‘If she was working in a shop, or an office, Billy,’ she would remind them both over and over again as they tried to puzzle it out, ‘she’d go out at the same time and come home at the same time.’
‘Which she don’t,’ Billy would always add, his eyes running round the ceiling as he tried to visualise what it was that Aunt Hester did exactly. ‘Maybe we should follow her one day and see for ourselves, Marjorie.’
‘She’s too smart for that, Billy. She’d be on to us by the end of the road, and then where would we be? I can just see us trying to explain to Aunt H what we thought we were doing.’
‘Maybe she got one of those – what they call ’em?’ Billy scratched his head. ‘Part-time job things. You know, helping out with something, somewhere that’s not necessarily some shop nor office.’
The dilemma stayed with them. Sometimes they’d pick it up and chew it over when Marjorie went to collect Billy from the school he was now attending. The pair of them would amble back to Number 32, Billy kicking stones in the gutter or chasing pigeons while pretending to be a fighter aeroplane, his copy of the Magnet firmly tucked under his arm, while Marjorie would amble along the pavement trying to imagine herself plucking up the courage to ask Aunt Hester the Tuesday, Thursday and Friday question.
‘She could be a spy!’ Billy suggested one afternoon as he finished circling Marjorie with his arms spread out wide like an aircraft. ‘She could be, though, couldn’t she? We was all talking in class the other day just about that. About how we all got to be dead careful of who we say anything to and all. ’Cos the teacher said there’s spies everywhere! That’s what Aunt H could be, Marjorie! She could be a spy!’
‘Don’t be daft,’ Marjorie replied, completely unable to entertain the idea of her aunt’s being a foreign agent. ‘If she was a spy she’d have to be a German spy, wouldn’t she? And I can’t imagine Aunt Hester being any such thing. I mean there are Coronation mugs everywhere on her dresser. And cake tins. Coronation cake tins I mean. And a picture of the new King and Queen, so I really can’t see Aunt Hester being some sort of German spy. It doesn’t make sense.’
‘That’s what she is!’ Billy insisted, still circling and buzzing Marjorie. ‘She’s nothing but an old spy.’
‘Aunt Hester isn’t old, Billy,’ Marjorie interrupted.
‘She’s very old for a woman – as old as her teeth.’
‘She’s not old. And stop buzzing me. It’s making me fed up.’
‘Sorry.’ Billy stopped being an aircraft, falling into step beside Marjorie, one foot on the pavement and one in the gutter. ‘You don’t usually mind.’
‘Course I don’t mind,’ Marjorie reassured him. ‘Not usually. But I also don’t mind a bit of a rest now and then. While I think. I can’t think with you buzz-bombing and sky-diving me, can I?’
Billy shrugged and continued with his mock limp, one foot on the pavement, the other in the gutter. Marjorie glanced at him. He was such a twerp, really. Mind you, he’d settled so easily into Number 32, it now seemed as if there never was a time he’d not been resident there, just as there never seemed to have been a time when she had not known the white-faced, lead-hearted, melancholy boy, abandoned by his father, who quite obviously could see no real point in existing. Now, he was a quite changed child, his reflective moments seemingly not as introspective as they used to be. Sometimes she would catch him sitting at the kitchen window looking out to where the birds he had tempted with breadcrumbs and bacon rind had come down to eat, arriving at last to feast at the bird table he and Marjorie had made one weekend.
He would watch their flight with a dreamy smile on his face and a look of longing in his eyes as if he wanted to join them, as if their very flight suggested a freedom he could only imagine. At other times Marjorie would find him looking at her when she was making scones for their tea, or a jelly covered with his favourite hundreds and thousands for Sunday lunch, that same indefinable, far-way look in his eyes. Just as quickly he would change into one hundred per cent boy, tearing after rabbits on the nearby common, playing aeroplanes on the way home from school, trying to wrestle Marjorie in the yard behind Aunt Hester’s back.
‘If Aunt Hester is a spy,’ Billy suggested as they discussed their favourite topic yet again on the way back from Billy’s school, ‘she will be shot when there’s a war,’cos the postman told me all spies are shot in war.’
‘In that case, if you’re so sure, Billy – ask her, for heaven’s sake. Ask her at teatime. I dare you.’
‘Can’t. I’m too frightened.’
‘I dare you.’
‘Please, Marjorie – you do.’
‘If you don’t I’ll – I’ll send you back to the Dump.’
‘You don’t mean that, Marjorie, do you?’ Billy asked, suddenly stricken. ‘’Cos I wouldn’t like that. I promise I won’t be a pest any more, Marjorie. Promise.’
‘Course you’re not a pest, you twerp.’ Marjorie laughed. ‘You just go on like one, that’s all.’
‘So do you.’
‘You do treble double with knobs on!’ Marjorie laughed, grabbing him and tickling him.
‘Stop!’ Billy yelled helplessly. ‘Please stop! Please! Please, I’ll do anything! Anything, I promise, just please stop, Marjorie!’
‘You’ll do anything?’
‘Anything! Anything, I promise! Cross me heart and hope to die!’
‘Right.’ Marjorie stopped tickling him, getting hold of him playfully by one ear. ‘You can ask Aunt Hester what she does then, can’t you?’
At teatime that afternoon Marjorie gave Billy a nudge with her knee under the table, prompting him to take up her challenge.
‘Aunt Hester?’ Billy began very quietly, hoping that he wouldn’t be heard. ‘Aunt Hester – Marjorie wants to know what you do when you go out.’
‘No I do not!’ Marjorie protested. ‘I never asked such a thing.’
‘Gracious heavens, if ever there was a pair of nosy buggins it’s you two.’
There was a short silence, while Aunt Hester carefully cut them all a slice of home-made sponge cake before pouring herself more tea.
‘So what do you do, Aunt Hester?’ Billy tried again, quickly responding to a tap on his shins under the table from Marjorie.
‘What do you think I do, Billy?’
‘Go on buses.’
‘What do you think I do, Marjorie?’
‘She thinks you’re a spy,’ Billy said, smart as new paint and quickly moving his legs out of the way of the expected forthcoming kick.
‘A spy,’ Aunt Hester mused, narrowing her eyes and turning to look at Marjorie, who was now looking quite at sea. ‘What sort of a spy, Marjorie dear?’
‘It’s not me who thinks you’re a spy, Aunt Hester,’ Marjorie replied. ‘It’s Billy what thinks—’
‘That thinks—’
‘That thinks you’re a spy. I don’t.’
As Aunt Hester turned away to put the cake back on the tea trolley, Marjorie took the opportunity to pull a face at Billy.
‘Any more of that, Marjorie, and the wind will change, and you’ll be stuck with that face.’
‘So what do you do …’ Billy swung his legs to and fro under the table.
‘I do government business. I do a bit of work for the government, which means running a few errands here and there. Mostly here but sometimes there. Now does that answer my nosy parkers’ questions?’
Billy thought about it for a moment, but since he had little idea of what constituted a government, let alone what sort of business it did, he could only conclude that it must be dull, because every time he heard Aunt Hester discussing the government she always referred to it as boring. So he nodded and returned to the much more satisfying task of eating the delicious sponge sandwich Marjorie had made for their tea.
‘Now, more to the point,’ Aunt Hester said, as they finished. ‘The way things are, I propose to take you both for a little break, to the seaside.’
They both stared at her, nei
ther of them wanting to admit that they’d never been before, although Marjorie did her best to hide it behind a new veil of sophistication by saying, ‘What a jolly idea.’
‘We’ll go in my car,’ Aunt Hester went on, airily, and this time not even Marjorie could hide her astonishment.
‘You don’t have a car, Aunt Hester! I mean, not unless you’ve just gone out and bought one.’
‘You two really think you know everything,’ Aunt Hester replied, clearing the table with Marjorie’s help. ‘And don’t think you can just sit there, young man. You know what your job is.’
Billy was on his feet in a second, fetching the small soft-haired crumbs brush and tray from the dresser and sweeping the table clean. Wide-eyed he caught Marjorie’s eye, and she stared back at him in like fashion, as if to say what is going on?
‘A friend of mine has a little cottage by the sea. Overlooking Foyle Sands. Lovely spot right by a little beach. I thought it might be a bit of a treat for us all.’
‘Do you really have a car, Aunt H?’ Billy asked carefully, having deposited the crumbs from the little tray carefully in the dustbin.
‘What do you think this is, young buggins?’
Aunt Hester took him to the front door and opened it. Outside parked at the kerb was a plum-coloured, well-polished Austin 10. Billy stared at it in silence.
‘Cor,’ he whispered at last. ‘Smashing.’
‘It’s hardly a Rolls-Royce, young man.’
‘It’s smashing, Aunt H. Can I sit in the front?’
‘If you behave I might let you. But you’ll have to take it in turns with Marjorie otherwise it wouldn’t be fair.’
‘I don’t mind, Aunt Hester,’ Marjorie assured her. ‘I shall be just as happy in the back.’
‘How long have you had it?’ Billy said, swallowing with excitement as they went back inside. ‘And where do you keep it?’
‘I have had it for over two years, and I keep it in a garage in a friend’s house.’
‘And you really can drive, Aunt H?’
‘No,’ Aunt Hester said, with a mock glare. ‘Normally I just push it. But tomorrow I’m going to have a chauffeur.’
‘A chauffeur?’ Billy could not open his eyes any wider if he tried. ‘Who?’
‘You,’ Aunt Hester said, aiming a pretend clip at his head. ‘Now get inside the pair of you and wash up the tea things.’
They left before dawn, when not even the milk pony had started his patient round, staring around him with blinking eyes as the bottles clanked, and the milkman swayed through suburban gates with his carrier. Billy had been so excited he would not stop talking and asking questions. Aunt Hester, concentrating on the road ahead of her, did her best to ignore him, sitting bolt upright at the steering wheel which she gripped with white-knuckled hands, only ever letting go with one hand when she had to change gear. This was an operation which she somehow managed despite the screams of protest from the gearbox. At long last, after negotiating what seemed to be endless suburban avenues and small streets, they found themselves on the open road, and as the sun rose and the road to the coast unfolded in front of them Marjorie and Billy played I-Spy, Marjorie inventing the most ridiculous objects to keep Billy’s interest, until such time as Aunt Hester decided to stop for lunch at a prettily fronted hotel complete with roses growing up the walls, and dogs lazily wagging tails at the front door. For once Marjorie and Billy were completely quietened, overcome by the white linen cloths and napkins, by the swift waitress service, but most of all by the delicious hot pies and home-made ice creams.
By teatime Aunt Hester had turned into the little lane that led up to Seagull Watch, a white-painted, thatched cottage that stood last in line in splendid isolation, separated from the beach by a quarter of an acre of beautifully maintained walled gardens. There were three bedrooms, a sunny living room that directly overlooked the sea, and a kitchen large enough to cook and eat in quite comfortably. As soon as the tired trio tumbled out of the car and breathed in the sea air, admiring the view of miles of sunlit sand, the fatigue of the journey seemed to vanish at once, and exhilaration took its place.
Billy and Marjorie were given permission to explore once the car had been unloaded and their cases unpacked, so as Aunt Hester pottered happily around the cottage, while the kettle boiled for tea, Marjorie took Billy to the beach and together they stood at the edge of the receding sea. Calm as a millpond at low tide, it only added to the sense that the recent threat of war that had been hanging over everyone had not only been left behind, but had somehow altogether vanished, as if the quarrelling world they had left behind was a figment of all their imaginations.
‘First time I seen the sea,’ Billy said after a while. ‘Other than pictures, course. Big, in’t it, Marjorie, the sea?’
‘This isn’t the only sea, dopey,’ Marjorie explained. ‘There are lots of seas.’
‘Don’t stop it from being huge, Marjorie. You don’t get that in school. The size of it. It just goes on and on and on. Blimey.’
‘This actually is only a channel. The English Channel. And it’s not all that big. I mean Germany and France—’
Billy picked up a handful of pebbles off the beach and started hurling them into the sea.
‘France is only a matter of a few miles away,’ Marjorie continued, more to herself as Billy continued to hurl his pebbles. ‘Only about twenty miles away, that’s all. Not far, is it?’
Billy was too preoccupied to have picked up the question, or notice the look of sudden anxiety in Marjorie’s eyes as she visualised an armada of enemy ships steaming towards her island home.
‘Come in, Billy,’ she said suddenly. ‘It’s getting cold. I want to go in.’
All the time they were by the sea Aunt Hester, like Marjorie, seemed worry-free, so much so that it seemed to Marjorie she had never seen her aunt so relaxed and happy, determined to teach Billy not just how to swim but how to build proper sandcastles. Her sand building was certainly better than her swimming tuition, to judge from the yells and splutters and watery thrashing that went on every time Billy was led to the waterside in yet another attempt to get him afloat. But such is the power of the sea, and such its buoyancy, that in spite of all his initial resistance within three days Billy found that not only could he float, but while he floated he could also swim a couple of strokes without plunging to the bottom. Exhilarated and convinced he was now a fully fledged swimmer, the next morning he discarded his swimming ring and plunged into the glinting sea, only to be knocked down by an enthusiastic incoming wave. Marjorie went to his rescue, pulling him spluttering out of the sea and handing him back his lifebelt.
‘You know what they say about walking and running? Well, the same goes for swimming and floating, young man.’
But Billy was back in the water within minutes, determined to come to terms with this new sport. As he floated, arms out in front of him, holding tight to his lifebelt, legs thrashing behind him, he left Aunt Hester behind on the beach, planning her massively complicated castle in the sands while Marjorie ran between the two, always arriving too late to be of much help to either.
Aunt Hester did not just build sandcastles, she built ramparts, moats, towers, drawbridges, and outer fortifications with defences so strong that as the incoming tide first tried to overrun them it seemed she had actually managed to build the first sandcastle capable of withstanding its traditional enemy. But then the waters gathered and the tide strengthened, and away went the towers and ramparts, the drawbridges and the moats, washed back to sand. This only seemed to delight Aunt Hester who would sit back on her heels watching attentively, as if determined to learn from this newest invasion. The next day, undaunted, she was back out with buckets and spades to start building again with renewed determination.
And when she wasn’t building she was catching shrimps in rock pools, swimming out to sea for miles, climbing rock faces and even fishing from the beach with a rod she found under the stairs in the cottage.
She seemed to be c
hampion at everything to do with the seaside, and if her two adopted children hadn’t loved her already, they surely would have done by now. Quite apart from anything else the holiday was as unlike their normal life as was perfectly possible. There was none of their usual preoccupation with the pending war, the news bulletins, the fearful talk of Hitler and gas attacks, not to mention the threat of invasion. All that seemed to be a thing of the past until the evening they had visitors.
The first was a serious, square set, heavily bespectacled man in his early forties, dressed in a light suit. The second was a tall, young, handsome Frenchman. They both appeared, as if out of the blue, one early evening at the door of Seagull Watch.
‘These are friends of mine,’ Aunt Hester told Marjorie, who, dressed in her best summer cotton frock, pink cardigan, white socks and sandals, had opened the door to them and was finding it difficult not to stare at the young Frenchman who had just finished kissing Aunt Hester’s hand. ‘They’ve come over for a drink – and a talk …’
Aunt Hester stopped to give a look at the older of the two men who nodded affably, but said nothing in return.
‘It’s purely a social call – so if you and Billy popped off to bed a little early, would you mind? You can play a game of cards together upstairs, and then perhaps an early night might be indicated?’ Aunt Hester looked both vague and apologetic at the same time. ‘You can take my new book, if you like,’ she added, knowing that if she was asking Marjorie to sacrifice their nightly card game, a bribe would not go amiss.
Marjorie looked appreciatively at the spine of the book that was being offered to her. The idea of missing their card game saddened her, but on the other hand she certainly didn’t mind making herself scarce to read the latest novel by Georgette Heyer.
Daughters Of Eden: The Eden Series Book 1 Page 12
