The Runaway Children

by Sandy Taylor

  ‘Well, that’s the first time you’ve admitted to that,’ said Mrs Wright, smiling at her sister.

  ‘I should have told you as soon as we knew your parents were both safe, but I thought it would be a wonderful surprise to meet them at the station. I was wrong – you both needed time to get used to it. I’m so sorry, Nell.’

  ‘Please don’t feel bad,’ I said. ‘It was a wonderful surprise, it truly was, but it was too much for Olive.’

  ‘I didn’t hear the front door open so I don’t think she’s gone outside,’ said Mrs Wright.

  ‘Oh dear, I do feel dreadful,’ said Mrs Baxter.

  ‘Please don’t,’ I said again. ‘This isn’t your fault.’

  ‘I think perhaps it is.’

  ‘Do you think she’s with Miss Timony?’ I said.

  ‘If she’s up there, send her down to us, Nell,’ said Mrs Wright, ‘and tell Miss Timony what’s happened.’

  I went upstairs and tapped softly on Miss Timony’s door. I didn’t want to wake her if she was resting.

  ‘Come in, Nell,’ she called.

  I opened the door. Olive was sitting on the floor with her head on Miss Timony’s lap. Miss Timony was gently stroking her hair.

  ‘Oh, Olive,’ I said.

  Olive’s tearstained face looked up at me. ‘I’m not going, I’m not going,’ she sobbed.

  ‘It’s okay, Olive, you don’t have to go if you don’t want to.’

  She wiped at her eyes with the sleeve of her cardigan and looked up at me. ‘I can stay here?’

  I didn’t know if I was doing the right thing. Where Olive lived wasn’t for me to decide anymore but I’d looked after her for so long, I just couldn’t bear to see her so upset and scared. ‘Yes, love, you can stay here until you are ready to move into the new house. Mum and Dad and Tony and Freddie love you and they want you to be with them, but no one is going to make you move into the new house until you are ready.’

  ‘Do you promise?’

  ‘Yes, Olive, I promise. Now I want you to go downstairs and say sorry to Mum and Dad for being rude to them. Will you do that?’

  Olive nodded and smiled at me through her tears.

  ‘Good girl,’ I said, giving her a hug.

  After she’d gone I could barely look at Miss Timony; I stared at a pile of books at my feet instead.

  She reached out and held my hand. ‘I would have said the same thing, Nell.’

  I raised my head and looked at her – it was the last thing I had expected her to say. ‘You would?’

  ‘She’s gone through too much in her little life to be expected to just do as she’s told and go where she’s told to go, by people she hardly remembers.’

  ‘I’d dreamt of the day we would all be together again; I never let myself believe that they were dead. I imagined how it would be, how happy we would be, but that’s not what’s happened. Olive doesn’t remember Daddy and she doesn’t want to live with her family. In fact, I’m not sure she wants anything to do with them – it’s almost as if they are strangers to her.’

  ‘I suppose they are in a way. You were older when you left London – you remember everything about your life in Bermondsey but Olive has forgotten. This place has become home to her, she has her school and she has her little friend Henry and, most importantly, she has you. And for good or bad you have become Olive’s surrogate mother, and she doesn’t think she needs another one.’

  ‘But it’s not the way I imagined it.’

  ‘Life rarely is. The only happy endings one can truly rely on are in books. As you see, I surround myself with happy endings. If a book I’m reading seems to be heading for disaster I stop reading it. I’ve had enough sadness in my life to waste my time reading about someone else’s misfortune. So there you have it, you have found me out. I’m not well read at all, I’m an old romantic; give me hearts and flowers any day.’

  ‘Me too.’

  I looked around the room at all the happy endings, in piles on the floor and spilling from the bookcases, and I was glad for Miss Timony because she was lovely and she deserved happy endings. But this wasn’t a book, was it, and I had promised Olive that she didn’t have to move to the new house. What were Mum and Daddy going to say? Would they make her go? Would I have to break my promise to her?

  She had been so brave, hardly complaining. She’d played hide and seek in Clodagh Price’s garden even though she must have been scared to death, and when I’d fallen ill she’d found Yann. She had trusted me even though I didn’t really know what I was doing myself. I couldn’t let her down now. If I had to fight my parents on this then I would. Olive must stay here, where she was happy, until the time came when she was ready to live with them.

  ‘What can I say to my parents, Miss Timony?’

  ‘You’ll find the words, Nell,’ she said.

  I hoped with all my heart that she was right.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  I dreaded going back downstairs; I didn’t want to face my parents. Would they be disappointed in me, when I fought for Olive to stay here?

  As it happened it was Tony who had done the fighting and I didn’t have to say anything at all.

  Olive was sitting on the floor with her head on Mum’s lap when I went back into the room.

  ‘We’ve had a little chat, Nell,’ she said, smiling at me, ‘and Tony has persuaded us that the best thing for Olive right now is for her to stay here. Isn’t that right?’ she said, stroking Olive’s hair.

  ‘And I said sorry, Nell. Didn’t I, Mummy? I said sorry.’

  ‘You did, darling,’ said Mum.

  ‘Thank you,’ I mouthed to Tony.

  ‘Mummy says that you and me can visit the new house, Nell.’

  ‘That sounds good – does that make you happy?’

  ‘Yes, it does. And Mummy says that Henry can visit as well and I can show him my new room, and Tony says he’ll bake a chocolate cake. Henry loves chocolate cake but I told him not to buy any pickled onions.’

  We all laughed and it was lovely to see Olive happy again.

  ‘You can bake cakes?’ I said to Tony, who had never so much as fried a sausage in his life back in Bermondsey.

  ‘Tony is quite the little chef these days,’ said Daddy.

  I grinned at my brother. ‘Really?’

  Tony nodded. ‘That’s what I want to be, I want to be a chef.’

  ‘Not a docker?’

  ‘Can’t think of anything worse,’ he said, screwing up his face.

  ‘Blimey, that’s a change of heart, isn’t it?’

  ‘It took leaving Bermondsey to make me realise there was more to life than working on the river, lugging bags of sugar onto barges.’

  I noticed that, even though Olive was leaning against Mum, her foot was touching Daddy’s foot, and it gave me hope. I smiled at him. ‘What about you, Daddy? Won’t you miss the river?’

  ‘Let’s just say that I’m not the man I was, Nell.’

  Mum seemed quick to change the subject. ‘Do you want to know who taught Tony to cook, Nell?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘It was Beth.’

  For a second I didn’t know who she was talking about. ‘Beth?’ I said.

  ‘The vicar’s wife,’ said Tony. ‘At the vicarage, in Glengaryth.’

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. ‘You’ve been to Glengaryth?’

  ‘We’ve been living there,’ said Mum.

  ‘In Glengaryth?’ I was beginning to sound like a parrot.

  ‘Did you see Aggie?’ butted in Olive.

  ‘I did,’ said Tony, grinning.

  Olive’s eyes were like two saucers in her head. ‘You saw my Aggie?’

  Now Olive was sounding like a parrot.

  ‘Close your eyes, Olive,’ said Tony.

  Olive did as she was told while Tony rummaged in a bag. Then he took out an envelope and placed it in her hands. ‘Okay, you can look now.’

  Olive opened her eyes and looked at the letter. Tears began r
unning down her cheeks as she traced her name on the front of the envelope with her finger. ‘From Aggie?’

  Tony nodded.

  Olive stood up and walked over to me. ‘It’s a letter from Aggie, Nell.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to open it?’

  ‘Not yet,’ she said.

  ‘Do you want to read it in private?’

  ‘Just with you, Nell, because you haven’t got a letter from Lottie so you can share mine.’

  I hugged her to me – my little sister had such a big heart and I was so proud of her. I would love and protect her all the days of her life, I really would.

  I was dying to know the rest of Mum’s story but I knew how special this letter was to Olive. ‘Shall we go up to our bedroom?’ I said.

  ‘I think that would be the best thing to do, Nell, because then Auntie Missus can listen as well.’

  ‘Mum?’ I said.

  ‘You go and open that letter, girls, and I’ll see if Mrs Wright has any more tea on the go.’

  ‘Mrs Wright has always got tea on the go,’ I said, grinning.

  Olive went across to Tony and put her arms around him. ‘My heart is full,’ she said, very seriously. ‘Thank you for my letter.’

  ‘You are very welcome, Olive,’ said Tony, smiling.

  ‘Who’s Auntie Missus?’ asked Mum.

  ‘My doll – I’ll introduce her to you later.’

  As we got to the door Olive looked back into the room. ‘If she’s up to it,’ she added.

  Together we walked up to the bedroom and sat on the bed.

  Olive picked up Auntie Missus and sat her on her lap. With her finger she traced the writing on the front of the envelope again.

  ‘Aggie wrote this,’ she whispered.

  ‘Do you want me to read it to you?’ I said.

  ‘Yes, please, Nell.’

  I took the letter out of the envelope and started to read.

  Dear Olive,

  You are my very best friend and I miss you a lot. I have been very sad since you left and nothing is much fun anymore. I wish I had a picture of you so that I could look at it when I am feeling lonely. I play with the other girls at school but it’s not the same. I hope that I will see you again. Give my love to Auntie Missus and please don’t forget me.

  I love you.

  From

  Aggie xxx

  ‘Can I write back to her, Nell?’

  ‘I’m afraid not – no one must know where we are. I’m really sorry, love.’

  ‘How will we find each other then?’

  ‘When the war is over you can write to her in Coventry.’

  ‘Will the war be over soon?’

  I nodded. ‘Everyone seems to think so.’

  ‘As soon as the war is over I’m going to write to Aggie and then can I go to Coventry to see her?’

  ‘We’ll work something out, Olive.’

  ‘Aggie said she loves me, Nell. I’d like to tell her that I love her as well.’

  ‘Do you know what, Olive?’ I said, putting my arm around her shoulder.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I think she already knows.’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘Would you read the letter to me again?’

  ‘Of course I will.’

  * * *

  Once Freddie and Olive were in bed we all settled down in the front room and told our stories. I had made the decision not to tell my family the whole truth. I might have told Mum about Albert if we’d been on our own but somehow I couldn’t tell Dad and Tony.

  ‘We just weren’t happy there,’ I said. ‘So we decided to try to make our way home.’

  ‘You just weren’t happy there?’ said Mum. ‘Are you sure that’s all it was? It feels like a pretty drastic thing to do just because you weren’t happy.’

  I could feel my face going red; I couldn’t look at Mum.

  ‘If I know you, Nell, I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t have dragged Olive halfway across the country in the middle of a war just because you weren’t happy at the farm.’

  I decide to tell them half the truth. ‘It was Albert,’ I said.

  ‘Albert?’ asked Dad.

  ‘Mrs Hacker’s son.’

  ‘Did he hurt you?’ said Dad, looking angry. ‘Did he hurt Olive?’

  ‘No, but he would have done if we’d stayed.’

  ‘So you ran away to protect Olive?’ said Mum.

  I nodded.

  ‘Then you did the right thing, Nell, and it was a very brave thing to do,’ said Dad.

  ‘I didn’t have a choice.’

  Dad stood up and walked across to the window. ‘I feel like going to that godforsaken farm and teaching that boy a lesson,’ he said.

  Well, he’d already been taught a lesson, hadn’t he? Dad might have given him a good hiding but I’d killed him.

  ‘I should have come with you, Nell. It wouldn’t have happened if I’d been with you,’ said Tony.

  ‘It wasn’t your fault.’

  ‘I just didn’t think.’

  ‘You were only eleven – you were just a boy.’

  ‘I would have gone to Wales sooner if I’d known how unhappy you were. Why didn’t you write and tell me, Nell?’ asked Mum.

  ‘Because I didn’t want you worrying about us, and it wasn’t so bad to begin with.’

  ‘We went to that farm, Nell,’ said Mum.

  ‘You went to Hackers farm?’

  Mum nodded. ‘We hadn’t heard from you for so long and I was beginning to think that something was very wrong, so when the flats got bombed that’s where we headed for – we headed for the last place we’d heard from you, which was that awful farm.’

  ‘Did you see Mrs Hacker?’

  ‘There was a “For Sale” sign at the end of the drive; the whole place was deserted.’

  ‘Didn’t you see anyone at all? A young boy, maybe?’

  ‘No one.’

  ‘What did you do after that? How did you end up at the vicarage?’

  ‘We walked to the next village, to see if anyone knew anything about you.’

  ‘And did they?’

  ‘No, but the postmistress told us that soon after her son died Mrs Hacker put the farm up for sale and no one had heard from her since.’

  ‘Did she say how he died?’

  ‘No, she didn’t – at least I don’t think she did. Do you remember her saying anything, Tony?’

  My brother shook his head. ‘I was too hungry to take in anything much.’

  ‘We were a sad little bunch, Nell. We’d left Bermondsey with just the clothes on our backs and nothing else.’

  ‘How did you get to Wales with no money?’

  ‘We hitched rides, mainly with lorry drivers, who kindly shared their food with us.’

  ‘Oh, Mum,’ I said. ‘It sounds as if you had a worse time than us.’

  ‘I was foolish to leave the way we did but I wasn’t thinking straight, I just knew that I had to find you and Olive.’

  ‘And you did.’

  ‘And all the while I was lying in a comfortable hospital bed with no idea of what my family were going through,’ said Dad.

  Mum smiled at him. ‘You weren’t to know, love.’

  It had grown dark outside as Mum continued her story.

  ‘Mrs Cooper from the post office took pity on us and took the three of us in. She fed us and gave us clean clothes. I remembered you saying that the vicar was a Methodist, so Mrs Cooper sent a telegram to the church in Cardiff to see if your vicar knew anything about you.’

  ‘And did he?’

  ‘No, but he sent money for the bus and told us to go to the vicarage in Glengaryth, where we would be taken care of, and that’s what we did.’

  ‘But they’d left the vicarage,’ I said.

  ‘Beth had come back – she was having a baby and it wasn’t safe for her to stay in the city. She welcomed us with open arms.’

  ‘Auntie Beth had a baby?’ I said, grinn
ing.

  ‘A little girl, and she was glad of my help. I was useful, I could earn my keep. We stayed there until the vicar was able to come home, and then we went back to Bermondsey to look for you.’

  ‘I’m so happy that Auntie Beth has a baby – she wanted one so badly.’

  ‘And do you know what she named her? She named her Olivia Nell, after you and Olive. Wasn’t that a lovely thing to do?’

  ‘It really was,’ I said, my eyes filling with tears. Somehow that meant a lot to me, it meant we hadn't been forgotten.

  ‘And she’s a beautiful little thing.’

  ‘She’s okay, for a baby,’ said Tony, grinning.

  ‘Did you like Glengaryth, Tony?’

  ‘I hated it to start with – all those bloody sheep, I thought I’d go mad. I was all for running back to London but I don’t think Mum would have been too happy.’

  ‘You’re right, I wouldn’t,’ said Mum.

  ‘So I stayed and I learned to cook and I learned to love the countryside. And I knew that whatever happened next, I never wanted to live in Bermondsey again.’

  ‘How did you find us, Mum?’

  ‘Mrs Ryan – it was very clever of Mrs Baxter to let her know where you were going. If she hadn’t done that, we wouldn’t have known where you were. It was such a relief, Nell. We stayed with Mrs Ryan and I wrote to Mrs Baxter to let her know we were safe, and then I went to the council and asked if we could be re-housed in Sussex.’

  ‘How did you find Daddy?’

  ‘I went to see the welfare officer; it took a couple of weeks for them to track him down to a hospital in Kent. I always had hope in my heart, I never gave up, and I’m glad I didn’t because from that day I knew we were going to be family again. We might have lost our home but not each other.’

  ‘I’m sorry about Rannly Court, Mum, I’m sorry you lost everything.’

  ‘I didn’t lose the things that mattered, Nell,’ she said, smiling at us.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  The new house was lovely. It was on a council estate in Hove, just along the coast.

  Me and Olive went there on the bus. Some of the houses had been damaged and were boarded up but it was a lovely little road that curved round like a horseshoe.