by Anne Baker
At the weekend, she and the children cleaned the steps and swept the cellars out. There were four iron bedsteads, some with mattresses filled with straw and some with flock. Together they carried them up to the end of the garden and burned them and carried down others from the house.
Leonie fixed up one room with two beds and made them up for herself and Steve. They might as well have as much comfort as they could during a raid. She put the other two beds in another room for the children to use and thought they could take down an old bed chair for Amy.
For years, all Leonie’s attention had been on her personal problems and they had kept her fully stretched but now quite clearly a greater and more general problem was imminent.
The very thought of war terrified her and at nine o’clock every evening, she and Steve made a point of listening to the latest news bulletin. Tonight as the news ended, Leonie snapped off the wireless and collapsed back on her armchair. War seemed only a breath away.
Steve stirred in the armchair on the other side of the empty grate. She could see the dread on his face. ‘It won’t be long,’ he said, ‘but I won’t be in this one.’
Leonie said, as she had many times to bolster his self-confidence, ‘You’ve done your bit. You fought for your country last time.’
‘And paid for it.’ His voice shook. ‘The war to end wars and it’s only twenty years since . . . It’s Miles and June who will bear the brunt of it this time.’
That was what frightened Leonie most. It would break her heart if Milo ended up like his father.
She felt Amy tug at her skirt. Just to look at her all ready for bed in her flannelette nightdress tugged at her heart too. Amy was growing up; she was now a pretty nine-year-old with clear skin and straight, light-brown hair that the summer sun had streaked with gold. She had been listening quietly to the news broadcast.
‘Mum, who is this man Hitler? His name is always in the news. Why are you afraid of him?’
Leonie squeezed her hand. Amy would need to understand. ‘He is the German leader, we think he’s about to declare war on us.’
‘But you said war was coming when Milo got called up.’
‘It’s closer now.’
‘Hitler will send his army with guns and tanks to invade us,’ Steve added bitterly.
‘Surely they won’t come here?’ Amy’s blue eyes were wide in horror.
‘We’re afraid they might.’
‘Not necessarily,’ Leonie said quickly.
Steve pulled a wry face. ‘Hitler has fought and overrun other countries, now it looks as though it’s our turn.’
‘There’s no need to fright—’
‘You’ll be all right, Amy,’ Steve said, ‘it’s your brother and sister I’m worried about. A war now is going to catch them at the wrong age.’
Leonie was afraid for Amy too. The child was sitting on a stool near her chair and tugging at her again. ‘But if the Germans are coming here, surely we could all be shot, even me? And they’re going to drop gas on us, aren’t they? That’s why we’ve been given gas masks.’
‘We don’t really know what’s going to happen.’ Leonie shook her head. ‘This war will be different from the last one.’
‘When June took me to see Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,’ Amy said, ‘we saw a newsreel with German tanks and hundreds of goose-stepping soldiers. They all had their guns on their shoulders.’
‘It’s time you were in bed,’ Steve said abruptly. ‘Come and say goodnight.’
‘I want Mum to—’
‘She’ll come and tuck you in when you’re in bed.’
Slowly and with a great show of reluctance, Amy went. ‘Don’t be long, Mum.’
When the door had closed behind her, Leonie burst out, ‘What are we going to do about her?’
Last week they had received a letter from Amy’s school outlining an evacuation plan and inviting them to a meeting to learn more about it. Leonie had wanted Steve to go with her but he’d said he didn’t feel well enough so she’d gone alone.
‘I thought you’d decided to keep her here with us,’ he said.
Actually, Leonie had signed the form giving permission for Amy to be included in the evacuation, but by the time she’d returned home she couldn’t bear the thought of parting with her. Goodness knows where they’d send her and Leonie didn’t want to have strangers care for her child. What if they weren’t kind to Amy?
‘I wish I knew what to do for the best,’ she said. Steve was no help when it came to making decisions about Amy.
‘It’s up to you, isn’t it?’ he said with cold finality.
All evening Leonie felt under pressure. She knew she had to decide one way or the other and prepare the child for what was coming. She’d heard all the arguments a dozen times. Liverpool was the major port for trading with America, an industrial area where munitions were being made. The banks of the Mersey would be a dangerous place to live. Almost certainly the Germans would bomb Liverpool. If she wanted to keep Amy safe, she would have to let her go to the country.
Leonie finally drifted off to sleep but at three o’clock that night the silence was shattered by shrill shrieking and yelling that went on and on. She woke with a pounding heart and it took her a while to realise it was Amy who was screaming.
By the time she reached the bedroom Amy shared with her older sister, June had switched the light on and was sitting on Amy’s bed, trying to wrap her arms round the child’s shaking body.
‘I thought the war had started,’ Amy sobbed.
June’s face was flushed with sleep. ‘She’s had a nightmare.’
‘No, Amy, the war hasn’t started,’ Leonie told her. ‘There’s nothing to be scared of.’
‘I saw them, Hitler was in an open car,’ Amy sobbed. ‘And there were tanks and guns and lots of German soldiers marching along the New Chester Road. Everybody was running, trying to get away from them before they got shot.’
‘You’re all right, Amy. Nothing like that is happening,’ June comforted her. ‘It was just a bad dream.’
‘You’re safe at home in your own bed,’ Leonie added. ‘Hitler’s miles away in Germany.’
Steve crowded into the room on his crutches. ‘Now look.’ June hugged her more tightly. ‘You’ve woken up the whole family.’
‘Pa said the Germans were coming.’
‘I said they might come.’ Steve patted her back. ‘But they aren’t here yet so there’s nothing to be frightened of. Settle down now and go back to sleep.’
Amy lifted her tear-stained face and stared round defiantly. ‘Everybody’s frightened of Hitler. Mum said so. It’s not just me.’
‘Quite,’ Steve said. ‘But it’s the middle of the night and the rest of us need our sleep. Be a good girl and settle down.’
Amy stifled a sob.
‘Bad dreams are horrible things,’ June said soothingly. ‘But they aren’t real. Come on.’ She turned her sister on her side and lay down beside her. ‘I’ll stay in your bed for the rest of the night and hold you close like this.’ She pulled the blankets round them. ‘Are you comfy?’
‘Thank you,’ Leonie mouthed at her older daughter and switched off the light. Steve had not wanted Amy in their bedroom even as a baby. He’d insisted she slept in a room some distance from theirs in case she woke him with her crying. As a toddler Amy had found the large old house spooky, and had said she was scared to sleep in a room by herself. June had been persuaded to let her share hers and now Amy didn’t want to leave although there were other empty rooms.
Back with Steve in their bedroom, Leonie said, ‘Amy would be terrified in an air raid, wouldn’t she?’
‘Panic-stricken.’ He yawned. ‘Better if she was sent off somewhere safe as soon as possible. Otherwise the rest of us will be deprived of sleep.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
HALFWAY BETWEEN SLEEP AND wakefulness, June could feel Ralph’s arms tightening round her and his lips were settling butterfly kisses light as air on her neck. Then his lip
s were searching for hers and she gave herself up to them.
But it was broad daylight and it wasn’t Ralph but Amy’s arms that were round her. June daydreamed about Ralph all the time and could think of little else but that he loved her as much as she loved him. He had taken over her life. More awake now, she realised Amy was lying half on top of her and her arms weren’t holding her tight, they were pushing her away.
‘Don’t,’ June groaned. ‘Don’t push. You’ll have me on the floor.’
‘Wake up,’ Amy said. ‘It’s time to get up.’
‘No it isn’t,’ June protested. ‘You woke us all up in the middle of the night.’ Then she sighed, heaved herself up and threw herself across to her own bed.
‘I didn’t mean you to go,’ Amy wailed.
‘There’s not enough room for two.’
‘Don’t go to sleep again.’
June turned away from her. What she wanted was to return to that dreamy state where Ralph Harvey was making love to her.
‘It’s not fair,’ Amy said. ‘I couldn’t help waking you all up. You can’t blame me for that. Even Pa is frightened of Hitler and it really scared me to see that. Then I dreamed of him riding in a car ahead of a battalion of storm troopers with rifles at the ready. Just like at the pictures.’
‘Shut up,’ June said. ‘Let me go back to sleep.’
Amy sat up and stared at the mound under the eiderdown on the other bed. June was nearly nine years older, slim and graceful with long, curly, honey-blond hair. Pa had told her she was fat because she ate too many sweets while June was the beauty of the family. Mum said she was strong and sturdy and not to worry, that she’d slim down as she grew up.
June’s college course had finished and she’d achieved certificates to prove she had skills in shorthand and typing of an acceptable standard to an employer. Every suppertime now, Pa talked to June about having forethought and making choices. He wanted her to find a suitable a job and settle in before her eighteenth birthday, after which she’d be old enough to be directed into war work.
The whole family missed Milo and felt he’d been whisked into the army before he’d had time to think about what he wanted to do, and to make it worse, the letters he wrote home told them he wasn’t happy.
Last night, Pa had nagged June again, but she’d turned on him. ‘Pa, leave me alone. I don’t know what I want to do.’
Amy couldn’t believe that. ‘But you must know what you’re good at and what you like doing,’ she insisted.
June sniffed. ‘I’ve considered a hundred alternatives but Mum persuades me out of them. You do, Mum, you know you do. I’d quite like to join the WRNs. It’s a lovely uniform.’
‘That’s a stupid way to choose a career,’ Pa told her heatedly.
‘If you’ve decided against clerical work, June,’ Mum said, ‘you could train as a nurse. Ida’s niece has decided it would be a good choice of war work. You could go to a hospital in a safe area. You don’t have to go far. What about Southport or Chester?’
‘I don’t want to leave home.’ June smiled at them. ‘I don’t want to go far from you and Pa.’
That seemed to please Pa but he was still putting on the pressure, and as usual June delayed making any decision.
Over the next few days Amy couldn’t help but notice that her mother was sorting through the drawers in her bedroom, washing and ironing and sewing buttons on her clothes.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked.
‘Pa and I have decided that in the event of war, it would be safer for you to live in the country. This could be a dangerous place, close to the docks and munitions factories. You love the country, don’t you? It’ll be like a very long holiday.’
Amy’s interest was captured. ‘Will I be going to the seaside? I like that too.’
‘We don’t know exactly where you’ll be going, pet.’
‘Those clothes you’re packing are not what I like to wear. I want to take the dress with blue birds on and the green one with poppies.’
‘You won’t need cotton dresses,’ Mum said. ‘Summer’s nearly over, it’s going to get colder. You’ll need jumpers and skirts and your winter coat.’
The next day Amy watched her mother pull down a suitcase from the top of a wardrobe and pack her things into it.
‘Come and see if you can carry this.’ Mum snapped the case shut and slid it to the floor at her feet.
Amy found that scary. ‘Why?’
‘You’ll need to take care of your own things. Be responsible for them.’
‘I don’t want to go by myself. I want June to come with me.’
‘You know I can’t,’ June said. ‘I’m grown up and will have to do war work. This evacuation scheme is to keep children safe. You’ll be going with your school.’
‘But you need to be kept safe too, Mum said so.’
‘Come and lift this case.’ Mum’s voice was brisk. ‘Let’s see if you can manage it.’
Amy wanted to refuse but with her family watching, that was impossible. She lifted the case two inches off the floor and thumped it down again. ‘It’s too heavy,’ she announced, hoping that would be reason enough to cancel the whole project.
‘Take some of the stuff out,’ Pa advised.
‘She’ll have to take a change of clothes,’ Mum worried. ‘The case is heavy before anything goes in.’
‘Then let her use that smaller black one.’
‘I want space to take my teddy.’
‘You’re too old to play with a teddy,’ her family chorused. They’d said that when she’d asked for a new teddy bear for her eighth birthday but she loved the one she’d received. It was really big.
‘You won’t be able to take toys, not if you can’t manage your clothes,’ June said.
‘I want—’
‘Don’t be a pain in the neck.’
Pa, too, was growing impatient. ‘They won’t abandon the child’s luggage, for heaven’s sake. Somebody will help her.’
‘It would be better if Amy could manage it herself.’ Mum’s lips were in a tight, straight line.
‘I don’t want to go, not by myself.’
‘You won’t be by yourself. You’ll be with your teacher and most of your class.’
‘Mum, I want you to take me.’
‘I’m sorry, pet, but that isn’t possible.’
Amy felt the coming war was messing everybody up, making them do what they didn’t want. Now, she could see her mother’s smile was slipping.
‘You can cope perfectly well on your own, you know you can,’ she said. ‘You’re always going out by yourself. Yesterday, for instance, you didn’t tell anybody where you were going and I couldn’t find you at suppertime.’
‘I wasn’t on my own and you knew I’d be with Pat. Pat’s family isn’t forcing her to go away. They want her to stay here with them.’
‘Oh, stop moaning,’ June said. ‘If there’s a war, we’ll all have to do things we’d rather not.’
‘It’s for your own good, pet.’ Mum’s voice trembled. ‘I wish we could all be evacuated with you, but we can’t. Don’t worry about the suitcase. I know how to fix that so you can carry what you need.’
Amy thought her mother could fix anything, and once her mind was made up nothing would persuade her to change it. The next day Mum made her a haversack from a length of light calico she had amongst her dress lengths. Then she wrote her name on it in block capitals with an indelible pencil.
‘If it’s a wet day,’ Pa said, holding it up to the light, ‘all the child’s things will get soaked.’
‘No they won’t,’ Leonie said. ‘I’ll wrap her mac round her clothes before I put them in.’
‘Perhaps you’re all wrong,’ Amy said hopefully, ‘and war won’t come.’
‘Of course it will come,’ Pa exclaimed in a burst of irritation. ‘It isn’t a question of if any more. It’s a question of when.’
Amy was told not to talk during the wireless news bulletins these days and each broa
dcast seemed to darken the gloom. That evening, she heard the newsreader make an announcement about the evacuation of schoolchildren.
Afterwards Mum opened the haversack and said, ‘Amy, I’m putting in three stamped addressed envelopes for you.’ She pulled them out to show her. ‘Look inside and you’ll find a sheet of writing paper in each one and here is a stump of pencil. We won’t know where you are unless you write to us. We need to know the name of the people who are looking after you and the address where you are staying. You must promise me you’ll do that.’
Amy shuddered, it was definitely going to happen. ‘Yes, I promise.’
‘I want you to get one of these into the post as soon as you can because I’ll be worried until I hear from you.’
Mum would be worried! That terrified Amy. ‘Mummy, don’t send me away. I don’t want to go.’
‘Of course you want to go,’ Mum suddenly sounded very hearty. ‘It’ll be a great adventure. Once I have your address, I’ll be able to send you your teddy bear and some books. Perhaps later on I could come and see you. I want you to write me long letters all about the people you’re staying with and about your new school.’
‘I don’t want to go to a new school,’ she wailed. ‘I like the old one.’
All day at college June looked forward to her evening with Ralph. She got off the bus near Birkenhead Park and walked the few yards to the lovely old house overlooking it where Ralph lived. She enjoyed nothing better than going to his rooms.
She reached the house and let herself in with the key he’d had cut for her. Ralph had said he couldn’t afford a whole house because he was paying alimony to his divorced wife. The rooms were rented out individually and the bathrooms shared. He had the original drawing room which was very grand and two smaller rooms on the ground floor. They were at the front of the house and only a few paces from the front door, so nobody need see her going in and out. Ralph said the other people living here were very friendly but the less they knew about his business the better.
He heard her come in and opened the drawing-room door before she reached it.