyes.

  I nodded. ‘I’d like that.’

  At the end of the night the four of us walked home together through the dark streets. The only light to guide us was a watery moon and a sky full of stars. There was a warm wind blowing up from the beach and we could hear the soft swish as the sea pulled the pebbles from the shore. It had been a magical night, just like Mrs Wright’s evening at the Grand had been. I couldn’t wait to get back to Sea View and tell her all about it.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  We spent most of that night in the cellar underneath Sea View as sirens continued to whine, hour after hour, starting low, getting louder, then lessening and getting louder again in waves that still put the fear of God into me. I had never got used to that awful wailing sound and I didn’t think that I ever would. When the bombs started to fall poor Olive clung to me, whimpering.

  Miss Timony had paid for bunk beds to be fitted, so at least we were able to lie down, but only Olive and two travelling salesmen managed to sleep. The men snored so loudly that we couldn’t have slept even if we’d wanted to. The all-clear didn’t sound until five o’clock in the morning, when we all trooped back upstairs, where I fell into an exhausted sleep. I was woken by Olive shaking me.

  ‘Go away,’ I said, ‘I’m not working today.’

  ‘You’ve got a visitor, Nell,’ she said. ‘You should get up.’

  I groaned and pulled the covers up around my chin.

  Olive shook me again. ‘You have to get up, Nell. There’s a soldier waiting for you in the kitchen and he’s really tall and he talks funny and I like him.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I mumbled.

  ‘There’s a soldier in the kitchen, Nell, and he hasn’t come to see Mrs Wright or Mrs Baxter – he’s come to see you. He wants to take you out for a ride in his car.’

  I sat up and rubbed my eyes. ‘Robert’s downstairs in the kitchen?’

  ‘Um, I don’t know if his name’s Robert. I think it might be Robert but he’s in the kitchen eating toast and drinking coffee. I’ve never tasted coffee, Nell, have you ever tasted it?’

  ‘Olive, can you please stop talking?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said.

  ‘I suppose I’d better get up then.’

  ‘Yes, you should, and you should put on your new green dress and Miss Timony’s shoes.’

  I reluctantly dragged myself out of bed. ‘That green dress is for dancing in, Olive, not for wearing in a car.’

  ‘Well, that’s what I’d wear,’ she said, ‘if I got to go out in a car.’

  ‘Tell him I’ll be down in a minute.’

  ‘Well, don’t be long,’ she said, ‘because he’s waiting for you and it’s rude to keep people waiting.’

  What was Robert doing here? He’d said he wanted to see me again but we hadn’t made a definite date. I supposed that meant he must like me and suddenly I wasn’t tired anymore. I washed and dressed and ran downstairs. He stood up as I went into the kitchen.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind, Nell,’ he said. ‘But it’s a glorious day and I thought you might like to go out for a spin.’

  ‘I’d love to,’ I said.

  ‘You have to take me to Henry’s house first,’ said Olive. ‘We’re having a picnic and Auntie Missus is invited as well. Auntie Missus is my doll,’ she explained, smiling at Robert. ‘But I think she’s a person.’

  ‘I guess she probably is then,’ said Robert, smiling back.

  ‘I’ll go and get her then, shall I?’

  ‘You do that,’ he said.

  ‘Can we go in your car?’ said Olive. ‘Auntie Missus likes cars.’

  ‘Then we shall definitely go in my car.’

  Olive turned around at the door. ‘You should have worn your green dress,’ she said. ‘I wanted Henry to see it.’

  ‘I shouldn’t think Henry will care what I’m wearing,’ I said.

  ‘That’s what you say,’ she said.

  I shook my head in despair; my little sister came out with the oddest things.

  ‘Where are you intending to go?’ asked Mrs Wright.

  ‘Where do you recommend?’ he said, smiling at her.

  ‘Alfriston,’ said Mrs Wright. ‘It’s such a lovely village and it’s not far from here.’

  ‘Alfriston it is then,’ said Robert, smiling at her.

  I could see by the way Mrs Wright and Mrs Baxter were gazing at Robert that he had won them over. It didn’t surprise me because he was having the same effect on me. I wondered what Miss Timony would think of him. Something was telling me that she wasn’t so easily charmed.

  Olive chatted non-stop all the way to Henry’s house; Robert was highly amused by her. Henry was waiting for her at the gate as we pulled up outside the house. Robert opened the glove compartment and handed Olive two bars of chocolate.

  ‘For you and Henry,’ he said, handing them to her.

  Olive flung her arms around Robert’s neck. ‘Thank you,’ she said. T
hen she whispered something in his ear that I couldn’t catch.

  We watched Olive and Henry walking up the path like an old married couple, each of them holding one of Auntie Missus’s hands as if she was their child.

  ‘That girl is going to be something wonderful when she grows up,’ said Robert, laughing.

  ‘She’s pretty wonderful already,’ I said. ‘What did she whisper in your ear?’

  ‘She said you should have worn your new green dress and it wasn’t for want of trying on her part,’ he said, grinning.

  ‘I don’t know where she gets it from,’ I said.

  * * *

  It had been a warm summer and even though it was now almost September, the weather was still beautiful. We drove along the coast road – the sea looked so calm and inviting. I tried to imagine what it would look like without all the ugly barbed wire. I wondered how it would feel to run down the pebbles and into the cold sea.

  We left the coast road and cut up through the villages towards Alfriston. I kept looking at Robert as he concentrated on driving through the narrow country lanes. He was so handsome that my heart missed a beat and I could feel my face going red. For heaven’s sake, pull yourself together, girl, I thought.

  ‘We don’t have roads like this in Canada,’ said Robert, breaking into my thoughts. ‘Our roads are wide and straight, not nearly as interesting as yours.’

  We eventually came to the village. It looked as if it had been torn from the pages of a child’s fairy-tale book. It was how I imagined a perfect village to be. We parked the car and walked across the green. In front of us, set on a gentle slope, we could see the spire of a church rising up behind the trees.

  ‘Let’s take a look at it,’ said Robert, catching hold of my hand.

  As we got closer we could see that the church had been built in the shape of a cross. Bright green ivy trailed across the old stone walls and darker green moss clung to the red roof. Next to the gate was a wooden sign telling visitors about the history of the church. It was called St Andrew’s.

  Robert started to read it out loud: ‘“The custom was to bury local shepherds with a clump of sheep wool in their hand. The wool was supposed to signify to the gatekeepers in heaven that the dead man’s poor record of church attendance was due to his obligation to his flock.” Wow, how neat is that?’

  ‘I wonder if it worked?’

  ‘I guess we’ll have to wait until we get to heaven and see how many shepherds made it through the pearly gates,’ said Robert, grinning.

  We opened the gate and walked up the path between ancient gravestones. Some of them were so old that they were leaning over and some had collapsed altogether; they lay cracked and broken on the ground. I supposed that anyone who had ever loved them was long gone and so the graves were left neglected and uncared for. On the newer graves stood jam jars filled with pretty flowers; sweet-smelling roses trailed across the grey stone, and white daisies and orange marigolds blossomed in the soft earth. We paused to read some of the inscriptions.

  ‘Folk died young back then, didn’t they?’

  ‘I wonder why,’ I said.

  ‘Poverty and disease, I guess.’

  I was standing in front of one grave where five children, all under ten, had been buried.

  ‘How could their parents bear to lose so many of them? It’s heartbreaking,’ I said, my eyes filling with tears.

  Robert took my hand. ‘Come away, Nell,’ he said. ‘This isn’t a day for sadness.’

  ‘No, you’re right,’ I said, ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘No need to be sorry – it shows me that you are a girl with a kind heart and that’s a lovely thing to be.’

  We walked away from the graves and went towards the church.

  Beside the porch was a beautiful stone sundial.

  ‘Have you ever seen one of those before, Nell?’ asked Robert. ‘Because I haven’t.’

  I placed my hand on the stone: it was warm and smooth. ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Do you think we can go inside?’

  I pushed down the wooden latch and the big door creaked open.

  After the sunshine it felt chilly inside the church. I shivered in my thin cotton dress. We walked down the central aisle, our footsteps echoing on the uneven stone floor. Coloured light from a beautiful stained-glass window fell across the wooden pews and flecks of dust danced in the rays of bright sunshine.

  We walked across to a side altar and lit candles. I prayed to God to keep my family safe and to bring my daddy home to us, and I prayed that he would keep Jimmy safe, wherever he happened to be. I looked across at Robert, who had his eyes closed, and I wondered who he was praying for.

  Once we were outside again I felt warmer. We walked around to the back of the church and there in front of us was a river. This had to be the most beautiful place in the world. We sat on the grass and watched the water flowing slowly past. Further along the bank I could see a stone bridge and it reminded me of another time and another boy. Memories of warm spring evenings when me and Jimmy would walk to Tyford to post my letters home to Mum, and then sitting on the bridge with our legs dangling over the side, watching the river roll beneath us and getting to know each other.

  Robert broke into my thoughts.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ he asked.

  ‘A bit,’ I said.

  We walked back across the green and into the village, and had lunch in a lovely old pub called The George Inn. We sat at a little table looking out over the pretty high street. The food was delicious and Robert was good company; he was easy to be with. I didn’t feel the need to impress him.

  ‘How is the war going?’ I asked.

  ‘The news is a bit sketchy but the last report we had was that the Americans are within a few miles of Paris and the Japanese are fleeing from advancing troops in Burma. What news there is coming through is encouraging.’

  ‘Why aren’t you fighting, Robert?’

  ‘Oh, I will be – we had taken a bit of a battering, lost a few men. Some of us were sent here to regroup. I expect to be shipped out any time soon.’

  ‘Are you scared?’

  ‘It would be very unwise not to be, Nell, so yes, I’m scared – but I also want to be part of it. I want to be there when we defeat the enemy, but most of all I want to go home, knowing that I’ve done my bit.’

  ‘We all want to go home,’ I said sadly.

  ‘And with God’s help we will, little Nell,’ he said, reaching across the table and holding my hand.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Summer gave way to autumn. The breeze blowing off the sea became crisper and the nights became cooler; you could see your breath in the mornings. Bonfires burned in back gardens and leaves turned from green to fiery red and russet brown, falling to the ground like multi-coloured drops of rain. They crunched under our feet as we walked across the Downs and they tangled our hair as they drifted from the trees.

  On one of my weekends off, Robert took Olive, Henry and me to Cuckfield, where we picked big fat blackberries full to bursting with juice. Olive and Henry ate more than they picked but I didn’t scold them – they were having a lovely time, running around the field looking for the ripest berries. Juice dribbled down their chins and stained their gas-mask boxes a deep purple. People were getting fed up with wearing the cardboard boxes around their necks all the time. There hadn’t been a sniff of gas in all the years we’d been lugging them around. The ugly masks smelled of rubber and disinfectant and they made us feel sick. People were starting to leave them at home and women were using the cardboard boxes to carry their sandwiches and make-up instead. Men used them for storing their baccy and matches. Of course, if you were caught by a beady-eyed warden you were in deep trouble. Pillar boxes had been painted a yellowish green and they were supposed to change colour if there was a gas attack, but we were beginning to doubt that there ever would be one; not that we wanted one, of course.

  We carried the fruit back to a delighted Mrs Wright at Sea View, who turned it into d
elicious blackberry jam.

  I was spending a lot of time with Robert – he would often meet me after work and we’d walk hand in hand along the seafront or we’d go up on the Downs. When he could borrow the car, we went further afield to Chichester and the lovely village of Bosham. We’d sit by the harbour and watch the boats coming in and out. But it was to Alfriston that we went the most because it was so peaceful. This beautiful village became our special place. We sat on our bench, we trailed our fingers in our stream and we walked hand in hand amongst the old gravestones. One day I bought flowers and placed them on the grave that held the five little children. I wanted them to know that they hadn’t been forgotten, even though they’d died so long ago.

  Jean was still going out with Eric. He was a nice lad and the four of us often went to the pictures together, or up to Beachy Head, where Robert and I had first met.

  In between customers at the tea room we would chat about the boys.

  ‘What am I going to do when he’s shipped out, Nell? I love him, I do. I really love him.’

  ‘I suppose you will just have to be brave, like all the other women whose husbands and sons are fighting in the war.’

  ‘I don’t think I’m very good at being brave, Nell. I feel like crying every time I think about him leaving. Don’t you feel the same about Robert?’

  ‘I know I’ll miss him,’ I said. ‘But I think I’ll be okay.’

  ‘You don’t love him then? Not like I love Eric.’

  ‘Sometimes I think that maybe I could.’

  ‘That’s a strange thing to say, Nell.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Well, either you love him or you don’t.’

  ‘I like him a lot and I love being with him but he doesn’t give much away. He never mentions his family or his life in Canada. Does Eric talk about his family?’

  ‘All the time – I think they’re very close.’

  ‘That’s what I’m talking about; Robert just never mentions his.’

  ‘I’ll ask Eric, he might know something.’

  ‘Don’t do that, Jean. I don’t want him to think I’m prying into his life.’