by Joan Moules
Then there was the money he’d have to repay. He saw the prospect of getting the bike he had wanted for so long fast disappearing.
‘Poo, bloody poo,’ he said loudly, scuffing the toes of his shoes along the kerb.
Annie too felt strange without Johnny around. Mrs Dover fussed her more than usual. ‘Is your arm all right? How does it feel, Anita?’ Later she said, ‘Such a pity you went to London and got injured. Goodness, you could have been killed, my dear, all for the sake of going to the theatre.’
‘It was fun. I enjoyed myself,’ the girl replied quickly.
‘Surely not. It was that young Johnny who persuaded you. I know. He’s a charming little rascal when he sets out to be.’ She picked up her knitting and smiled across at Annie.
‘He didn’t have to persuade me, I wanted to go. See a bit of excitement. Oh, the raid was scaring,’ Annie said honestly, ‘but it wasn’t bad really when you read what happens there some nights. We were lucky, and I don’t one bit regret going. In fact,’ she rushed on, her face flushed now, ‘I wouldn’t mind going back to London to live, as Johnny has done.’
Mrs Dover pursed her lips tightly together, making all the little wrinkly lines show. ‘You ought to be thanking God you are safely here in the country with us, young lady. Bad enough for those who have to be in the thick of it all, but no sense at all in courting danger when there is no need.’
Annie escaped to bed earlier than usual, feigning a great tiredness. Once there she pulled the covers almost over her face and gave herself up to thinking about the last two and a half years. Johnny Bookman had fascinated her from the moment he arrived. His thin, almost haggard-looking face that could suddenly light up with merriment. His speech – she had only heard people speak as Johnny did on the films before, and that not often. Most of all, except when he did it for effect, she loved to hear him say ‘Poo, bloody poo’ in that throwaway voice. When he did it naturally it never ceased to fill her whole being with laughter. She could feel it bubbling from her toes right through to her head, a delicious, wonderful joy.
She was surprised to find she was crying. ‘Stop blub-bing,’ Johnny would say, ‘that don’t do no good.’ She practised saying it to herself in Johnny’s voice and using his grammar, but she only cried more.
Pushing her head well into the pillow for fear of letting the Dovers hear her, she remembered that first night when she had been so lonely until she realized that for Johnny it was worse. Johnny who had never been away from home before, Johnny who was so completely out of his environment that he even called Mrs Dover ‘miss’.
‘Johnny, Johnny, I wish you hadn’t had to go,’ she whispered into the pillow. ‘It’s going to be horrible here without you.’
The following day at school Janet asked Annie to her house to play on Saturday. ‘We can mess about in the pool, and take Badger out for a gallop. Will you come?’
The two girls became closer friends after Johnny left and although she wasn’t allowed to swim while her arm was in plaster, she could and did go horse-riding. Just a gentle jog through the countryside on a quiet, elderly animal, not a wonderful gallop while her arm was still inactive, but she enjoyed it so.
Sometimes she wondered how Johnny was making out. She wrote to him twice, but had no answers to her letters. Perhaps, after all, Johnny was like everyone else and let you down in the end. Now he was back in his beloved London he had probably forgotten all the good things about Winchurch and Kerry Avenue and the girl he’d bought a ruby ring for.
Annie wore the ring on a slender silver chain around her neck. Never outside her dress or blouse, but always next to her skin. She had taken a small silver cross from the chain so that she could do this and sometimes when she was in her bedroom at night she would slip the ring on to her finger and remember that day in Bushton when Johnny had bought it for her.
Annie had spoken the truth when she told Johnny’s mum that her parents were away the weekend she was in London. It was three and a half weeks later that they caught up with the news. Mrs Dover said privately to her husband, ‘I wonder if Anita is really their child, William. They don’t bother very much about her, do they? Not underneath the show, I mean. I can’t see young Johnny’s mum not being in touch for so long, can you?’
‘Johnny is no longer our responsibility, Ethel. What he and his parents do or don’t do is not our concern now.’ As he turned in the bed to give her a perfunctory goodnight kiss, he added in a softer tone, ‘I think you’re right, though. Go to sleep now, it’s late.’
Annie came in from school one day near the end of term as the telephone in the hallway was ringing. Calling out to Mrs Dover, she walked through to the kitchen. There was no one there, but glancing through the window she saw her picking raspberries at the bottom of the garden. She went back to answer the phone herself, something she had never done before.
‘Hullo,’ a distant voice said, ‘is Miss Anita Evesham there? Please,’ it added as an obvious afterthought.
‘Johnny,’ Annie clasped the phone closer, ‘Johnny, where are you?’
‘Annie. Gosh I didn’t think it’d be my luck to have you answer the phone. I’m in a phone-box round the corner from home.’
‘Oh Johnny, how are you?’
‘I’m all right. How are you?’
‘Fine.’
‘How’s yer arm?’
‘It’s OK. Johnny, this is a silly conversation. You’ll run out of money. Let’s talk properly. Do you miss me?’
‘What do you think? ’Course I do. School up here’s diabolical.’
‘It’ll soon be the holidays,’ she said, ‘maybe we could get together.’
‘Let’s,’ he answered simply. ‘Can you come up for a few days? You can have my bed and I’ll sleep on the bedchair downstairs.’
‘I expect so. Though whether they’ll let me after the last time, and the raid, you know what grown-ups are?’
The pips went and she heard more coins go in, then Johnny’s voice returned, sounding in a great rush. ‘If you can’t maybe I’ll come down. If I can raise the cash, that is. I have to pay for that bloody boat to be mended.’
‘I’ve got some money, Johnny. You know I never spend all my allowance. We ought to be able to manage something. We could meet half-way perhaps, then no one will know and no one can stop us. Could you get away for long enough?’
‘No trouble, Annie. Mum’s at the factory all day, and I can always say I’m going to a pal’s house for meals.’
The pips went again and Annie heard the clink of money against metal. ‘I meant to write,’ Johnny said, ‘but my letters wouldn’t be as good as yours. I reckon I can talk better’n write, y’know.’
Annie laughed delightedly. ‘I thought maybe you wanted to forget you’d known me,’ she teased.
‘Don’t be bloody daft,’ he said.
Before he rang off they had arranged for Annie to telephone him at the telephone-box on the corner of his road at midday on Saturday. ‘I’ll have something worked out by then,’ she told him, suddenly taking charge, ‘but we’ll need to be careful because if they find out they’ll all probably try to stop us meeting.’
Longing to tell someone, she didn’t trust Janet enough to confide in her, so she whispered the news to Podge, her fat teddy-bear when they were snuggled into the bedclothes that night.
She had a strange dream that night too. She dreamt she had run away from the Dovers, but instead of going home, in case her people weren’t there she went to Johnny’s house. Mrs Bookman said she could stay, and although at first she jumped at the chance it didn’t work out. They were kind but they lived in a totally different way from her and she wasn’t sure she could live like it for always. She woke up as she was running out of their front door, and she was crying.
When she rang Johnny on Saturday she had it worked out and written down. She told him the train times, and how she had arranged it with Janet to say that she was going with her and her family on an outing, should anyone question her. ‘Can you
meet the train, Johnny?’
‘I’ll be there, Annie.’
‘Good. I know the times coming back. I mustn’t be too late. That’s why I’m coming very early.’
She hadn’t actually told Janet whom she was meeting, just that it was important for her to be away for the day. She had hinted that she would tell her the whole story soon, and had sworn her to secrecy about the whole thing.
She had a lighter plaster on her arm now, but it was still a nuisance to her for she couldn’t play tennis, could only have gentle rides instead of exhilarating gallops, and couldn’t swim. The only bright prospect for the summer holidays was being able to see Johnny again, and she knew she would have to play that one carefully or there would be more trouble, and possibly no further meetings. Then, she thought, the future would be bleak indeed.
Saturday was warm and sunny, and Annie, who had woken at 5.30 and forced herself to stay in bed until 6.45, dressed in a lime-green cotton frock which she knew brought out chestnut gleams in her dark-brown hair. She gazed at herself in the mirror and hoped Johnny would find she was pretty.
Mrs Dover came into the kitchen while she was eating her toast. ‘Just to make sure you get away all right, Anita,’ she said. ‘We must be very quiet and not disturb Mr Dover.’
Annie stifled a smile as she thought that by herself there would have been no noise at all, whereas now, with Mrs Dover chattering to her, ‘the master’ as she and Johnny had privately nicknamed him, could well be woken up.
She left the house in plenty of time to catch the five past eight train. Mrs Dover had remarked on this several times during the week. ‘It would cost less if you went after nine, Anita dear.’ And her answer was always the same, ‘Well, Mummy and Daddy are paying and they want me to be there early.’
It was a good job Mummy and Daddy never came to see her and as far as she knew had no contact with the Dovers either. There would be trouble if she was found out, of course, maybe not so much with her parents, but certainly with her foster-parents.
Johnny was at the station to meet her, looking very smart in long grey-flannel trousers and an open-necked blue shirt. His dark hair gleamed – she thought he must have used some of his dad’s Brylcreem on it. He took both her hands in his as she came through the barrier. ‘Gosh, I kept wondering if you’d be on the train after all,’ he said.
‘I told you I would.’
‘I know, Annie, but someone might have stopped you. Anyway, what do you want to do?’
‘I don’t mind. Just walk and talk and have fun. I’ve got some money with me so we can have something to eat when we’re hungry.’
‘So have I, Annie and it’ll be my treat. I’ve got a job.’
‘A real job?’
‘’Course. After school I help in a shop near us. I’m not allowed to serve – too young or something, but I’m sort of general dogsbody. I think you have to be fourteen really, and I’m only twelve but the woman who runs it needs someone young and strong to lift things sometimes, so she turns a blind eye ’cos I’m useful to her. I fill up the shelves when the stock arrives, and count the coupons and get them ready to go to the authorities. It’s quite interesting really, and I get paid, see. Then there’s me morning newspaper-round too, so even with paying me mum back for damage to that old bugger’s boat I’ve got some left to spend.’
‘You are a goer, aren’t you, Johnny? I bet nothing ever beats you.’ He looked uncomfortable. ‘She wanted me Saturdays too, the woman in the shop, but I wouldn’t do it, so I can see you then. Come on,’ he said, ‘let’s have an ice-cream to start with while we decide where we’re going.’
It was the first of many Saturday outings for them. Annie invented a cousin who lived in London, and while it didn’t satisfy Mrs Dover’s curiosity there was nothing she could do about it. In case she was ever tempted to check with Mrs Evesham Annie told her mother in a letter that a great friend of hers at school had an aunt whom she visited each week and she usually went with her.
‘Then if they do get together on my story any time I’ll be for it, of course, but if they don’t, then they both think they know where I am each Saturday. Except of course that I’m not.’ She giggled and Johnny, looking awestruck, said, ‘You are so good at this sort of thing Annie.’
Johnny was allowed to keep his earnings once he had given his mother something for the repairs to the damaged boat, and he used it for his fare and spending-money each Saturday. Annie wanted to pay this for him because she knew she had more than he did, ‘and it was as much my fault as yours,’ she argued, but he always refused.
‘The day I’m skint I’ll tell you,’ he said. ‘Now let’s enjoy ourselves.’
They walked and talked, went to newsreels, cartoons, pictures, even once a matineé at the theatre, and that meant Annie had to catch a later train back. She telephoned the Dovers to say she would be late, inventing a friend who had called unexpectedly and invited them for tea.
They pooled their money once each had paid their train fare, and apart from a sandwich or some crisps and Tizer it didn’t cost much because when they went to the cinema it was always at the front in the ninepennys.
Each time they parted Johnny said, ‘Next Saturday, Annie?’
‘Next Saturday, Johnny.’
CHAPTER 8
1943
‘Mummy’s coming down tomorrow, Johnny,’ Annie said one Saturday when they met at their usual rendezvous. This wasn’t the only meeting-place, but was the one they used most because it was about halfway for them both and they could get on a train to town or to various other places from that station.
‘What’s she coming for, Annie?’
‘Apparently to discuss my future.’
‘She’s not taken much notice of it for the last few years,’ said Johnny. ‘I suppose now you’re coming up to earning-age she wants to know.’
‘I don’t think it’s that.’ Annie frowned. ‘They’re not hard up are they? I think they’ll probably want me to go on with my education. I mean if the war wasn’t on I would have gone to finishing school in Switzerland or something like that in a year or so.’
‘Blimey Annie, would you really?’
She nodded. ‘Anyway you couldn’t get to Switzerland now, could you, even though it’s neutral?’
‘I s’pose not.’
‘She might make me go to her sister in America. I don’t want to, Johnny. I just want to stay here and go out to work.’
‘Well tell her that. She can’t force you to do it. Not now you’re nearly fourteen she can’t. And if you don’t want to go you’ll simply be unhappy and it will be like the boarding school over again. I think it should be your decision, not your parents.’
‘If I went to one in this country it wouldn’t be so bad,’ she went on as though she hadn’t heard him. ‘I’d have more freedom than at the Dovers.’
‘You know, Annie, it’s amazing we get on so well because we’re poles apart really.’
They were heading for their favourite café ‘Are we, Johnny?’
‘You just said that if it hadn’t been for the war you’d have gone to Switzerland or somewhere to finishing-school. Then I suppose you’d have been married off to some rich bloke—’
‘Hey, steady on. Mummy and Daddy had a bit of a struggle at first, I think, to keep me at that school and I owe them something. But not that. I’d never let them marry me off, Johnny. When the time comes I shall choose the man I’ll marry.’
‘Good for you. But in the normal way we would never have met and been friends, would we? When I left school I’d have gone with my dad on the barrow. That’s what both my brothers did before they got their own patch. Now I’ll go into the army, unless the war’s over before I’m seventeen.’
Annie smiled at him, thinking how nicely he talked now and how smart he looked and knowing that the essential Johnny, the one who made her laugh and who looked after her and for whom she was willing to risk the wrath of her parents, the Dovers, or anyone else who tried to come betw
een them, was still there.
‘What about us, Johnny?’ she said.
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Well, we’ll both be old enough to leave school soon. I might have to go on, though I didn’t take the scholarship. I thought that I would suggest a shorthand-and-typewriting course – I’d prefer that to learning to be a lady.’
‘I should just think you would.’
‘What will you do?’
‘Get a job until I go in the army.’
‘The war’s not going to last for ever, Johnny.’
‘No, and when it’s over I’m going to have some fun. Both of us will, I hope.’
‘Together,’ she murmured.
‘Of course. If you haven’t married some rich bloke.’
‘I shan’t do that,’ she said quietly.
They went into the café. The proprietor knew them well now and smiled cheerfully at them. He brought their Tizer and said, ‘A special treat today because you two are such regular customers. Voilà,’ and he placed in front of them two large cream horns.
‘On the house,’ he said. ‘Enjoy them.’
‘Gosh, wasn’t it sweet of that old man,’ Annie said when they were outside in the sunshine again. ‘I suppose we have been coming here a lot.’
‘Mmm,’ Johnny replied.
‘Will you still want to come when you have a job?’
‘’Course. Might not be able to, though, if I have to work Saturdays.’
‘Maybe I could come on up to town and meet you there and we could go out in the evenings,’ said Annie.
‘D’you think you could get away with it, Annie?’
‘Well, we’re hardly children any more. Least, you’ll be earning, and if I can get myself into an office somewhere so shall I. Come to that I could work in London, couldn’t I?’
‘That would make things easier. It’s funny, isn’t it, Annie – we were both evacuated so as we’d be safe, and now I’m back living up here and you come up every week.’