Summer House

by Nichols, Mary

  He went to the hospital first, where he was told Laura was not on duty, so he took the tube to Burnt Oak and hurried on foot to Axholme Avenue, wondering what he would find when he got there. The house, he was thankful to see, had not been bombed. She answered the door to his knock, wearing slacks and a loose shirt. Her hair was combed back into a ribbon, which would have been severe if several shorter ends had not escaped and curled about her head. She looked tired, her eyes dark-rimmed. ‘Steve! What a surprise. Come in.’

  He stepped inside and took off his cap. ‘I was on my way home on leave and thought I’d pop in and see how you were.’

  ‘We’re fine. Tired of spending our nights in the shelter, but otherwise OK. Would you like a cup of tea?’

  ‘Yes please, if you can spare it.’

  ‘Oh, I think we can manage that.’ She smiled and some of the tiredness vanished from her eyes, leaving her looking more like the Laura he remembered, the one in the photograph he had on his locker. ‘It’s a poor do if we can’t find a cuppa for one of our brave fliers.’ She led the way into the kitchen as she spoke.

  ‘I don’t know so much about the brave bit. It seems to me it’s the civilians that are bravest in this war.’

  ‘We haven’t got much choice, have we?’ She filled a kettle, put it on the gas and turned to put cups and saucers and a milk jug on the table. ‘Sit down, Steve, and tell me what you’ve been up to.’

  ‘Nothing to tell. We take off, we buzz about the sky trying to shoot down the enemy, then we land, eat and sleep when we can, and then fly again. I feel so helpless not being able to prevent what’s happening to London. How do you put up with it?’

  ‘Because we have to.’

  ‘I suppose so. But haven’t you got relatives or somewhere you could go to in the country?’

  ‘No, none at all.’ She was tempted to tell him she was pregnant, that before long she would have to give up work altogether, but she decided against it. Although she was not exactly ashamed of her condition, she didn’t want to shout it from the rooftops. ‘This is my home, Steve. I’ve lived here since I was eight years old. I don’t see why Adolf Hitler should drive me out. Besides, Mum won’t go and I’m certainly not leaving her here alone.’

  ‘Is Mrs Drummond still working for the WVS?’

  ‘Yes, she’s been given a paid post, which means even more work, but I think she enjoys it, though she comes home very tired. I wish I could do more to help her, but she never complains.’

  He smiled. ‘Mothers are like that.’

  ‘Yes.’ She poured the tea and handed him a cup. ‘I know your father is a farmer, but what about the rest of the family: mother, brothers, sisters?’

  ‘My mother is a bit like yours, I think, never so happy as when she’s helping other people. She’s looking after a couple of evacuees from the East End who are a bit of a handful. I have a sister, Jenny, who’s a schoolteacher, but no brother. I suppose Bob was as near to a brother as anyone.’ He stopped suddenly. ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’

  ‘What for? Please don’t feel you can’t mention his name to me. I like to talk about him, but there’s no one…’ She stopped before adding. ‘Mum doesn’t find it easy. I expect you miss him.’

  He was reminded of Mrs Drummond’s reaction to Bob’s death and the swift way she disposed of the evidence of the wedding breakfast. ‘Yes, every day. He was always so cool in a crisis, so good at getting the best out of everyone.’ He turned and got to his feet as the back door opened and Mrs Drummond came in.

  ‘Flight Lieutenant, it’s good to see you safe and sound.’

  ‘Mum, he’s not a flight lieutenant now, he’s a squadron leader.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘How are you, Mrs Drummond?’

  ‘Oh, we’re all right, aren’t we, Laura? Tired, but in one piece.’

  She looked more than tired, she looked ill. Her complexion, which he remembered as rosy, was pasty, and her well-rounded figure was thinner. The contrast between mother and daughter was marked. Anne seemed to have shrunk, while her daughter, always much the taller of the two, was expanding. ‘I’m glad. But it must be pretty bad, what with the air raids and everything.’

  ‘Can’t do much about those, can we? Do sit down again. I see Laura has given you a cup of tea.’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  ‘Can we offer you something to eat? A sandwich, perhaps?’

  ‘No, thank you, Mrs Drummond. I’ve got a spot of leave and only popped in on my way through London to see how you were. I believe there’s a train from Liverpool Street in an hour.’

  ‘Then you won’t want to miss it. But thank you for coming.’

  ‘My pleasure.’ He picked up his cap and bag. Laura went with him to the front door.

  ‘Look after yourself,’ she said, softly.

  ‘And you.’ He bent to put a butterfly kiss on her cheek and, before she could express either surprise or outrage, he turned and strode off down the street. He did not look back so he did not know how long she stayed at the door before retreating inside.

  It had been a strange, very unsatisfactory visit in many ways. Laura had been polite, even welcoming, but there had been no warmth there. What did I expect? he chided himself as he made for the Underground; did he think she would fall into his arms as she had done at Bob’s funeral? She had only been taking comfort from him then, comfort he had been glad to give and would again if she ever asked it of him. He was glad he was going home to all things familiar; to his parents and sister, the village and the farm. He’d help with the ploughing if that had not already been done, milk the cows and trudge over the countryside with Boy at his heels, and sleep and sleep, which should make him feel better.

  The twins had disappeared again. Kathy, almost ready to dish up the evening meal, sighed. They had been going off a lot lately. It was disappointment, she supposed. They had had a few postcards from their father, and that cheered them up a bit, but it was their mother they really wanted to hear from; only their mother could say when they could go home again. All but a handful of their classmates had gone back and that included their teacher, so the twins had been integrated into the village classes, which added to their feeling of abandonment. They had looked for a letter every day from the beginning of the summer holidays, expecting to hear that she was coming, but day after day there was nothing. Kathy had begun to wonder if the woman had been bombed out or even killed when, in the first week of September, two days before the boys were due to go back to school, a letter arrived. Overjoyed, they rushed upstairs to read it in the privacy of their room. When Kathy asked them later if their mother was well, Donny told her tersely that she was but she couldn’t come. ‘She’s goin’ to try and come down for Christmas,’ he added.

  ‘She’s busy,’ Lenny added.

  It had been the beginning of their naughtiness. After settling down so well, they had become irritable and uncooperative, refusing to lift a finger to help either in the house or on the farm, and Lenny started wetting the bed again. Kathy didn’t know what to do. How could she scold them when their tantrums were due to their unhappiness? But she couldn’t let them run wild. They had missed school several times and would not tell her where they’d been. Supposing they decided to run away, really run away, not spend a few hours hiding themselves somewhere, how would she know until they had been gone for hours and hours and the trail had gone cold? Supposing they tried to go home to Stepney; the air raids were as bad there as anywhere. If she had their mother in front of her now, she would cheerfully shake her until her teeth rattled.

  Jenny came in the back door, left her shoes in the scullery and padded into the kitchen in her socks, pulling off her headscarf. ‘It’s raining cats and dogs.’

  ‘Oh dear, and the boys are out. I wonder where they’ve got to?’

  ‘No telling with them.’

  ‘I’m worried about them. I don’t want Mrs Woodrow on my tail for neglecting them.’ Mrs Woodrow was the welfare officer for the evacuees in Beckbridge and
she occasionally paid visits to make sure the children were being properly looked after and were behaving themselves. ‘I couldn’t live with myself if they were taken away and sent to one of those hostels for problem children that no one wants.’

  ‘Shall I go out and look for them? I can go on my bike.’

  ‘OK, tell them it’s nearly suppertime.’

  ‘Donny, let’s go ’ome. Me feet are wet.’ They were walking down the lane that ran alongside the big house. It was full of muddy puddles into which Donny, in Wellington boots, jumped now and again, spattering his brother, who was wearing plimsolls because he had a blister on his heel and they were the most comfortable footwear he had. The hedges, bare of leaves, dripped moisture into the ditches, now full to overflowing. The country had not been too bad in the summer, when the sun shone and the air was warm and they could go exploring and find things to do, but now it was wet and grey and miserable and matched their mood exactly.

  ‘It ain’t home. I hate it.’

  ‘Ma said it was ’ome for us now. She said there weren’t no winders in our house and no gas and she had to stay at ’ome while the builders were in.’

  ‘I know what she said.’

  ‘Let’s go then. I’m all wet.’

  ‘No. I want to think.’

  ‘You can think in our bedroom.’

  ‘No, I can’t. Aunty Kathy always wants to know what we’re doing and calling us down to do our ’omework or ’ave our dinner. I need peace and quiet to think.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘We can’t go ’ome ’cos we ain’t got money for the fare, so we’ve got to think of a way of gettin’ Mum down ’ere. Then we’ll make ’er take us home.’

  ‘She said she might come for Christmas.’

  ‘She said she’d come in the ’olidays an’ all, but she never did.’

  ‘She couldn’t ’elp not ’avin’ any winders or gas.’

  ‘No, I know.’ Donny sounded sceptical.

  ‘Me feet are wet and I’m cold.’

  ‘Good.’ Donny jumped in another puddle and water cascaded over his twin. ‘If you’re ill, Aunty Kathy will send for Mum. It might even turn to pneumonia and then she’d ’ave to stay ’til you was well again.’ He stopped suddenly. ‘I got an idea. Come on.’ He turned in the gates of the big house and struck off across the park towards the lake, followed by a reluctant Lenny. They had ventured in the grounds several times in the past, on one occasion, in the summer, going as far as the lake. It was fringed with reeds and had big yellow water lilies in the middle and ducks swimming on it. There was a kind of shed there with a boat in it and a landing stage, but it was all very rickety.

  Donny stood at the edge of the lake surveying the water. Rain was ruffling the surface and now it looked cold and uninviting. ‘If you was to slip in I could go in and save you. If we was both at death’s door, Mum’d blame Aunty Kathy and she’d fetch us ’ome.’

  ‘No, Donny, we’ll be drownded.’ He was on the verge of tears, but he manfully held them back, knowing they made his brother cross. ‘Le’s go ’ome.’

  Donny, who didn’t really fancy jumping in the water, which looked decidedly uninviting, turned away. They were passing the summer house when Donny stopped and pointed. ‘Look at that. Someone’s bin ’ere. The grass is all flattened.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘It could be a spy. There’s lots of spies about, they come down by parachute and they have wirelesses and signal to the bombers where to drop their bombs.’

  ‘How d’you know?’

  ‘Everyone knows. Le’s go and investigate.’

  ‘I want to go ’ome.’

  ‘So do I. If we catch a spy, then they’ll be so pleased with us, they’ll send for us to go to Buckingham Palace to get a medal from the King, and then Mum will be proud of us and let us go ’ome.’ He didn’t wait for Lenny but ran to the door. ‘Someone’s broke the padlock.’ He took it off and opened the door. ‘There’s footsteps all over the place.’ He went inside, followed more slowly by his brother. There were indeed footprints in the dust of the floor. There were deckchairs stacked against a wall and some cricket pads. ‘There’s gotta be a wireless somewhere.’ He began poking about behind the deckchairs and looking up into the rafters. A bat flew out, making Lenny scream. ‘Oh, shut up, Lenny, it’s only a bat. You remember Aunty Daphne showed us one in the barn the other day. They’re only mice that c’n fly.’

  ‘Le’s go,’ Lenny said. ‘Supposin’ someone comes.’

  ‘In a minute. Crikey!’ He had discovered the bench seat was hinged and had lifted the lid. ‘Jus’ look at this!’

  Lenny crept forward and peered over his brother’s shoulder. What he saw made his eyes open wide in surprise. There were bars of chocolate, bottles of whisky, tins of peaches, golden syrup, lipsticks and bottles of scent. ‘California Poppy, Mum’s favourite,’ he said in wonderment. ‘How did it get there?’

  ‘I don’ know, do I?’ He had found a flat packet which he was undoing. A pair of silk stockings tumbled to the floor. He picked them up and tried to stuff them back, but they wouldn’t go, not like they’d been before.

  ‘Do spies have things like that?’

  ‘They might, if they wanted to bribe someone for information.’

  ‘What information?’

  ‘Anything they wanted to know.’

  ‘I don’ believe that. I reckon it’s loot. Someone’s nicked it and ’id it. Shut the lid, Donny, and come away. If someone comes—’

  ‘It won’t ’alf make a good present for Mum, don’t you think?’ Donny persisted ‘Scent and stockings. She’d be ever so pleased. She’d come to see us then, wouldn’t she?’ Donny did not wait for his brother’s agreement but put two bottles, one California Poppy and the other Evening in Paris, into a pocket of his raincoat.

  ‘We can’t take them, it’s stealing. If we’re catched, Aunty Kathy will beat us.’

  ‘Don’t be daft, she don’ believe in hitting kids, she said so.’

  ‘She might if she was angry enough. That’s what Mum always used ter say: if we didn’t make her angry, she wouldn’t ’ave ter ’it us.’

  ‘Tha’s different, mums can do what they like. Aunty Kathy’s not our mum, not even a relation. We don’ ’ave ter say ’ow we got them. We can pretend we saved our pocket money and bought ’em.’ He picked up two lipsticks, one ruby red, and one natural pink, and the already opened packet of stockings and stuffed those in Lenny’s pockets. Then he took a bar of Cadbury’s milk chocolate and shut down the lid.

  ‘We’ll get caught and go to prison,’ Lenny said, following his twin outside and watching as he replaced the padlock.

  ‘Who’s goin’ to tell on us? You think a Jerry spy is goin’ to go to the coppers and report it? Or a thief. “Please, sir, me loot’s bin took.” Use yer loaf.’ He unwrapped the chocolate and broke off two squares, one of which he handed to Lenny. Then he carefully re-wrapped the rest and put it into his other pocket. ‘We wanted something to make Ma come and this is it. Now, le’s get goin’. But act natural. We don’ want Aunty Kathy gettin’ suspicious.’

  Helen, walking home after a visit to the village shop, encountered the two ragamuffins as they ran down her drive. One was wearing Wellington boots and the other plimsolls but apart from that they were as alike as two peas in a pod. They were wet and filthy, their faces and hands black with what looked like coal dust. Their knees were grazed and their socks were wrinkled round their ankles. Seeing her they scuttled to a stop.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked them.

  ‘Just lookin’,’ Donny mumbled.

  ‘Explorin’,’ Lenny added.

  ‘Are you twins?’

  ‘Yep. I’m Donny and this ’ere’s Lenny. We’ve been evacuated.’

  ‘From London?’

  ‘Yeah. Stepney.’

  Stepney. She had never lived there, but she had spent hours and hours tramping its streets looking for a lost daughter and had come to know it well. />
  ‘Who are you staying with?’

  ‘Aunty Kathy. Mr and Mrs Wainright. Bridge Farm. Do you know them?’

  ‘Oh yes, I know them. Run along now and say hallo to Mrs Wainright from me.’

  She watched them go and then, instead of continuing up the drive to the house, she turned across the grass and went to the summer house. The boys had been coming from that direction and she wondered what they had been up to.

  The grass around it was trampled and the padlock broken; she must remember to have it replaced. She went inside and sat down. Inside, apart from footprints in the dust of the floor, no doubt caused by the two evacuees, everything was as it should be, just as it had been all those years ago when she and Oliver would fly into each other’s arms and make love, unheedful of the consequences. Why hadn’t he come back?

  Sitting in the dilapidated summer house with its flaking paintwork, its murky windows and mouse-nibbled cushions, she wondered what had happened to him. Had he survived the war? Had he gone home to Canada? Had he married? Did he ever think of her? She had schooled herself not to think of him, but how was that possible when every day, through news of the war and worry about their daughter, the past was brought home to her, as if sleeping ghosts had been reawakened by the new conflict? It was as if one were merging into the other regardless of the twenty-odd years that had passed between them. And still the pain was there and, for some reason, it was especially bad now.

  Whenever she could, Helen travelled up to London and made her way to the park, knowing that the woman habitually took Olivia there to run about and play. She would follow them, just to see the child and watch her sturdy toddler’s legs running after a ball or perhaps a sparrow that had come for crumbs. She was beautiful, dark-haired, rosy-cheeked, and obviously loved. Her dress, though poor, was clean. Helen’s heart had been twisted with pain to think of someone from those terrible slums bringing up her child when she could give her so much more: a room of her own, more than one if you included the nursery and schoolroom; toys; beautiful clothes; shoes, lots of shoes, not the thin-soled ones she had seen her wearing; and good schooling when the time came. But the toddler’s obvious contentment was the twisting of the knife in a wound that would never heal.