When no sound penetrated the utter blackness that was the bedroom, Clara bit down hard on her fist, a new fear enveloping her, or perhaps the one she had been trying to keep at bay since she had watched her father fall. Her teeth chattered in the icy darkness and she felt the nausea rise in her throat. She just had time to feel her way to the bed and grab the chamber pot beneath before her stomach rose up into her mouth. It was some minutes before the retching subsided, and after pushing the pot back under the bed she wiped her mouth on the handkerchief she kept up the sleeve of her thick flannelette nightdress and crawled under the covers, her thin arms hugging Milly’s stiff unyielding body. When her frozen feet found the warmth of the oblong stone hot water bottle her father filled and placed in her bed each night, she began to cry . . .
It was Audrey and Clara who met Abby at the train station the day before Christmas Eve, and the moment Clara saw her sister she ran to her, flinging herself on Abby in a paroxysm of grief.
‘She’s been this way ever since it happened.’ Audrey’s voice was soft with worry. ‘We can’t get her to eat and she’s beside herself most of the time. An’ I’m sorry, lass, but we’ve had word Wilbert’s been refused leave.’
Abby nodded, closing her eyes for a second and sucking her lips between her teeth in an effort to stop her own tears falling. Clara needed her to be strong and that was what she had to be, regardless of the way she was feeling inside. The funeral was at one o’clock this afternoon and after the service there would be the ordeal of company back at the house and all that that entailed. She couldn’t afford to let go now but she wished her brother had been able to be with them. She took a deep breath, composing her face before she said, ‘Come on, hinny, I’m here now. Be a brave little lass for me, eh?’
Clara made no answer, merely tightening her grip on Abby’s middle and burying her face deeper into her sister’s coat. Audrey shook her head. ‘He’s made a fuss of her over the last couple of years, that’s the thing. And with the way your mam is . . .’
Aye, the way her mam was. Abby rubbed her hand over her face and then took hold of Clara’s bony shoulders. She knelt down in front of her. ‘Clara, look at me,’ she said quietly. ‘Stop crying and look at me.’
After a moment the eyes in the tear-stained face opened.
‘I’m staying over Christmas, hinny. I’ve got special leave and that means we can be together all the time, all right?’
Clara opened her mouth and then closed it before she said, ‘You promise?’
‘Aye, I promise. Aw, don’t cry, hinny. Don’t cry. There, there.’ She drew Clara into her and hugged her tight, the two of them oblivious to anyone else. ‘I know you loved Da all the world. I did too, but he wouldn’t want you to take on like this. He really wouldn’t. You know that, don’t you?’
When it became apparent that Clara was beyond answering her, Abby rose and lifted the thin little figure up into her arms. Clara wrapped herself round her sister like a baby monkey. And it was like that, with Audrey at their side carrying Abby’s big cloth bag, that they left the station.
Chapter Twelve
‘Well, personally I think it would be the best thing all round if you took Clara back with you, but would these farm folk mind?’ It was Boxing Day evening and the Christmas spirit hadn’t even poked its nose into 12 and 14 Rose Street. Audrey and Ivor were sitting on two hard-backed chairs in front of the fireplace in Silas’s room; the old man was lying quietly in his bed, on the end of which Abby perched.
‘No, they wouldn’t mind.’ Abby answered her aunt’s question without a pause. ‘I put it to Mrs Tollett before I left, just in case things were bad when I got here. She said she’s quite happy for Clara to come as long as I saw to getting her to school and things like that. They had three evacuees at the beginning of the war apparently, a mother and two bairns, but they left within the month to go back to London.’
‘You said anything to your mam yet?’ Ivor had been gnawing on his thumbnail but now he stuck both hands between his legs as though to keep them out of reach of his mouth.
‘No, but she’ll be all for it, I should think, what with Clara crying all day and wetting the bed every night. To be truthful I don’t think I’d dare leave Clara with her anyway, not the way Clara is. Mam went mad last night when we changed the bed the second time; you’d have thought it was the greatest crime in history.’
‘Dear, dear.’ Audrey heaved a sigh. ‘What a to-do.’ She turned to her father who had said nothing for the last few minutes. ‘What do you think, Da? Do you think it’s best for Abby to take the bairn back with her?’
Silas didn’t answer immediately. He was lying back on his pillows but he hitched himself up a little, the movement feeble but enough to make him gasp for breath for a few moments. Then he said, ‘There’s two ways of lookin’ at it, I suppose. One is that if the bairn stays here she’s got her pals at school and everythin’ she knows, and her an’ Jed have always been very close, don’t forget. The other is that there’s no one like Abby for Clara, never has been, and maybe a change of scene from where it happened could work wonders. But overall,’ he directed his rheumy gaze on his granddaughter, ‘gettin’ away from your mam might be the best medicine for the little ’un.’
‘So you’re for it, all things considered?’
Silas nodded. ‘Aye, I’m for it,’ he said flatly. It would mean Nora was alone in the house and if he knew anything about Audrey, his youngest daughter would feel sorry for her sister, in spite of how Nora was. She’d ask her round for meals likely as not and it could get so Nora was never off the doorstep. He glanced at Ivor and knew the same thoughts were running through his mind. But the bairn came first in all of this and she needed to get far away for a time, it was as clear as day.
‘I’ll have a word with Mam then before I say anything to Clara.’ Abby’s gaze took in each of them and then she sprang to her feet. ‘I’ll go now.’
‘Aye, all right, lass.’ Audrey rose with her but Ivor remained in the room with Silas.
In the kitchen, Audrey said softly, ‘I’ll keep an eye on your mam so don’t fret about her once you’ve gone.’
Abby stared at her aunt for a moment. Audrey had lost weight since she had heard her son had died, and worry for the other two still in the thick of it had caused the pounds to continue to drop off. She looked tired and strained, which wasn’t surprising when you considered she had recently taken part-time employment in the munitions factory in answer to the government’s plea for more women to get involved in war work. She ran the home and the full load of caring for Granda invariably fell on her shoulders, Abby thought, and yet still her aunt put everyone else first.
Abby reached out and patted her aunt’s arm. ‘I shan’t fret about Mam, Aunty,’ she said truthfully, ‘not for a second.’ She could have added here, ‘If you could see the way she’s been at home since Da died you would understand, ’ but she did not. How could she describe the look on her mother’s face when she wasn’t aware she was being watched? She couldn’t because she didn’t understand it but her mam definitely wasn’t grieving. And she’d cleared out all her father’s clothes and possessions before he’d even been laid to rest. If anyone called round she was the epitome of the sorrowing widow, but the rest of the time . . .
When Abby walked through the scullery and into the kitchen, her mother was nowhere to be seen, but she had expected that. Since the funeral her mother lit a fire in the front room every evening and went in there to sit. She took a tray of tea with her and one of the magazines she’d taken to buying. Even on Christmas Day when Audrey had invited the three of them to Christmas dinner, her mother had left early and retired here.
Abby went quickly through to the front room. Her mother raised her head briefly from her magazine. ‘Been chewing me over with them next door, I suppose,’ she said and turned a page.
There was a good fire in the grate. Abby glanced at it, thinking, She doesn’t even seem to have considered that without Da’s wage coming in s
he’ll have to cut back. With tightening fuel rations, her father had been in the habit of acquiring an extra bag of coke now and again from a pal involved in the black market. Every recipe you read these days aimed at meals which saved fuel, and with talk that the one hundredweight of coal per household per week would soon be cut further, her mam was mad wasting what little they had left on a fire which simply went up the chimney and didn’t heat the range.
Putting the extravagance aside for the moment, Abby said, ‘I was talking about Clara with Aunty Audrey and Granda actually. I wondered if it’d help if she came back to the farm with me. A change of scene might take her out of herself and stop her brooding about what’s happened.’
Nora continued staring down at the magazine on her lap but her mind was racing. What should she say to that? She’d like nothing better than to be rid of the child whose snivelling and carrying on was a constant thorn in her flesh, reminding her every minute of what she’d done. Not that she’d meant to push him, she qualified silently as she always did when she thought of that night. Not a bit of it. Hit him, oh aye, she’d meant to thump him one and he’d deserved it too, but she hadn’t expected the big galoot would lose his footing and fall. And that’s what had happened: he’d lost his footing, so it was his fault in the final analysis. Rising in the middle of the night and padding about in the dark, he’d brought it on himself. She wasn’t to blame.
‘Mam? Did you hear what I said?’
‘Aye, I heard.’ Nora raised her head to stare at her daughter.
Goosepimples pricked Abby’s skin as she looked into her mother’s expressionless face. ‘Well? What do you think?’
‘It might be the answer, but if I agree to her going with you, I tell her myself. Just the two of us. I don’t want her persuaded into something she doesn’t really want. There’s no way I’m coming out to fetch her if she plays up once she’s there.’
Abby’s brow wrinkled. They both knew there was no possibility of that, but if her mother wanted to tell Clara herself, it was fine by her. All she wanted to do was to get her sister far away from Sunderland as soon as she could.
She shrugged. ‘Whatever you want.’
‘Huh! That’ll be the day.’
Abby ignored this. ‘I have to leave the day after tomorrow so you’ll need to tell her in the morning.’
‘I’ll tell her when it suits me and I’ll thank you to keep your orders to yourself.’
Abby didn’t bother to say anything more before she left the room. Her mind was still in a jumble and full of pain knowing she would never see her father again, and the sadness excluded the normal rise of anger or irritation with her mother. She hadn’t been able to tell him one last time what he meant to her, that she loved him. She hadn’t been able to say goodbye. Somehow it wouldn’t have seemed so unfair if a bomb had fallen because the same thing was happening to thousands of people all over the country, but for an accident at home to have taken her da didn’t seem right.
She hunched her shoulders, lowering her head as she fought back the tears. But then nothing was fair or right in these times. James and Donald and her da dying when people like her mother seemed to go from strength to strength.
Her eyes unseeing, she stood in the gloom of the hall for a moment. After sighing deeply she began to climb the stairs. Her mind was struggling with the way the world had gone all topsy turvy. Families and loved ones were being torn apart everywhere and there were many folk who were feeling like her, but with James and her da gone and the knowledge that she would never see them again burning in her heart, tonight it was more than she could bear.
Two days later on a cold Monday morning which had the smell of snow in the air, Abby felt a different person to the despondent creature of Boxing Day.
She was standing on the platform of the train station with Clara holding tightly to her hand, her sister’s clothes and belongings crammed into their father’s old rucksack again. Audrey and Ivor were at work and her mother had still been in bed when they’d left the house so there was no one to see them off, but that didn’t matter.
Abby glanced at Clara and her sister smiled up at her. Clara was coming back with her and that was all that counted. Suddenly the world was a brighter and more positive place again.
For the first time since their father had died Clara had not wet the bed the night before, and, small thing though it was, Abby felt it boded well for the future. It might be a bit of a squash in the farm bedroom - it already held the three-quarter-size bed which she and Rowena shared and Winnie’s single, along with a rickety wardrobe and chest of drawers - but when she had put the possibility of bringing her sister back with her to the farmer’s wife before she’d left, Mrs Tollett had assured her they could squeeze a little pallet bed in somewhere.
‘Looking forward to seeing the farm, hinny?’ Abby said softly, and Clara, hugging the doll Abby had given her two years before and from which she was rarely separated, nodded earnestly.
But it wasn’t the farm. Clara’s grip on Abby’s hand tightened. She didn’t care where she went as long as she was with Abby. There had been a story in Sunshine Weekly which she had read a few weeks ago, and in it the little girl had been sleeping in barns and under hedges with her big sister and little brother because their parents had died. When it had been decided they would have to be split up and sent to different relatives, the three of them had run away. It had ended nice, Clara reflected, but it had left her with a funny feeling because she’d so wanted the little girl to be her and the big sister Abby. But the longing for Abby hadn’t been so bad then because she’d still had Da with her.
The sickening feeling stirred again in her stomach at the thought of her father, and what her mother had said to her yesterday morning burned in her mind. ‘You say nothing about the night your da had his accident to anyone, understand me, girl? Nothing. It’s no one’s business, no one’s. Not Abby’s or anyone else’s. Well? Do you understand what I’m saying?’
‘Y-yes, Mam.’
‘You were asleep the whole time and didn’t know anything until your Aunty Audrey came to fetch you after I’d been next door for help.’
‘But I wasn’t. I mean—’
‘Saints alive!’ Her mother had yanked her up from her seat and shaken her like a dog with a rabbit. ‘Listen to me, will you? How many times did we go over this before Abby got here? You had a dream, that was all. A dream, girl, brought on by having something that upset your stomach and made you sick.’
She hadn’t been able to answer, such was her fear, but then her mother’s voice had grown softer and even more terrifying. ‘You ever say anything else than what I’ve told you and I promise you I’ll see you’re taken away and put in a home for bad girls and boys for telling wicked lies. You’ll never see Abby again, you’ll never see no one but mice and rats and spiders. They won’t ever let you out, not ever. Do you understand me?’
‘Here’s the train, hinny.’ Abby’s voice cut into the terror, and as Clara looked up and saw the steam and heard the toot, toot, toot of the engine, she felt weak with relief. All yesterday and this morning she had been scared something would happen to stop her going with Abby. She hadn’t slept at all last night, lying awake and pinching herself when she felt sleepy in case she wet the bed again and her mam refused to let her go. But now the train was here and they were going to get on and nothing could stop them. For a moment the platform seemed to narrow down and she felt a ringing in her ears.
‘You all right, pet?’ Clara’s face had been devoid of colour for days but as Abby felt her sister clutch her tighter, she looked down to see the little face had a positively grey tinge. ‘Look, only a minute or two and we’ll be on the train and you can have one of the sandwiches I’ve brought. You didn’t have any breakfast, did you, and you haven’t eaten enough to keep a sparrow alive over Christmas.’
Clara managed a wan smile.
‘I’ve got an orange too.’ Abby grinned at her, her voice low. ‘Aunty Audrey got it for you but she coul
dn’t get one for Jed so don’t tell him when you write to him.’
‘An orange?’ The distraction worked. Clara couldn’t remember the last time she had tasted an orange.
‘A nice big juicy one.’ Abby was trying to jolly the child along until she could get her seated on the train. She had been shocked by how thin and white Clara had looked when she had first come home, but over the last days she’d swear her sister had got even thinner. She had taken all this so hard, bless her, but once on the train she would get a sandwich or two down Clara and the child could have a little sleep. ‘And at the farm there’s all sorts of things - fresh eggs, milk, butter, cheese and lovely home-cured bacon, and Mrs Tollett makes wonderful puddings.’
‘But what about rationing?’ Clara asked, the faintness forgotten.
‘Well, there’s big differences between town and country eating,’ Abby whispered confidingly as they waited for the incoming passengers to alight now the train had pulled to a halt. ‘And I think farmers do the best of all. Mr Tollett is allowed to kill a calf every three months and two pigs a year to supplement the official ration town folk have to manage on, and they’ve got lots of chicken and ducks and geese. Did I tell you Mrs Tollett has some beehives . . .’
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