Fireweed

by Jill Paton Walsh

  The first was from my aunt. She thought being on a farm would be good for my health. She hoped I was being a good boy. She sent me my father’s address, and a book of stamps, and hoped I would write to him often … I felt sorry I had been hating her. She must have sent the address on my letter to my father right away, too, because the other letter was from him. He said things weren’t too bad in the army, but he missed me a lot. He hoped I was not being more trouble than I could help to the people I was with. He had some leave coming soon, and would be spending it with my aunt, but it wouldn’t seem like home without his boy. I was to spend the money how I liked. I looked in the envelope again, and found three pounds in it. I had never had so much money in my life before.

  I thought of buying something decent to read. I wondered how many weeks’ fares it would pay to the school over the mountain. I wondered if I could use it somehow to impress the Williamses, and make them sorry they had laughed at me. I thought of my father, at home in London, with only my aunt to talk to, and wondered idly what he looked like in uniform.

  Then suddenly I stopped thinking idly. I went up the road to the station, and looked at the timetable. There was only one train a day down the valley, and only every other day at that. And I had just missed one, anyway. The man in the ticket office stared at me, curiously, and I knew that he knew who I was, and I couldn’t expect to buy a ticket from him, and be asked no questions. So I went back down the road to the crossroads to look at the signpost. The signpost said Oswestry, 15 miles, and the timetable had told me there were connections with the London train from Oswestry. Fifteen miles. I looked at my worn, thin shoes. They wouldn’t make it. I walked back up the street to the general shop, and bought a pair of boots; good tough ones, which laced up high, and had heavy studs in the soles. They cost thirty shillings, with a spare pair of laces.

  ‘Shall I wrap them up for you?’ the shopkeeper asked.

  ‘No, thank you, I’m going to wear them right away.’

  ‘You shouldn’t do that, boy.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You should put Dubbin on them first. If you Dubbin them well, now, when they have never been wet, they will be nicely waterproof for months. Good thing, that is.’

  ‘I don’t think I can afford Dubbin,’ I said dubiously, looking at my change.

  ‘Mrs Williams-on-the-hill’s London boy, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, now, Mrs Williams is a good friend of mine. You will find a tin of Dubbin over there, on the shelf under the counter, and an old rag with it. Off with you now.’

  I sat behind the counter for about half an hour, smearing Dubbin into the boots, and rubbing them up to a nice shine. The shopkeeper didn’t think much of the shine I got at first, so I went back and tried again. Then he let me put them on.

  I liked him. And I didn’t find his being Welsh a burden to me, not now. Straightening up from lacing the boots I said to him, ‘Boro da!’ He smiled at me, and answered incomprehensibly.

  I set off. I had no idea at all how long it would take me to walk fifteen miles, for I had never done anything like it. I must have been on bus rides as long as that, but I couldn’t even remember how long the bus took. I tried to work it out from the cross-country runs we had done at school, but we did those at a trot, and on the flat, and it was pavement most of the way, and anyway, I wasn’t much good at it. I gave up trying to work it out, and just walked.

  Outside the village I met the baker’s van, and I bought a brown bap from him, and stuffed it in my pocket. It wasn’t raining that day, for once. I looked up over the river, and the roofs of the toy-town houses to the Williams farm. From a good three miles away I could see the white sheep clustered in the dipping field, and the expanse of hillside devoid of white specks above it. I remembered Evan giving me money for the stamp, and Mrs Williams’ warm new-made bread. I felt quite friendly towards them.

  There was nobody else on the road. It twisted a good deal, winding down the valley, with the stream beside it all the way. Every mile or so there was a farm gate. The valley widened out as it descended. Over the other side the railway to the quarry scored a straight line on the lower slopes of the hillside, and once I saw a string of trucks go down, and heard them rattle, the rattle rebounding in the valley all the way.

  When the sun stood high in the sky, and my new boots began to feel hot and heavy, I stopped and lay down in the hedgerow, and ate my bap. Then I climbed a gate and wandered across the field, and drank from the stream in my cupped hands. Vaguely I remembered an Old Testament story about soldiers drinking from their hands; but I couldn’t remember whether the soldiers who drank with cupped hands were chosen, or rejected. I went back to the road.

  It didn’t take me so terribly long to reach Oswestry. I got there in the late afternoon. I found the railway station, and bought a ticket to London. I ate horrible cheese sandwiches from the station buffet for tea, and waited for the train to leave. It left an hour and a half late, and struggled across England in the murky darkness, stopping every few miles, or so it seemed to me, as I drowsed in my seat. We got into Paddington very early in the morning, just at the first light. Shaking sleep from my eyes, stretching and yawning, I walked out into the streets.

  There were a lot of people about, for such an early hour. A lot of them were wearing siren-suits, and tin hats, with letters painted on them, in white. Otherwise London looked the same, her usual grimy old self.

  I caught a bus to go home. I sat on the upper deck, looking at the streets. In two places on the way I saw collapsed buildings, lying in a heap of rubble behind some hoardings. The wood of the hoarding looked new, still raw and clean. It carried posters. I remember one of them said, ‘A grand use for stale bread!’ And I shuddered, and felt a brief twinge of regret for Mrs Williams’ kitchen, and soft Welsh talk in the suffused fragrance of new baking.

  Then suddenly the bus took a wrong turn. It rattled away in the new direction, and I looked up and said to the conductress, ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Don’t ask me, mate,’ she said.

  ‘Well what’s up?’ I demanded. ‘We’re going the wrong way.’

  ‘Haven’t you heard there’s a war on?’ she said. ‘For all I know the street ain’t there no more.’

  But I could see down the side turnings, and all the streets were still there. I rang the bell, and scrambled off the bus. I started to walk towards home. Everything looked the same. I wasn’t surprised at that; I didn’t know why it shouldn’t. At the corner by the traffic lights a newspaper stall had the headlines, MORE HEAVY RAIDS 30 ENEMY AIRCRAFT SHOT DOWN.

  We lived on high rising ground, with a view at the end of every street. I remember seeing haze in the air over London, where usually, between the rows of houses, one saw quite clearly the skyline of the City: spires, and the dome of St Paul’s. I thought only that it was misty that morning. Then I rounded the corner, and turned down my own street.

  Right across the street, halfway down, was a barricade made of kitchen chairs, and a couple of oil drums with string rigged across them. Propped up against the middle chair was a red board, which announced in roughly-painted white letters: DANGER UNEXPLODED BOMB.

  A few doors down from the notice, my aunt’s house stood, just the same. The roses in the tiny front garden were in a riot of overblown flower. The little iron gate was shut. But the stone step under the gate looked dirty; it hadn’t been scrubbed down yesterday. I think that, more than the notice, told me that she wasn’t there.

  In a doorway, just beside the barrier, a man was leaning, half asleep. He was wearing a siren suit, and his tin hat had W painted on it. He stared at me. I was standing there, in the middle of the road, looking at the notice.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ he said.

  ‘Going home.’

  ‘Where’s home, sonny?’ In spite of his weariness, he was taking an interest in me.

  ‘Down there.’

  ‘Sorry, no go. Not till the bomb unit come and deb
ug the bomb. There’s nobody there, anyway.’

  ‘I don’t see a bomb,’ I said, sullenly. I was bewildered, resentful, the way one is when something has been going on one doesn’t know about.

  ‘It’s in the back gardens, down there.’

  ‘Where have they gone?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘All the people in these houses.’

  ‘Oh, to stay with relations I suppose. There’s a rest centre in the High Street. If they haven’t anywhere else to go, they’ll be there.’

  ‘Can’t I just go home, and wait for her to come back?’ I asked. ‘And my Dad’s due home, too. What will he do?’

  ‘Look, son,’ he said, still wearily, but with an edge on his voice. ‘There’s a bloody great bomb down there, that’s maybe going up any minute. You go across that barricade and you’ll maybe set it off; well, you would have asked for it, wouldn’t you, so never mind what would happen to you; but you’d wreck a whole street full of houses, and maybe kill someone else who hadn’t asked for nothing. See? Now get moving.’

  But I just stood there. I was tired, and suddenly, I suppose, afraid. I must have looked it, too.

  ‘I wonder what you’re doing here, anyway,’ he said. ‘You shouldn’t be here at all.’ Startled, I stared at him, guiltily. ‘They should have sent you away,’ he said.

  From behind me came footsteps, in clattering boots. His relief warden had arrived. As they greeted each other, and began to talk, I turned and wandered away, going idly down the street. On the doorsteps the milk bottles were standing, and as I passed number 40 a woman opened the door, and stooped, and took hers in. Her windows were all criss-crossed with brown sticky paper, and draped in white damask netting. A newsboy on a bicycle came towards me, stopping to push papers through the letterboxes. Down at the corner a policeman appeared wearing a soldier’s tin hat, instead of a familiar helmet. Beyond him was a small hut, with walls made of sandbags, and a fire burning in a bucket full of holes at the doorway. It had a notice on it, ‘Warden’s Post’. Beyond that again, I could see a long, low, windowless brick thing, standing in the middle of Station Road. That had S painted on it, in shiny grey paint. ‘S?’ I thought. ‘Oh, Shelter, I suppose.’

  Suddenly, as though I had been dreaming before, I saw how different it all was, how everything had changed. Here and there houses I had known all my life had crumbled away, fallen in a heap into their own basements, leaving a lost-tooth gap in the skyline, and all around me the adults were changed; all with tired faces, all busy, walking by me. The warden standing warming his hands at the brazier was only the school caretaker, wearing different clothes. He looked at me, but did not see me, or did not seem to.

  Then suddenly I thrilled with excitement, felt it tingling the length of my spine. I was free. Nobody was going to look after me; nobody was going to worry, or plan for me, or make me eat on time, or delouse me, or keep me safe from harm. They were all wrapped up in something else; they were all having the war. Well, I was going to have a war too; and my war was going to be just like theirs, staying in London, staying put.

  I was going to manage on my own till my Dad came home.

  3

  Over breakfast in Marco’s I told most of this tale to the girl. She listened willingly enough. It was nearly a week later by then, and I had managed on my own all that time. I didn’t tell her how I had done it, because I wanted to make sure she would stay with me; I had been pretty lonely. She seemed willing enough about that too.

  When she had at last had enough of Marco’s coffee, we wandered out again, and strolled down to the Embankment, and walked along by the river. As we passed each lamp-post on the wall, those lamp-posts with sleek Dolphins wound around the bases, she patted the Dolphin’s nose. She smiled absently as she did it.

  ‘I like them too,’ I said. She had rather long hair, dark, very straight, and she kept it tucked behind her ears, but a strand kept slipping free, and falling across her face, and then she tossed her head to get rid of it. A fierce little gesture, like a horse – she should have stamped her foot at the same time – but then her face appearing from behind the errant hair wasn’t fierce at all.

  ‘What shall we do now?’ she said.

  ‘Oh, we have time to spend. What would you like to do?’

  ‘I’d like to go and buy some blankets. I was very cold on that platform last night.’

  ‘We can’t buy them.’

  ‘I told you, I’ve got plenty of money. Lots and lots.’

  ‘However much you’ve got, you’ll need it in the end, for food and things. You’d better hang on to it.’

  ‘We’d better, you mean. We’re going to stick together, aren’t we?’

  ‘If you like,’ I said loftily, pretending I was doing her a favour. ‘But before I take any of your money, I think you ought to tell me how you got it, and why you ran away, and all about you.’

  ‘You let me pay for breakfast without asking,’ she said.

  I was stung. ‘All right, don’t tell me,’ I said. ‘I don’t need you, I’m all right by myself. Hope you make out all right. Cheerio.’

  She looked frightened again, as she had when she first saw me following her. ‘I’ll tell you, Bill, only don’t go off and leave me,’ she said. ‘Please.’

  We sat down on a bench, under the plane trees, a little way down from Cleopatra’s Needle. ‘I was on that ship,’ she said.

  ‘What ship?’

  ‘The one that was torpedoed.’

  ‘What one that was …?’

  ‘Goodness, don’t you read the papers?’

  ‘I haven’t had money to throw around on papers,’ I said.

  ‘Well, you know lots of children were being sent to Canada, and one of the shiploads of them was torpedoed in the middle of the Atlantic …’

  ‘You were on that? What was it like?’

  ‘Not so much fun as it sounds. It was only a sort of thump, and the alarm bell ringing. Then we all went up on deck, and stood in rows, just like they’d showed us in port, and then we climbed down ladders into lifeboats, and they rowed us across to the other ships that were with us, destroyers and things. Then the ships took us back to Southampton.’

  ‘So you ran away because you didn’t want to go on another ship?’

  ‘Well, not exactly.’

  ‘Were you afraid?’

  ‘No, no, it wasn’t that.’ (I wished it had been, somehow.) ‘It was just that most of the others went home; their parents took them home again for a few days, until the next ship went, and mine didn’t want to see me again, so I was left with a few others in this horrid hostel place, and I didn’t like it, so I walked out.’

  ‘Why didn’t they want to see you again?’ I asked.

  She flinched. ‘My father rang up, and said, “Now then, my girl, I’m sure you don’t want to put your mother through all that performance again, do you?” So then I couldn’t very well say yes, yes I did, could I?’

  ‘What performance?’ I asked, deeply puzzled by her account.

  ‘You aren’t exactly quick on the uptake, are you?’ she said. ‘Saying goodbye, of course.’

  ‘What about the money?’ I said, trying to change the subject a bit.

  ‘It was for Canada. You aren’t allowed to send money over there, so it was for looking after me there for quite a time.’

  ‘Are you going to find them?’

  ‘Mummy and Daddy you mean? Can’t. Daddy’s in the army, and might be anywhere, and when I got here, last night, there wasn’t anyone here, either. I don’t know where they are.’

  ‘Did you live in London then?’

  ‘No. It was my aunt’s house. I thought my mother would be with my aunt. I haven’t been to London for ages and ages, and as soon as we’ve found some blankets, I want to go and see Big Ben, and Nelson’s column. Do you know the way?’

  ‘Of course I do!’ I laughed. ‘Let’s go now.’

  ‘Blankets first,’ she said, firmly.

  ‘Are you sure the money is y
ours, all right for you to spend?’

  ‘Quite sure. You’re a bit fussed about money, aren’t you? Are you poor?’

  ‘No,’ I said, taken aback. ‘No, I don’t think so. My aunt was always on about money, but we always had enough of things, and warm clothes, and Dad bought my uniform for me when I won a place at Grammar school.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, looking a little pink. ‘My mother said only poor people talk about money. Anyway, they aren’t poor. They wouldn’t miss it if I spent the whole fifty pounds on blankets.’

  ‘Fifty pounds?’ I said. ‘Fifty pounds?’

  ‘How long will it last us,’ she asked, ‘if we’re careful with it?’

  ‘Oh, for ever, I should think,’ I said. ‘Just about for ever!’ That great feeling of freedom swept over me again.

  ‘Oh, ripping!’ she said, grinning at me. ‘That should be long enough. The war won’t last for ever, will it, Bill?’

  ‘Come on,’ I said, starting to run away, along the pavement by the river. ‘Come on!’

  Later we sat in St James’s Park, on the grass beside the lake. There was barbed-wire all over the Horse Guards parade, and the soldiers on guard there were in khaki; but we had been to Trafalgar Square, and Whitehall. There were wardens’ posts and shelters covered in sandbags set up round the edge of the park, but the middle was the same as it used to be. We were eating lunch; sandwiches, and mugs of hot tea, bought from a W.V.S. canteen in a lorry parked in the Mall. There was some sort of fire-fighting exercise going on, and people marked A.F.S. were swarming over from Green Park, and the canteen was for them really, but they didn’t mind serving us, They were hearty women in green overcoats, very cheerful.

  While we were sitting there an air-raid warning sounded; a horrible wailing noise, running up and down the scale.

  ‘What’s that?’ cried Julie, jumping up. ‘Oh, what do we have to do?’

  ‘Have some more beef sandwich!’ I yelled at her, raising my voice above the din.

  ‘Where are the shelters, Bill? Oh, come on, run!’ she said.