Whistling in the Dark

by Shirley Hughes

  CHAPTER 28

  It was a beautiful spring that year. Even the intensified ferocity of the Liverpool Blitz could not completely spoil it, except, of course, for those brave survivors who had seen their homes wrecked, shops and businesses ruined, friends and relatives killed or injured.

  The Russells’ departure from the district had been accomplished so swiftly and quietly that hardly anyone noticed the removal van parked in the drive outside their house, and their final exodus. Mrs Russell did call in one last time to say goodbye to Mum; a visit that reduced them both to tears.

  For Joan it was a huge relief when the school term ended and the Easter holidays began. She missed Doreen terribly and hated having to turn up to class every day to find her no longer there. She had plenty of other friends, of course, but no one to amble home with after school, or share confidences, or make her laugh as Doreen did.

  They spoke on the telephone sometimes.

  “It’s like a morgue here,” Doreen told her. “Pine trees, sand hills, lots of houses with big gates and notices saying, ‘Beware of the dog!’ We can’t very well have one on our gate because Raffles is much too daft and friendly to pick a fight with anything, not even a Nazi parachutist – well, especially not a Nazi parachutist.”

  Their plans to meet in Liverpool were out of the question at the moment. It was far too dangerous, even in the daytime.

  Joan spent a lot of time in her attic studio. She was trying her hand at fashion drawing now, much influenced by the effortlessly flowing lines of the drawings that she pored over in old copies of Vogue. It was exciting to try to draw the kind of clothes that were now quite impossible to buy, even if she had the money. And if one day in the far future she could afford them, the fashions would certainly have changed by then.

  Audrey was so depressed about this situation that she could hardly bear to look at fashion ads. To her, gifts of clothing coupons from generous family members – Mum, mostly – were like manna from heaven. Joan mostly made do with school uniform or hand-me-downs, but she didn’t let it bother her unduly.

  When the first fine spring weather arrived, so did Lukasz, turning up on their doorstep whenever he had time off, armed with a garden fork and spade. Ania came with him. They both turned out to be natural gardeners, and enthused Mum with the idea of making over the back garden into a vegetable patch.

  This required an enormous amount of heavy digging. Mum joined in with them whenever she could, and took to poring over seed catalogues in the evenings. Joan helped, and even Judy did too, pottering about with her bucket and spade. But Ania seemed to know more than any of them about planting and growing. Wearing an old pair of men’s trousers and her hair tied up in a scarf, she worked untiringly.

  Brian popped out from time to time and looked on encouragingly, but when it came to joining in on Saturday mornings, he usually seemed to find a pressing need to get on with his homework. And Audrey opted out altogether on account of ruining her carefully preserved nail varnish. Nevertheless, there was a huge sense of achievement when the planting was done and the first green shoots began to appear.

  “The carrots seem to be coming up splendidly,” said Mum. “Perhaps we could even try for some runner beans?”

  “Maybe,” said Lukasz judiciously, sipping a cup of tea. “It is possible. We ‘dig for victory’, as the posters tell us, yes?”

  “Oh, yes!”

  Dai had only one short leave that spring, and it was over all too soon. Audrey had built up to it with such an intensity of vital choices about hairdos, and what to wear, and whether she could get hold of some really good nylons that when the time came to say goodbye, the aftermath was all the more gloomy. She had taken to playing “Goodnight Sweetheart”, sung by Al Bowlly, on her portable gramophone in her bedroom over and over again until the rest of the family were sick to death of hearing it.

  “Can’t you play some Glenn Miller for a change?” Brian complained. “Or Harry James?”

  The trial of Mr Russell was a lengthy one. It was reported in all the national newspapers, but Joan didn’t follow it. She and Doreen simply avoided talking about it altogether in their telephone conversations. At last, the proceedings came to an end.

  The two main culprits were given a four-year prison sentence, but Mr Russell got off more lightly with two years’ imprisonment. Mum said that it was because of his excellent track record and the fact that he’d been such a vital part of the community.

  Happily, his punishment was later amended to a suspended sentence, which Mum explained meant that he would be allowed out on parole, providing that he regularly reported to the local police. Mum heard from Mrs Russell that he had since involved himself wholeheartedly in voluntary work, helping to re-house families who had been rendered homeless by the Blitz.

  But, according to Doreen, things were very tight for them financially now. “Mum’s thinking of doing a secretarial course in shorthand and typing, and giving up her voluntary work to get a paid job,” she told Joan. “We need the money really badly. She’s never worked in an office in her life, and heaven knows how she’ll get on in the typing pool. But at least there are plenty of jobs for women of her age now, because so many younger women have gone into the services.”

  “You’ll have to get your own tea now, when you come in from school,” said Joan.

  “David and Dad’s too,” said Doreen gloomily, “knowing how hopeless they are at knocking up a decent meal, and then blaming it all on rationing. But at least there’s one bit of good news. The history teacher at David’s new school has persuaded him to try for the Cambridge scholarship after all.”

  “Oh, good,” said Joan. She nearly added, “Give him my love,” but then didn’t, in case it sounded soppy.

  CHAPTER 29

  There were no letters from Dai. Every time the postman came, Audrey rushed to the door, but there was nothing for her.

  “Don’t worry, love,” Mum kept saying. “You know how it is. There’ll be a big batch arriving soon, I’m sure.”

  Audrey fretted. She kept in close touch with Dai’s parents, but they’d heard no news either.

  Joan, Ross and Derek still pushed the handcart occasionally on Saturday mornings, mostly out of habit. It was good to be out doors now, in the last days of April, when the spring sunshine danced over the estuary and even the local ladies, queuing grimly outside the shops, had dispensed with their headscarves and shapeless overcoats and were attempting a more summery appearance.

  One morning Ross turned up with a grin on his face. “My dad’s been promoted!” he told them proudly. “Made a sergeant! Mum’s ever so chuffed! It means better pay and all! And he’s due to come home on leave soon.”

  “That’s great,” said Joan.

  “He’s being sent down to Dorset on a training course. Then, well, we don’t know where he’ll be posted. Abroad, maybe. But we’ll see him before that.”

  As Joan walked home for her dinner, she found herself thinking a lot about her own dad and how much she still missed him. She kept a clear picture of him in her mind, helped by his photograph on the front-room mantelpiece. And she could remember all sorts of precious shared moments − like when he played with her, and took them all on picnics (though never to go swimming, because he said he saw enough water at sea to last him a lifetime), and how he could always make everybody laugh.

  There weren’t too many laughs to be had at home these days. The comedians on the radio worked hard to keep people cheerful. They toured the country, did shows for the workers in munitions factories, getting everyone to sing along. But the effect wore off pretty quickly. She couldn’t help envying kids of her age who still had a dad, even an absent one or someone who couldn’t live up to the huge standards you set for them when you were little.

  Somehow she had felt so much older since that day, only last autumn, when she had heard Lukasz whistling to her in the dark. Such a lot seemed to have happened since then. Now, with Doreen gone and Mum always trying to put on a brave face, and A
udrey waiting anxiously for a letter from Dai, Brian was about the only person she could rely on to be consistently cheerful. Nothing seemed to get him down for long, and he was good at really silly jokes.

  When Joan arrived home, she was met by a delicious smell of onions frying, so she knew Mum was getting the dinner ready. Perhaps there might even be some lamb chops, as it was Saturday. Audrey was laying the table when the telephone rang and she ran to answer it. It was a brief call.

  “That was Dai’s dad,” she called out to Mum when she rang off. “He’s coming round.”

  “Hugh Davies? Coming now? It’ll be lovely to see him, of course. Is Gwyneth coming too?”

  “No, he’s coming on his own.”

  “Perhaps he’d like to stay for dinner,” said Mum. And Joan knew that her mind had immediately leapt to wondering if she could make the chops stretch to another person.

  “He said he won’t be staying long,” Audrey told her.

  Mum answered the door. When Hugh Davies walked into the back room, they could see from his expression that this was no ordinary social call. He looked shocked, as though somebody had just hit him in the face.

  “Come and sit down, Hugh,” said Mum. “Is anything wrong?”

  Hugh remained standing. “I came to see Audrey especially,” he said. “Didn’t want to tell her on the phone, see. It’s that … well … we’ve had a telegram.”

  “It’s about Dai, isn’t it?” Audrey said.

  “Yes. I’ve brought it with me for you to read. It’s from the shipping company. We wanted you to be the first to know. It says Dai’s ship was sunk in the mid-Atlantic. They were on their way home. Direct torpedo hit from a U-boat. No survivors. They send their deepest regrets.”

  Audrey sat down abruptly, still clutching the tablecloth, and looked down mutely at the floor. Her face was very pale. Mum quickly went over and tried to put an arm around her, but Audrey shrugged her off. At last, Mum turned to Hugh.

  “This is terrible news for you and Gwyneth. I’m so, so, sorry,” she said in a low voice. Hugh said nothing, only nodded. There was an agonized silence.

  “I can’t stay,” he said at last. “Got to get back to Gwyneth.”

  “Of course.”

  After Mum had seen him out, she came back into the room. Audrey was still sitting there motionless, as though she had been turned to stone.

  “Do you think you could give Judy her dinner and take her over to the Hemmings’?” Mum said quietly to Joan. “Brian’s out. I’ll stay with Audrey.”

  Joan was too stunned to reply, but she did as she was told. It was only much later, when she got back home, that the news really hit her. Dai was dead.

  She could hear Audrey up in her room, crying and crying, great heaving sobs reaching a crescendo, and Mum’s voice rising and falling as she tried unsuccessfully to comfort her.

  CHAPTER 30

  That terrible Saturday evening was one of the worst in their lives. As it grew dark, they heard what sounded like a massive armada of Nazi bombers heading for Liverpool. To Joan, preparing for bed, it seemed like the worst kind of science-fiction nightmare made real, like something out of H. G. Wells.

  That night, she and Brian sat huddled in the broom cupboard under the stairs, which was supposed to be the safest place in the house, feeling the walls tremble and shake. Mum was still upstairs, trying in vain to persuade Audrey to join them. At least Judy was relatively safe with the Hemmings. They had an Anderson air-raid shelter in their back garden. Somehow, Mum had never got round to installing one. This was supposed to be a so-called “safe area”, after all, but it certainly did not seem like one tonight.

  There was no electric light under the stairs. Joan and Brian had their torches but did not want to use them unless it was absolutely necessary, in case the precious batteries ran out. They sat in the dark on upturned boxes, holding hands – something they had not done since they were children. Until now, Joan had always felt fairly convinced that a bomb would not actually fall on them, but tonight she wasn’t so sure. Brian was beyond making jokes. But his hand was steady as it gripped hers, and very comforting. It seemed like an eternity before morning came and the all clear sounded.

  Audrey was at last persuaded to join them downstairs, and they all sat in the back room, mute with shock. It was Sunday, but no church bells rang. They had been silenced since the outbreak of war, and would only be rung as a warning in the event of an enemy land invasion – something which, so far, had not happened.

  That’s one thing, at least, to be grateful for, thought Joan grimly.

  It was deathly quiet outside: only some faint stirrings among the neighbours as they crept out of their shelters in an attempt to start the day. In Joan’s back garden, the air was heavy with smoke and dust. Bits of charred paper and scraps of wood and plaster were blowing over the grass like mottled snow.

  Mum had seldom looked so tired.

  “I’ll make some tea,” said Joan.

  As they sat there sipping it, Audrey disappeared upstairs again, and came down a little later, very pale, but wearing a freshly ironed blouse and her best black coat and shirt.

  “I’m going to church,” she announced, “with Dai’s mum and dad. I know they’ll be attending the service at the Presbyterian chapel this morning to pray for Dai, and I want to be there with them.”

  “Are you sure you can cope with it?” said Mum. But they all knew that once Audrey had made up her mind to do something, there was no stopping her.

  Joan, Mum and Brian were too tired to go with her. Dazed with exhaustion, they slowly attempted to clear up the mess outside and sweep the dust from the front step. They could see a great pall of smoke over Liverpool and a dull red glow from the fires, which were still burning there.

  Brian tried their telephone and found it dead.

  “I expect the lines are down,” said Mum. “Maybe our local telephone exchange is damaged. But they’ll get it going again soon, surely.” It was a forlorn feeling to be so cut off.

  Mum was looking to see what food she could possibly muster for that day’s dinner when they heard the explosion. There had been no warning, no air-raid siren sounded, just a huge shuddering crash which shook the walls of the house. They all three stood there, transfixed, listening.

  “That wasn’t a Liverpool explosion,” whispered Mum. “It was right here, in our neighbourhood!”

  They ran to the front door. Outside, not far away, they could hear a lot of screaming and shouting, and the sound of an ambulance siren.

  “Audrey!” Mum said. “Oh, God! I should never have let her go out!”

  She was already dragging on her coat when there was an urgent ringing at the front doorbell. Brian rushed to answer it. It was Mr Roberts from next door.

  Mum clutched his arm. “What is it? Whatever’s happened?”

  “It was an unexploded bomb – must have been dropped last night. Only just gone off. I ran all the way from the warden’s post where I was on duty to tell you.”

  “Where? Where was it?”

  “The Presbyterian chapel in Hartwell Road. Badly damaged. Your daughter Audrey—”

  “Audrey? Is she hurt?”

  “I’m afraid so. Mr Davies too. The ambulances are there now.”

  Left alone at home, awaiting Mum’s return, was a worse ordeal for Joan and Brian than last night’s Blitz. It was made even scarier as information slowly came through about the bombing of Liverpool the night before. A neighbour told them she’d heard that more than five hundred planes had flown over the city, dropping a huge barrage of high explosives. Incendiaries had rained down, transforming homes, shops and warehouses into a raging inferno in a matter of minutes.

  “They say the water main burst, so the firemen just had to watch while all those shops and homes and public buildings were burned to ruins,” she said. “The air-raid wardens and ambulance crews would have been working all night to try and rescue people from the rubble. There must have been so many killed or injured − poor th
ings. It just doesn’t bear thinking about.”

  Brian and Joan ate some bread and cheese that they found in the larder, then sat in the back room trying to read or listen to the radio, but failing miserably. It was impossible to concentrate on anything. They strained their ears, trying to hear what was happening outside, but their whole suburb seemed to be wrapped in an uncanny silence.

  It was well after six o’clock that evening when at last they heard Mum’s key in the lock. The front door opened and she came in, supporting Audrey, who was on her feet, but only just. She was very pale and her face was stained with tears. Her left arm was in a sling, and her shoulder heavily bandaged. Mum’s face looked grey with exhaustion.

  “We must get you to bed,” she said. “But first – Joanie, put the kettle on and make us all a hot drink, will you?”

  Brian helped Mum to settle Audrey in the armchair while Joan made tea.

  “We had to wait a long time at the cottage hospital before they could attend to her,” Mum explained. “There were so many other people there who were much more badly hurt. The unexploded bomb had lodged on the church roof last night, and it blew a huge hole in it when it suddenly went off. It was a miracle that the whole roof didn’t collapse. The church is a mass of rubble and debris. The ARP people are working there now. Hugh was concussed by a falling brick, and Gwyneth is still with him at the hospital. I’ll try to find out how he is as soon as I can.” She turned to Audrey. “Oh, thank God you’re safe!” she said. “Thank God! Thank God!”

  Audrey was clearly in a lot of pain. She huddled in the chair with her eyes closed. But after they had persuaded her to drink some hot sweet tea, she managed a weary little smile, and looked down at what had once been her best skirt.

  “Ruined,” she said. “And I put it on for Dai. Oh, Mum, my shoulder’s hurting terribly…”