by Lizzie Lane
The smell of food was so tempting. He hadn’t eaten for over twenty-four hours and the fear he’d felt on hearing his mother yelp, then the cries of his siblings as the sack had been smashed against the wall, were still fresh in his memory.
The human he saw before him was smaller than he’d been used to. Following a second sniff of the air he perceived she didn’t smell quite the same. She also spoke softly, urging him not to be afraid. But fear still made his blood race. The instinct to survive was strong, but the gnawing in his stomach was impossible to dismiss. He was hungry and the meat smelled so appetising.
He took a third hesitant step, then another. Nothing bad happened so he darted forward, snatched the piece of meat from her fingers and darted backwards.
He watched the girl from a safe distance as he swiftly chewed and swallowed. His milk teeth were sharp enough for him to chew. The meat had tasted good. He licked his lips. The small human was yet again holding out another piece of meat.
The smell was so enticing and he was still so very hungry.
Taking a hesitant step forward, he snatched it and swallowed, too hungry to chew before doing so.
‘You shouldn’t bolt your food,’ the little girl said to him. ‘You’ll get a tummy ache if you keep doing that.’ He sat down and regarded her with his big soulful eyes, his long ears hanging like golden pads from his head. ‘Here you are. There’s plenty more where this came from.’
The girl held out another piece of meat. This time he was less hesitant. Nobody had hurt him and he heard no cries of fear from other dogs.
When she wasn’t speaking there was only a great silence, except when a steam train went by which set the old shed rattling and shaking.
When he’d first woken it had frightened him, but now the little girl showed no sign of being afraid and was feeding him, so he took no notice, accepting it as just a noise and not an intrusion into this dingy shed.
Joanna was elated, delight shining in her eyes. She couldn’t stop smiling.
The puppy was getting braver and braver. Three or four pieces of meat and he was close to her now, willingly taking more from her outstretched hand.
When it was gone she let him lick her fingers. By now he was used to her and showed no fear.
‘There. That was good, wasn’t it?’
His velvet brown eyes regarded her solemnly and when his stumpy tail wagged happily, she knew she’d won him over.
‘Shh,’ she said, her finger in front of her lips. ‘You have to be quiet while I get you some water.’
The watering can she’d used to fill his dish was empty and there was no supply inside the shed. She realised she would have to go outside and dip the can into the water butt.
The puppy attempted to follow her as she headed for the door.
‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘You have to wait here while I get you some water. I won’t be long.’
The puppy sat on his haunches and whimpered, its big eyes fixed on her.
Joanna crept outside carefully, pulling the rickety door behind her so the puppy could not follow.
The water butt was quite tall and only three-quarters full despite all the rain they’d had. It was hard to reach the water and there was no tap to make the job any easier.
Joanna pulled a stone close to the butt and stood on that, stretching her arms over the side of the butt until the can was immersed enough in the water so some could trickle in.
The watering can was made of galvanised steel and very heavy, so she had to use both hands to heave it out and carry it back inside.
The puppy had not moved from where she’d last seen him. He was shaking slightly but on seeing her stopped immediately and got onto his feet, his stump of a tail wagging enthusiastically.
‘Hey,’ she laughed, feeling happier than she had in months. ‘You nearly tripped me up. Let me put some water in your dish then we can play, you little puppy, you!’
The puppy lapped at the water as it splashed from the water can and into the dish. Once there was enough, Joanna placed the watering can back where she’d found it.
In order to keep the water clean she laid a sack over the top so it wouldn’t become a bath for spiders.
‘There,’ she said happily, getting back down on her knees. ‘Would you like to play?’
Not understanding, the puppy eyed her expectantly. There was something interesting in her tone of voice so he waited to see what would happen next.
She rolled up a piece of newspaper into a ball and for a while she rolled it across the floor, the puppy chasing it then bringing it back, enthusiastic for her to do it again.
Eventually he made the decision not to give it back to her and proceeded to tear it into pieces.
Joanna immediately remembered an old tennis ball she had at home. That would be her first present to him.
Replete with food and tired out from play, the puppy snuggled up against her, his chin resting on her thigh. She heard him make little comforting grumbling noises before he fell asleep.
Joanna continued to stroke his head, thinking how lucky she was to have found him. As long as nobody came to this shed and she could bring him some food, the puppy would survive.
Suddenly aware of how dark it was getting, Joanna knew she had to go home. Elspeth used any excuse to punish her and being home late – although really she couldn’t care less – was too good an excuse to miss. Unless she was out, of course, then she wouldn’t notice. Elspeth, it seemed, always had somewhere to go. Joanna hoped that she would be out by the time she got home. It would give her the opportunity to find food for the puppy.
‘I have to go now,’ she whispered to the puppy as she gently lifted him into the wooden seed box that was now his bed. ‘But I’ll be back tomorrow morning. I swear I will.’
Breakfast, if I can. And lunchtime, she thought. And after school. Somehow she had to try and feed him first thing in the morning and immediately after school. This would mean leaving him enough at breakfast time to last him through the day.
Stealing food from home would be difficult. Half the time she didn’t get enough to eat herself. But she had to try.
Nothing was going to be easy, but this puppy was hers and he had nobody else in the world. Like me, she thought. God had sent her this puppy to replace Lottie and she was going to look after him.
When she got outside she could barely see her hand in front of her face. An evening fog in November was bad enough, but the fact that all the streetlights were out because of the blackout made the night darker.
The only reason that Joanna could find her way home at all was the fact that she was familiar with the path she was walking on and the area she lived in. All the same, the dark shapes of sheds and the scurrying of night creatures was a little unnerving.
She did her best to ignore them, fixing her mind on the little creature she had saved from the river. He was dry now and his flesh was warm, his little tummy round and hard with food.
She found herself smiling at the thought of him, snuggled safely in his box beneath the wooden workbench. She would do her best to take him some breakfast and later on save something from her school dinner. She hoped it would be liver tomorrow. Her puppy would like liver . . .
Her puppy. She rolled the words over in her mind before saying it out loud.
‘My puppy.’
She felt she was walking on air. The puppy had come to her via dreadful circumstances but she determined they would become good friends. Like Susan and Paul, and like them he had to have a name.
She had no doubts the puppy was a boy. She knew enough about boys to know that, so it had to be a boy’s name.
She considered her father’s name, Thomas Henry Ryan. Naming the puppy after him would make him feel less distant. She pulled a face as she considered her options. Thomas? She didn’t want to call the puppy Thomas. That would just be too confusing once her father was home. Neither did she want to call him Henry. That was too formal. But for her father, the man who had once given her a cat
and had been kind before Elspeth had come along, she decided on Harry. Yes, she thought, smiling into the foggy night. His name would be Harry!
CHAPTER NINE
Seb Hadley twisted a thick knitted scarf around his neck and reached for his overcoat. He heard the irritation in his daughter’s sighs, but did not meet her eyes, fearing that if he did she would lose her temper and tell him to stay at home.
No matter how much he tried to persuade her that she needed protecting in case the Germans decided to bomb the country within the next hour, she still refused to let him accompany her to school.
‘Anything could happen. It’s just in case.’
‘What do you mean by “just in case”?’ she’d asked him. ‘It’s a dangerous world. There’s no knowing what might happen. You could get run over by a bus.’
‘I know all about safety first. Look left, look right and look left again,’ she’d replied impatiently.
‘You might get taken ill.’
When he’d said this she hadn’t snapped the obvious, that she was feeling and looking perfectly well. Like him a pall of sadness seemed to fall over her. Her mother had dropped dead while out shopping. There’d been no sign of her being ill, in fact she’d seemed a picture of health. Apparently a blood vessel had burst in her head. The doctors said she would not have known anything about it.
‘And then there’s the Germans.’
‘Ah,’ exclaimed Sally, somewhat contemptuously. ‘The Germans! Dad, I really don’t think Hitler has a plan in place to bomb Victoria Park girls’ school. I don’t think the park itself is a target either.’
The corners of her father’s mouth turned downwards. She immediately regretted her sharpness, but this really was getting too much.
‘Dad,’ she said, touching his arm. ‘You have to let me live my own life. Mum wouldn’t want you fussing over me like this and neither do I.’
Grace Hadley’s death had left her husband a changed man. Seb Hadley was a few years older than his wife and just a few months off retirement when she’d dropped dead. He’d fully expected to die before her. It had come as a terrible shock when she went first.
The protectiveness he’d had for his wife shifted on to his daughter. He’d always loved Sally, of course, but now his love became stronger. She was all he had in the world.
Fear that something might happen to her dominated his life. She was all he had left, and although he knew it irritated his daughter no end, he couldn’t stop himself from being over-protective. It was hard to accept that he should occupy himself. What was there to do without Grace? Who else could he dote on?
Her jaw clenched so she wouldn’t let out what she was thinking, Sally buttoned her coat and grabbed the briefcase full of pupils’ homework that she’d brought home the night before.
She didn’t ask her father if he was coming with her. She knew he was and there was nothing she could say or do to stop him.
Their walk to school was silent as it always was on those days she couldn’t dissuade him, Sally seething with inner thoughts, her father resolute in his determination to protect her.
For the most part she accepted his company, though refused to let him collect her from school.
‘Collect me! I am not a curly haired tot from the infants’ school,’ she’d snapped at him. He’d given in, probably because she did sometimes have meetings after school or join the horrendous queues for food.
He’d almost been persuaded not to escort her to school. Today she had relented because tonight she would be leaving him alone. Tonight she was going out to dinner with the dashing young Frenchman. On the night before she had studied his name on the card he’d given her again and again, turning it over in her hand before going to bed. Pierre DeVere.
Sally glanced at her father. His expression was as stoic as usual.
‘You’ve remembered I’m going out tonight?’
There was silence for a time, the only sound the clicking of her heels and his heavier footsteps a beat or two behind.
‘Sally, I don’t think you should go—’
Sally stopped so suddenly, he overtook her before coming to a standstill, turning and seeing the determination in her face.
‘Well, I am going, Father. I am going and there is nothing you can say that will make me change my mind. Now go back home. I’m here at school and I’m safe at school.’
Although his hurt expression gave rise to a moment of guilt, she held back from saying anything soothing. She needed to remain firm. She had a life to lead and she couldn’t allow him to ruin it.
‘Now, please, Dad. I have to go.’
She glanced at her watch, gave him a quick peck on the cheek, and went through the school gates.
A host of children gathered round, wishing her good morning and showing her treasures they’d found in a field: a red autumn leaf, an abandoned bird’s nest, a fish in a jar taken from the Malago, a slow flowing stream close to St. John’s Lane.
Seb found it hard to turn away from his daughter. The sight of Sally being in such great demand from the children gave him mixed feelings. He was proud of her but also jealous that she had the attention of others, even if they were her pupils. She was his baby and he could not easily let her go. Today was bad enough. Tonight she was going out with a man. He had no objection to the young man’s nationality, but he had objections to any man who came between him and his daughter.
Not wishing to return to an empty house, his footsteps led him down the cobbled path leading to the allotment. He stopped some distance away noting the bowed heads of dead flowers, raindrops dripping miserably from the withered leaves.
The rain had grown stronger since earlier that morning though it still fell in a fine mist from a leaden sky. Everything looked grey. November had been wet and foggy so far. It wasn’t likely to get any better.
Rain trickled from the brim of his hat, from his eyebrows and off the end of his nose. His scarf kept the water from getting inside his coat.
Once at the allotment he surveyed the plot where flowers had once grown in riotous colour. The remains of dead blooms barely held their heads above the forest of weeds. If he followed the advice from the government, as clearly all his fellow allotment holders were doing, he would pull them all out and plant vegetables instead.
The truth was he couldn’t bring himself to do it. When Grace was alive he’d come down here with a Thermos flask and sandwiches and enjoyed digging the earth, the dark loam crumbling between his fingers. If she wasn’t too busy around the house, Grace had come with him. What times they’d had, he thought to himself, and damn God for taking her!
He pursed his lips as he took in the sad-looking allotment. The dead flowers could stay until he was ready. In the meantime he would go for a walk in the park. At one time he would have also called in at the Park House, the pub on the corner of Merioneth Street, not the larger Engineer’s Arms where factory workers gathered. The Park House was small and intimate, no more than a small room with a bar, darts and a shove ha’peny board. He hadn’t been in there since his wife’s death. Neither had he been to church. They’d used to go, the two of them, but he no longer attended. God was in disgrace because he’d taken Grace away from him.
Head bent, his eyes watering, he turned away from the shed but something made him stop. Had he heard something? Or had he only felt that he heard something? Perhaps just the rain.
Narrowing his eyes he took a longer look at his shed. He and Grace had laughed themselves stupid when together they’d built it from odd bits of wood and a window they’d found abandoned on the side of the road.
‘A good wind and it’ll be blown to bits,’ she’d said, laughing as they stood side by side admiring their handiwork.
For a moment it seemed as though she was yet again standing beside him, her laughter ringing in his ears.
‘There’s nobody there,’ he muttered, shrugging his shoulders against the rain. It was just the creaking of old wood and second-hand nails slowly falling apart.
; Over a period of days Joanna cleared away the spiders’ webs from the solitary window so she could see a bit better. She also used an old broom she found to sweep the floor and brought a shabby rug from home. The rug had lain curled up behind the back door for ages and was in need of a good beating. Once she was sure nobody was around, Joanna bashed it against the outside of the shed until it was as clean as she could get it. Unable to take the solitary torch from the house without Elspeth noticing, she found her father’s old bicycle lamp. The light came on when she flicked the switch. Thankfully the battery was still charged. She’d have some light to see better in the shed.
At the same time as sneaking things that would not be missed from home, she brought food. She’d taken to saving some of her supper from the night before. The bits of bone and bread soaked in gravy formed Harry’s breakfast. Things saved from her school dinner was his evening meal, plus a third of the pint of milk she was given at school just before morning break. Unused milk was left in a crate outside the kitchen door. When she could Joanna had taken one of these, making sure she wore her coat at breaktime so she could hide it in her pocket.
Harry was becoming more and more confident, and had started to bark the moment he heard her coming, which was beginning to worry her.
‘Shh! Harry, you’ve got to be quiet,’ she said to him, softening her voice in the hope he would understand her tone if not the words she was speaking.
Harry, full of youthful energy, bounced around in response, his stumpy tail wagging happily, pink tongue lolling and eyes bright with mischief.
Joanna smiled. She didn’t have it in her heart to scold Harry. Having her very own puppy had made such a difference to the emptiness of her life and the coldness of the house that was supposed to be home.
Harry loved her because she was the first human to be kind to him. She loved him because she had nobody else. And he was so very cute and affectionate
Food played a part in Harry’s affection. He was filling out and getting bigger thanks to the food she scraped from her school dinner. His coat was shiny, his body rounder than it had been and to her great delight, his coat was a coppery brown. So far he hadn’t gone outside, but once he did she was sure his coat would shine like gold in the sun.