Mrs Brindley’s optimistic words fell on deaf ears and eventually she went back to her own home and left the family to grieve. She of all people knew just what they were going through and she didn’t wish to intrude.
The month progressed and sometimes Briony felt as if she were staggering through a thick fog. She couldn’t or wouldn’t accept that she might never see her handsome father again, and she began to fear for her mother’s sanity. Lois seemed to be locked in a world of her own where no one could reach her. She would sit in the chair from dawn till dusk, rocking to and fro in her dressing gown staring sightlessly from the window, and had it not been for Briony, Mrs Brindley dreaded to think what might have happened to little Sarah and Alfie. They were bewildered, not truly understanding the finality of death, and every morning they watched for the postman, hoping for a letter from their father. Briony had gently told them that their dad had gone to a wonderful place called heaven where he was living with God. Sarah thought this all sounded very well and good, but one evening as Briony was tucking her into bed she asked, ‘When will God let Daddy come home to see us?’
Briony blinked away the tears that were suddenly stinging the back of her eyes and told her, ‘I’m afraid that once you go to live with God, He doesn’t allow you to come home for visits.’
Sarah’s small hands bunched into fists beneath the blankets. ‘Well, I don’t think that’s fair then,’ she said plaintively. ‘He’s our Daddy, not God’s! Why doesn’t God get His own Daddy?’
‘Billy Norman’s mum told him that his daddy had gone to live with God too,’ Alfie piped up. ‘But Billy knew that she was telling lies ’cos they had what they called a funral or somethin’ like that for him an’ planted him in the ground in a big box. How can he be with God in heaven, Briony, if he’s in the ground? You said that heaven was somewhere in the sky behind the clouds.’
Completely at a loss as to how to answer such innocent questions, Briony merely kissed them both and sneaked out of the room with tears streaming down her pale cheeks. She was still managing to go to work, but most evenings she was in such a daze that she couldn’t even remember what she had been doing all day. Thankfully, once he heard what had happened, Mr Trimble was being very understanding, and rather than bellow at her as he normally would if she made a mistake he would simply correct it and leave her well alone.
Ruth had been marvellous too, a true friend. Each evening after her meal she would turn up and pitch in to help Briony do anything that needed doing without a word of complaint. Briony didn’t know how she would have coped without Ruth and Martha Brindley yet she could find no words to thank them, knowing that anything she said would be totally inadequate.
The days slipped one into another until August was drawing to a close.
‘Christ, it’s the twenty-fifth already, where does the time go?’ Mrs Brindley said one evening as she sat at the Valentines’ kitchen table reading the daily newspaper. She had tackled a pile of ironing for Briony and was now enjoying a cup of tea before returning to her own home. The children were fast asleep in bed when suddenly the sound that they had all been dreading echoed through the house.
‘Dear God Almighty!’ Mrs Brindley had paled to the colour of putty. ‘It’s the bloody air-raid siren.’ Then taking control she barked at Briony, ‘Run up and fetch the kids while I get yer mam into the shelter, lass.’
For a moment the girl stood as if she had been turned to stone but then gathering her wits together she raced up the steep staircase as sheer terror pulsed through her veins.
Sarah was already sitting up in bed knuckling the sleep from her eyes as her sister exploded into the room, and she asked sleepily, ‘What’s that funny noise, Briony?’
‘Nothing for you to worry about,’ her sister replied, keeping her voice as calm as she could. ‘But I want you to come with me. We’re going to have a little adventure and go and sit in the shelter for a while.’
‘But it’s dark outside!’
‘I know it is, but we have candles in there so hurry up and put your dressing gown and your slippers on for me, there’s a good girl, while I go and get Alfie.’
The sound of the siren wailing was deafening, but Alfie didn’t wake even when Briony lifted him out of bed and put a blanket around him. She carried him out onto the long narrow landing where Sarah was waiting for her, looking a little fearful now, then quickly led the way downstairs and outside into the shelter. Lois was sitting in one of the chairs that Mrs Brindley had placed in there and Briony placed Alfie in her lap. He roused momentarily to jam his thumb into his mouth but then slept on blissfully oblivious of what was going on. Mrs Brindley was sitting in the other chair and she instantly lifted Sarah onto her lap, telling Briony, ‘Get that door shut sharpish, luvvie.’
Briony did as she was told and they were instantly plunged into inky darkness but then she fumbled about for the candles and the matches that Mrs Brindley had also thought to bring into the shelter and within minutes she had managed to light a couple with shaking fingers.
‘That’s better,’ her neighbour told her with an encouraging grin as she saw that Tigger had shot in there too, to cower beneath one of the chairs. ‘We should be as safe as houses in here, so all we have to do now is sit it out.’
Briony sank cross-legged onto an old rug that her mother had been planning to throw out and shivered. Despite the balmy evening outside, the inside of the shelter felt cold and damp but hopefully the raid would not go on for too long.
Every minute seemed to last an hour as they sat there wondering what was going on outside. Then suddenly they heard the roar of planes overhead and as the noise subsided a little, there was the sound of an explosion in the distance.
‘The bastards have dropped a bomb somewhere,’ Mrs Brindley said with gritted teeth.
Briony wrapped her arms about her knees to try and stop herself shaking.
‘I wonder who’s copped it?’ Mrs Brindley hugged Sarah more tightly to her but thankfully both children slept on. Eventually Briony slipped into an uneasy doze too and it was the sound of the all-clear that brought her eyes springing open.
‘Is it over?’ she whispered fearfully and Mrs Brindley nodded.
‘Yes, it is. Now come on, help me get these children tucked back into bed – that’s if it ain’t time to get up. Lord knows how long we’ve been in here.’
They crept from the shelter into a misty dawn and once inside the kitchen, Lois and Briony carried the children upstairs while Mrs Brindley threw some coal onto the dying fire.
Later that morning, they discovered that an incendiary bomb had been dropped in the Gypsy Lane, Coventry Road area, but no one seemed to know as yet what damage had been done or whether anyone had been hurt. Briony had chosen not to go into work but she got the children up at their usual time and walked them both to school, feeling that it would be better to keep them in their normal routine. Even so, she fretted all day.
‘What if the sirens go off and there’s a raid during the day?’ she asked Mrs Brindley. There were huge dark circles beneath her eyes and the kindly woman patted her hand reassuringly.
‘Don’t get worrying about that. They’d get all the children down into the cellars,’ she assured her.
‘But if they do that and the school gets bombed, then the children would be buried under tons of rubble.’
Mrs Brindley scowled at her and yawned. The sleepless night was catching up with her now and she was keen to get back to her own home and her own bed.
‘You’re just lookin’ fer problems now,’ she scolded, although the same thought had crossed her own mind. ‘Now I’m goin’ to go and grab a bit o’ shut-eye, so I’ll see yer both later. Oh, an’ by the way, Betty Arkwright just told me there were no one hurt in the raid last night, so that’s sommat to be thankful for at least, ain’t it?’
She crossed the yard and disappeared into her kitchen as Briony looked at Tigger the cat, who had crept back in and was already fast asleep in the fireside chair.
&
nbsp; The raid had deeply unnerved them all, for although they had known it could happen, when it actually had, it had been a different matter entirely.
Seeing her mother’s strained face, Briony tried to force some brightness into her voice as she told her, ‘I think Mrs Brindley was more upset about having to go without her cup of tea all night than anything else. Everything happened so fast she forgot to fill her flask.’
Lois nodded absently as Briony began to tidy the room.
*
They were all nervous as evening approached, but thankfully it passed without incident and they began to hope that the raid had been a one-off. Briony returned to work the next day, and on the way home Ruth remarked, ‘It were nice to have a peaceful night, weren’t it?’
Briony couldn’t help but smile. Ruth was talking as if the raids had been a nightly occurrence rather than the first one. But she didn’t say as much, instead she simply nodded.
‘Yes, it was – and let’s pray we have another peaceful time tonight.’
Her prayers went unanswered when shortly after she had retired to bed the sirens sounded. Grabbing her dressing gown, she yanked it on and carried Sarah down the stairs whilst her mother followed with Alfie in her arms. They met Mrs Brindley in the yard with her hair full of metal curlers and clad in a voluminous candlewick dressing gown.
She pointed to the flask beneath her arm as she ushered them all in the direction of the shelter, saying, ‘I put some cups in the shelter earlier on so at least we’ll be able to have a hot drink tonight.’
Tea was the very last thing on Briony’s mind at that moment but she was too polite to say so. Now that August was drawing to a close the nights had become colder and soon Briony wished that she had thought to put her coat on over her dressing gown, but at least the children were warmly wrapped in the blankets that their neighbour had provided; once again, they slept through it all.
‘The jerries are droppin’ a fair few tonight,’ Mrs Brindley muttered at one stage. The candles were flickering, making the walls of the shelter seem as if they were moving and Briony was absolutely terrified.
That night the raid seemed to go on for much longer and they all sat fearfully listening to the explosions and the roar of the ack-ack guns as they tried to shoot the enemy planes from the skies.
The next day, they learned that nine high-explosive bombs and twenty incendiary bombs had been dropped in Weddington Lane and in Caldecote Lane opposite the school, but miraculously once again no one was hurt and the school had remained intact.
‘Them Jerries are bleedin’ lunatics, the lot of ’em,’ Martha Brindley ranted, and Lois and Briony could only nod in agreement.
Then on the following night came the worst raid to date. It began shortly after dark and seemed to go on all night. This time Weddington Road, Hill Farm and Boon’s quarry in Tuttle Hill were the targets – and they were appalled to hear on the wireless the following day that this time, three people had lost their lives, and a further nine people had been injured.
‘There’s a bus up on the school playground; all the children that trickled back after bein’ evacuated are bein’ taken away again,’ Mrs Brindley informed them after venturing as far as the butcher’s to collect her meagre meat ration. ‘I should expect a visit from the WVS or the Red Cross if I were you, Lois,’ she warned. ‘Happen they’ll be wantin’ to get Sarah an’ Alfie away an’ all, now that the bombin’ has started.’
Briony held her breath, wondering if Lois would agree that it was time for her to take the children to Cornwall, but for now Lois merely chewed on her lip and shook her head in silent consternation. She still wasn’t ready to let go of her beloved children, even in the face of the Luftwaffe’s killing rage.
Chapter Ten
The next day, a Wednesday, Briony had just got home from work when she answered a knock at the front door to find a woman from the Red Cross standing there with a clipboard in her hand. She was a little stout woman with a hooked nose and the beadiest eyes that Briony had ever seen, but she was politeness itself when she asked, ‘Would it be possible to speak to Mrs Valentine, dear?’
Briony felt like slamming the door in her face as it dawned on her why the woman might be there, but she smiled stiffly and held the door wider. ‘Yes, of course, she’s in the back room. Would you like to come through?’
Mrs Brindley and Lois looked up when the visitor followed Briony in, and the second they spotted the woman’s uniform, their expressions became wary.
‘Ah, Mrs Valentine.’ The woman held her hand out and shook Lois’s so hard that Lois feared it would drop off. She had the grip of a grizzly bear and was full of self-importance. Narrowing her eyes, she squinted down at the list in her hand before going on, ‘I believe we have two children here . . . Sarah and Alfred, isn’t it?’ There would have been no point in denying it as the children were both in the room, playing snap at the table.
‘Following last night’s raid,’ the woman rushed on, ‘we have decided to evacuate the next batch of children from the area this Friday for their own safety. They will be taken by bus at ten thirty a.m. from the school playground to the station, where they will travel to their destination. I have a list of things here that they will need to take with them. Will that be all right, dear?’ She held a sheet of paper out to Lois who shocked them all when her chin suddenly set and she rose from her seat.
‘Actually, no, it won’t be all right,’ she said calmly.
The woman looked flustered. ‘B-but you can’t possibly be meaning to keep them here, putting them at risk?’
‘I have no intention of keeping them here.’ Lois held her head high. ‘They will be going to stay for the duration of the war at my parents’ country estate in Cornwall, just as soon as I am able to arrange it. It will be so much better for them to be with family, don’t you think?’
‘Estate?’ Briony croaked. From the little her mother had told her, the girl had guessed that her grandparents must have a wonderful house – but an estate?
‘Oh, I see,’ the woman said, looking utterly flabbergasted. ‘So shall I take their names off the list then?’
Lois nodded imperiously as the woman, who seemed to have shrunk, backed towards the door. ‘Yes, if you would be so kind,’ she said, then to Briony: ‘Would you show this lady out, please, darling?’
The woman seemed only too pleased to go and shot out as if Old Nick himself were snapping at her heels.
The door had scarcely closed behind her when Mrs Brindley erupted into gales of laughter that made her chins wobble as she clutched at her sides.
‘Eeh, lass,’ she chortled. ‘Yer certainly put that pompous little so an’ so in her place. I never knew yer had it in yer!’
Mrs Brindley’s laughter was so infectious that soon they were all joining her.
‘But you were joking, weren’t you, Mum? I mean, when you said that our grandparents had a country estate?’ Briony managed to ask eventually.
Lois smiled guiltily. ‘No, I wasn’t actually. Perhaps I didn’t mention that as well as having his own business, my father also had two farms on his land that brought in a considerable income. The whole of the estate amounted to approximately three hundred acres.’
Briony was speechless. Three hundred acres! After spending her entire life living amongst rows of terraced houses she couldn’t even begin to imagine how big that amount of land might be.
‘Does the house have a name?’ she asked next.
‘Yes,’ Lois answered, lighting a cigarette and speaking through a haze of blue smoke. ‘It’s called The Heights and it’s situated near Penzance in a little village called Poldak. It’s quite beautiful and I’m sure you’ll fall in love with it. I shall write to my father this evening and tell him to expect you, and then I’ll see about booking the tickets for you all. I’m afraid it’s going to be a very long journey, and you’ll have to change trains a few times to get there.’
Briony suddenly felt apprehensive and excited all at the same time. It would b
e like living in another world, having servants to do the chores and not having to go to work – and yet she knew she would miss her friends and her mother terribly. And although Lois was being strong at the moment, Briony knew only too well how quickly she could slide into a depression – and what would happen to her then?
As if Mrs Brindley could read her thoughts she said, ‘Well, I reckon yer doin’ exactly the right thing, fer what my opinion’s worth, Lois. The kids will be far safer down there, an’ you an’ me will rub along just fine together, won’t we?’
She winked at Briony and the girl smiled at her gratefully. Of course her mother would be all right with Martha Brindley to look after her, and if she wasn’t, then once the children were settled with their grandparents she could come back.
‘But how will you manage without my wages coming in?’ she asked then.
Once again her mother shocked her when she replied, ‘As it happens I’ve found myself another little job down at the Haunchwood Colliery – I start next week. It’s only cleaning the offices but I’ll earn enough to keep the wolf from the door and pay the rent, so you don’t have to worry about that.’
Briony’s mouth gaped open and Alfie giggled. For a start-off she had had no idea that her mother had applied for a job, and secondly, she couldn’t somehow imagine Lois Valentine as a cleaner. She didn’t even like cleaning her own home, let alone offices! But then there was a war on and many people were having to do things they would never have dreamed of doing before. Briony didn’t have much time to dwell on it though because then Sarah started to ask about her grandparents. She was obviously excited and fired questions at Lois one after the other, which Lois tried to answer as best she could.
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