by Val Rutt
‘He can’t go on like this Kitty – he can’t.’
She is still holding the wooden bear when Charlie comes into the room.
‘Hello, Charlie,’ Kitty says as she turns to him and replaces the bear.
Charlie crosses to where she stands and moves the bear slightly to the left of where Kitty has put it and rotates it slowly through thirty degrees. Kitty touches his arm and repeats the greeting.
‘Hello, Kit,’ Charlie says at last. Kitty looks at his broad face, his dark, widely-spaced eyes like her own. She notices, as always, but with a renewed stab of sadness, the squashed asymmetry of his much broken nose, the pink groove of a scar that runs from his scalp to the corner of his left eye, the puckered bulbous skin of his damaged ears. It is a face that would frighten children.
Beneath the open window there is a small table and two chairs. Kitty goes and sits on the wooden chair and gestures towards the armchair.
‘Come and sit down, Charlie.’
And, as he lumbers over and sinks into the chair, Kitty remembers the old Charlie; the little, round-faced brother who followed her and was quick to laugh and quick to cry. Then she recalls Charlie as he was in the early months of 1944. He was a strong, capable teenager, who had suddenly grown much bigger than her. And, looking back, Kitty recalls his burgeoning patriotism and his sense of justice and thinks she sees a youth on the cusp of being a very fine man. But they lost Charlie after the bomb fell at Broughton’s farm. That Charlie witnessed a horror from which he never recovered.
‘Charlie,’ Kitty begins cautiously, ‘I’ve been thinking about the war. About Sammy. Do you remember Sammy, Charlie?’
Charlie moves his back against the chair and looks to the window where a large fly buzzes and bangs against the glass. Kitty waits for a moment and tries again.
‘I’ve been talking to Bert Wright. He was at the airbase. Do you remember Bert, Charlie? He’s ninety-three now.’
‘Sammy was a Mustang pilot.’ Charlie looks at her and smiles.
‘Yes, yes he was.’
‘You kissed him.’ Charlie grins and for a moment Kitty feels that they are young again.
‘Were you spying on us, Charlie Danby?’ she asks, daring to tease him.
Charlie becomes serious. He frowns and looks down at his hands. ‘Mrs Parkes saw you,’ he says quietly. Then louder, ‘She told Uncle Geoff.’
Kitty gazes at Charlie and begins to nod.
‘It’s all right, Charlie, I remember that Uncle Geoff didn’t like Sammy. That just helps me understand why Sammy went away ‘Kitty breaks off. She wants to tell Charlie that it was Sammy who shot down the V1.
‘Charlie, Bert told me something that I didn’t know . . . about Sammy.’ She pauses as she tries to anticipate Charlie’s reaction to what she is about to tell him. She does not want to upset him, but nor does she want to collude in a deceit. Kitty leans forward and places her hand on top of Charlie’s. The fly bounces repeatedly off the window; if it flew down a few inches, it would be free. Kitty carries on because she must.
‘Charlie, when the V1 exploded it was shot down by a fighter pilot, by an American fighter pilot.’
Slowly, Charlie turns his eyes to her face and he is attentive. There is, she thinks, no going back now.
‘It was a Mustang and —’
But Charlie interrupts. He speaks loudly. ‘— with Browning fifty-calibre machine guns in the wings, four of them in all, angled towards each other so that the bullets converged on a target thirty yards ahead of the prop. The two outer guns carried two hundred and eighty rounds, the inner two were loaded with three hundred and fifty rounds each. Every tenth bullet was a tracer bullet; they showed up white so that the pilot could see if his aim was true.’ Charlie stops and waits for Kitty to speak.
‘Yes, I didn’t know that. But the thing that Bert told me was that it was Sammy who shot down the V1. Sammy was the pilot, Charlie. It was Sammy who brought the V1 down.’
Kitty feels the pressure build behind her eyes, but she will not cry. She watches her brother and she seeks reassurance. She needs to know that this news has not hurt him. Charlie reaches out and places his hands beneath the sash window and raises it slightly. A moment later the fly dips down from the pane and is gone, speeding into the sunlight. Then he lifts Kitty’s hand from the table and holds it in his.
‘It wasn’t Sammy. You mustn’t think it was Sammy. It was Hitler. Hitler did it, Kit, not your Sammy.’
And Kitty cannot hold back any longer and she begins to cry. Charlie gets up from his chair and goes to her. He stands beside her for a moment, big and awkward, and then he leans over her and places his arm heavily across her shoulders. Kitty has not expected that it will turn out like this, with Charlie comforting her. And she thinks that it is the relief that has made her cry. And hearing Charlie say the words ‘your Sammy’. And, more than anything, the feeling that, after sixty long years of his being lost to her, she has found her brother again.
June 1944
Win Danby arrived before she was expected, having talked her way on to a goods train at Victoria Station and getting a lift in the back of an army vehicle from Ashford to Charing Heath. She walked the rest of the way and tapped at the back door shortly before six in the morning. Her brother was making up the fire under the copper in the kitchen and he straightened up and opened the door.
‘Blimey, Win, you’re early,’ he said as she kissed his cheek and came into the room. He went to take her bag from her, but she was too quick for him and had carried it through to the hallway and returned to the kitchen by the time he had closed the door. She looked tired and anxious.
‘How’s Kitty? Any news of Charlie?’ She leaned into the fire and warmed her hands.
Geoff sighed. ‘Kitty’s very poorly but they don’t think it is diphtheria. The doctor’s coming again this morning. As for Charlie, there’s been no word. Someone thought they saw him in Ashford but it was a false alarm.’
Vi came into the kitchen carrying a tray which she put down on the table. She hugged her sister-in-law.
‘Kitty’s awake. She’s had a better night.’
Win kneeled at her daughter’s bedside and smiled as the tears welled in Kitty’s eyes and flooded to the pillow.
‘Hello, my darling – don’t cry, love. I’m here.’
‘Oh Mum,’ Kitty croaked, ‘everything’s gone wrong.’
‘Hush, love – it’s going to be all right. You’ll get better and we’ll find Charlie, you’ll see. It’ll soon be right again.’
But later, after the doctor had been, Kitty heard Uncle Geoff and her mum arguing. When Aunt Vi came into the room, Kitty overheard her mum call Uncle Geoff a ruddy fool through the open door.
‘What’s wrong?’ she managed to whisper, wincing with pain.
‘Oh, never you mind, love, you’re not to worry. Uncle Geoff doesn’t like change and he’s a bit upset, that’s all. And, between you and me, I don’t think he knows what to make of your mum wearing trousers and coming out with the odd swear word. He’s her big brother and he likes to tell her what to do. And, though he’s too old to fight and he knows that farm labouring and market gardening is important war work, I think he feels a bit put out that it’s your mum who’s in the uniform and doing a man’s job.’ She sat beside Kitty and shook a bottle of medicine.
‘Don’t forget, your Uncle Geoff was your dad’s best friend, they went through a lot together in the last war – dear me, terrible it was for them, terrible. After your dad died, Geoff’s always been trying to look after your mum. But he goes about it in the wrong way – always criticising her, he can’t help himself. He tried to get her to move down here with us when you were little, but she wouldn’t have it.’
Aunt Vi slipped her arm behind Kitty’s shoulders and raised a spoonful of the thick brown medicine to her lips. ‘Yes, she certainly knows her own mind, does your mum.’ She leaned forward and kissed Kitty’s forehead before screwing the lid back on the bottle.
‘Now
, I’ll just change the sheets on the camp bed. Mum’s going to stay with you from now on.’
After their bad start, Win and Geoff kept out of each other’s way. Uncle Geoff took to rising earlier than usual and contrived to be hardly ever at home; finding one excuse or another to be out of the house. Each morning he went to the farm for milk and then to the police station to see if there was any news of Charlie. On the way back he popped into the post office and collected the post.
Kitty gradually got better, and one day she was well enough for her mother to help her out to the garden where she sat in the sun wearing an old, wide-brimmed straw hat of Aunt Vi’s.
‘Raspberries and cream. Get you fattened up a bit.’ Win smiled at her daughter as she put a bowl into her hands. ‘Then there’s some peas to shell for tea tonight – we can do them together.’
They both looked up and squinted into the sun as Uncle Geoff arrived suddenly at the gate.
‘We’ve found Charlie – he’s in Portsmouth!’
‘Portsmouth? Is he all right?’
Uncle Geoff rolled his head and hunched his shoulders as Win approached him, and Kitty strained to hear what he said next but caught only the word ‘fight’. Kitty placed the bowl on the ground beside her chair and got to her feet. Nearly three weeks in bed had left her weak and she held her hands out to the side in order to steady herself. She shuffled forward clumsily, her feet unable to anticipate when they would touch the ground.
‘What’s happened to Charlie? Please tell me.’ She swayed then and tottered towards them and her mother and uncle rushed forward to catch her.
‘He’s fine – I’m going to Portsmouth to pick him up,’ Uncle Geoff said.
‘We’re going to Portsmouth – you’ll be all right with Auntie Vi, won’t you, Kitty?’
Kitty nodded and they helped her to her chair.
After they left, Aunt Vi brought another chair and settled herself beside Kitty. They sat quietly for several minutes, then Kitty asked her aunt if she had heard anything from Sammy while she had been ill.
‘I don’t know why he’s stopped writing to me and I’m afraid.’
Aunt Vi took her hand and squeezed it.
‘I’m sorry, dear. I think that perhaps you had better try not to think about him any more. Best put it behind you.’
Kitty gulped a lungful of air and tears sprang from her eyes. ‘I can’t, Auntie Vi, I can’t stop thinking about him. I miss him so much it hurts, and I don’t think I can bear it if anything has happened to him.’
‘Shh, now come on. I know it hurts now but you’ll get over it, you’ll see.’
‘I don’t want to get over it! I love him.’
Kitty abandoned herself to her crying then and Aunt Vi took her in her arms and held her.
‘Look now, come on, lovey, I tell you what we’ll do – but you’re to stop crying now, you hear me?’
It took some time before Kitty’s sobs subsided but at last she was quiet, and Vi put her hand under her chin and tipped her face up so that she could see her properly.
‘I want you to get back into bed now and rest, and I’ll go to the airbase and ask after Sammy and see what I can find out. All right, Kitty? You be a good girl for me and I’ll be back as soon as I can.’
Kitty sniffed and murmured her thanks as Aunt Vi helped her to her feet.
Kitty lay curled beneath the sheets and blankets and thought about Sammy and waited for Aunt Vi to return. As her mind wandered, she swung from hope to despair and back again. She imagined Aunt Vi bringing good news, then bad, then good. She didn’t expect to fall asleep but her thoughts soon exhausted her. She woke with a start an hour later to find Aunt Vi standing by her bed.
‘Tell me,’ Kitty pleaded as she struggled to sit up.
Aunt Vi sat down on the bed. She held a book in her hands which she placed in Kitty’s lap.
‘I’m sorry, love – I’ve no news, there’s only this.’
September 2006
Kitty wakes and immediately senses that the season has changed and autumn has come. She rises and bathes then goes to the kitchen. She is making tea when the post falls to the mat. She walks through the hall to the front door and sees a blue airmail envelope and sighs. So, it isn’t over yet – she hasn’t heard the last of John F. Bailey Rowe. But then she smiles, because part of her is pleased that this young person wants to know more of her past.
As she picks up the letter, she sees that the handwriting is different. Different yet familiar and as she turns it over, she reads the sender’s name – Mr S. R. Bailey – and she exclaims aloud. She places her hand against the wall to steady herself. But Sammy is dead, she thinks. And then she wonders how she knows this. Who said that he was dead? And she cannot remember.
Kitty hurries to her chair by the window and the starlings take off from the lawn. She opens the letter with trembling fingers. As she pulls the airmail pages from the envelope she sees, tucked behind them, a greetings card. On its cover is a picture of bluebirds that spell out the words Thank you by the way they have settled on a telegraph wire. Kitty puts the letter in her lap and opens the card. It is from John F. Bailey Rowe.
Dear Mrs Poll,
I am writing to thank you for sending me all the cool facts about Mustangs and telling me about the things Grandpa did in the war. He is really pleased that I wrote you and I’m glad about that too, because I could have gotten into trouble with my mom. When I started my project, Mom said I couldn’t worry Grandpa with it because he had a terrible time in the war and he never talks about it. But I did have his pilot’s logbook and I could just make out your name and address pencilled in the back of it. I didn’t really expect to get a reply to be honest, but I knew I’d get a research merit for trying (I kind of need all the merits I can get right now). Anyhow, you did reply – yay for you! And I’m in the unusual situation of being praised at school and at home and I’ve got you to thank for that.
Best wishes
John Francis
Kitty looks again at the picture on the front of the card and shakes her head and smiles before turning her attention to the letter. She opens it carefully. And as she pulls the paper free she is overwhelmed with tenderness. For everything about it is familiar to her: the feel of the paper, the way it is folded and the handwriting. It is looser and a little shakier, but it is undoubtedly Sammy’s handwriting.
My dearest darling Kitty,
There seems to be no other way to start a letter to you, though some would say that I hardly know you – but you are my darling dearest Kitty and will ever remain so. I imagine that you had a shock when Johnny wrote you and I daresay this letter from me will now be another. What I want to tell you straight away is that I was warned to stay away from you by your Uncle Geoff and I think he would have done anything to stop me marrying you and I am sorry that I let him get the better of me. I hope that you can forgive me Kitty. I found out, in 1956, that your Uncle Geoff had intercepted my letter to you – so I also know that you must have been very let down and wondering why I disappeared without a word. Maybe you thought that I was dead or, worse, had met someone else, but I can honestly tell you there never was and never has been anyone else for me. In your letter to Johnny you mention the poetry book and a photograph. I couldn’t think what it was for a while and then I remembered. I hate thinking about you having that picture and thinking it was important to me. But the fact is that in 1956 I did get married – not to the girl in the picture but to her sister. Flick was real keen and everyone expected it and I think I must have been sleepwalking while Flick chattered on and arranged our wedding. All I could think about was you Kitty and in the end I told Flick that I’d got cold feet. In my last letter to you I said that I’d wait for you to say the word, but I decided then that I had to find you and ask you again face to face and then I’d know.
So that’s when I came to England. I figured that you would have moved back to London but in any case I only had your Aunt and Uncle’s place in Kent to go on so I went there. I t
hought that all I needed to do was win round your Uncle Geoff then maybe there would be a chance for us. I hoped that the passing of time would have made it easier between him and me. Well, as you know, by that time Uncle Geoff had been dead some years and I realised from what your Aunt Vi said that you hadn’t received the letter I left with Bert. It was a terrible blow to me Kitty. Your Aunt Vi was pretty distressed too – I don’t think she knew what Geoff had done. I wanted to see you but Vi convinced me not to. She told me that you were married and that you were happy so I gave you up. I came straight back home and went ahead and married Flick.
Well, I’m sad to say it didn’t work out for me and Flick and we got divorced in 1972 or thereabouts. We’ve got a great couple of kids though, Dawn and Sally and I’ve got five grandchildren and Dawn’s eldest Jessica is expecting a baby in November so be4fore the year is out I’ll be a great grand-daddy. In your letter to Johnny you mention being widowed and I’m really sorry to hear that. I hope that you and your husband had many good years before he died and I pray that he was good to you. I wonder about your life – if you had children. God there’s so much I want to know about you Kitty and I hope that you will write to me and tell me about yourself. I’m terrified that I’m going to be too late – that something might happen to you between me posting this and it getting to you. I’m pleased to say that I’m still fit and healthy but since Johnny came over with your letter I’ve been feeling sick one minute and giddy the next. So, what I was going to ask you is, if you feel you can do it, maybe you could phone me. The number’s at the top of this letter and I’m going to stay home day and night like a love-sick college boy just in case.
