by Janet Tanner
‘I’m sure you’re not. But it’s still best for you to be here for the time being,’ Margaret said. ‘Come on, let’s go, shall we? The sooner we do, the sooner you can have something to eat and a nice cup of tea.’
With her small group she started along the road in the direction of Market Cottages. They followed her with a mixture of reluctance and defiance and her heart bled for them. How strange and terrifying this must seem to them!
At the first two houses she tried Margaret drew a blank, met by a shaking of heads and a door firmly closed in her face. At the third she managed to settle one of her charges, the small boy who had been turned down by Winnie Parfitt, and by the time they had reached the end of the road two houses further on ‘Nosey’Parker’s wife reluctantly agreed to take the older boy. But nobody, it seemed, had room for more than one child and Margaret was reluctant to split up the pair of sisters.
‘We’re stopping together,’ they insisted when Margaret tried to suggest gently that it might be necessary and her ready sympathy went out to them.
They were an odd pair, as scruffy as any of the children, the older one tall and gangly with her cotton dress so short that Margaret caught an occasional glimpse of her knickers, the younger small and undersized so that her frock, an obvious hand-me-down, reached almost to her ankles. Both had cropped hair, probably as a result of an edict of ‘the flea lady’, both looked pale and wan and disturbingly old before their time. Yet in contrast to this both were possessors of the most beautiful dark brown eyes Margaret had ever seen.
At the end of the row where the lane narrowed and began to curve steeply upwards towards the dairy and the Co-operative farm Margaret stopped. Pointless to go any further. The farm manager’s wife was a sharp shrewish woman who would almost certainly turn them away though Margaret suspected that if compulsory billeting was brought in she would be found to have plenty of room. But in the end what good would that do? Forcing children into homes where they were not wanted would be a recipe for disaster in her opinion.
Sighing she turned back.
‘Are you all right, girls?’ Even as she spoke the words she knew it was a stupid thing to say and the older girl glowered back at her scornfully.
The younger one, however, was close to tears.
‘I’m tired!’ she wailed.
‘Keep quite, our Marie,’ the older girl warned.
‘But I am! Oh’Lainey, I’m tired!’
‘Keep quiet, I said!’ The older girl, Elaine, punished her sister with a vicious kick on the shin and the little girl’s tears, held back for so long by sheer effort of will, overflowed.
‘Don’t start blubbering!’ Elaine said in disgust.
The child puckered up her mouth in an effort to stop the tears but it was useless. They flowed down her dirt streaked cheeks and she scrubbed at them with a grubby hand.
‘Oh don’t!’ Margaret dropped to her knees beside the child, searching in her pocket for a handkerchief. ‘Don’t cry, love.’
‘I want to go home!’ It was a soft pitiful mew like a lost kitten and suddenly Margaret made up her mind. She couldn’t tramp these children round the streets any longer. She would take them home with her. It couldn’t be a permanent arrangement, of course, for she was out at work all day and they needed to be properly looked after, with a good breakfast to go to school on and a square meal to come home to at night. But at least it would mean their ordeal didn’t have to last any longer tonight.
‘Come on, I’m going to take you back to my house,’ she said.
There was no response of gratitude. The older girl still merely glowered at her, the younger began to trudge along, head bent, on feet that scuffed the ground with each exhausted step.
Seeing her weariness, Margaret dropped to her knees beside the child.
‘I’ll carry you, love.’
She picked her up. The roughly cut unwashed hair against her chin made her wrinkle her nose and the girl’s shoes, reinforced with metal studs beneath the toes like a boy’s to make them last longer banged against her hip but she felt a sense of satisfaction:
At least she was doing her bit towards the war effort. It might not be much, but it was something.
‘They can’t stay, you know,’ Harry said. ‘They’ll have to go as soon as you can find someone willing to take them.’
After reluctantly allowing Margaret to give them a good scrub and ravenously wolfing down a supper of bread and cheese, the girls had at last gone to bed, sleeping side by side in the double bed in the spare bedroom. This in itself had caused a stir for at first they had insisted they wanted to sleep under the bed as they did at home.
‘You can’t sleep under the bed!’ Margaret had protested.
‘Why not? The bed’s for our Mam. We’re all right underneath.’ Elaine, the older girl, had sounded resentful.
‘But this is a nice bed,’ Margaret had coaxed. ‘You’ll be much more comfortable in it. It’s all made up – look!’
Still the girls had refused to get in and it had been Harry who put his foot down.
‘I don’t care what you do at home. Here we sleep in the bed, not under it,’ he said decisively.
Now at last all was quiet and Margaret and Harry were relaxing in their comfortable kitchen, Harry stretched out in his shirt sleeves in his favourite chair, Margaret curled up on the arm, resting against him.
‘They can’t stay here,’ he said again. ‘We’ll have to find somewhere else for them to go tomorrow.’
‘But I have to go to school tomorrow,’ Margaret said.
‘Exactly. And what is going to happen to them?’
‘I suppose I shall have to take them with me. They’ll have to go to school eventually so they might as well start tomorrow.’
‘But you can’t drag them all the way to Sanderley every day. They’d be much better off in Hillsbridge with their friends. And anyway,’ Harry said, ‘it’s going to be too much for you. Looking after two difficult girls and holding down a job – you just can’t do it. Especially in your condition.’
‘Oh, I’m all right,’ Margaret said impatiently, but she had to admit to herself that she didn’t feel all right. In fact she felt extremely tired.
‘No, we must sort something out tomorrow,’ Harry said firmly.
‘The trouble is they were all in such a state!’ Margaret shifted her weight slightly. ‘You can understand people not wanting to take them in. You can’t believe it really, can you, that anyone could live like that.’
Harry did not reply.
‘At least these two are clean now and have a good meal inside them,’ Margaret said. ‘But they looked so lost, Harry. I couldn’t do anything but bring them home with me.’
He settled his arm comfortably around her waist.
‘Knowing you, love, I don’t suppose you could.’
‘They’re just children, after all,’ she said defensively. ‘I mean – think what Huw was like when Amy took him in. And look at him now. A credit to her.’
Harry’s heart sank. Sorry as he felt for the children he did not want Margaret making herself ill by doing too much in her condition.
‘I still say they’ve got to go,’ he said decisively. ‘There are others better able to look after them than you. Now – are you ready for bed?’
She nodded.
‘I certainly am. It’s been a long day. And it will probably be an even longer one tomorrow.’
Within a week Hillsbridge was beginning to feel other repercussions of the newly declared war than simply the arrival of a coach load of evacuees.
The TA left en masse, off to an ‘unknown destination’ as the Mercury, the local newspaper, phrased it and half the town was at the station to see them off. Lighting restrictions, came into force so that vehicles were obliged to use sidelights only and every house was required to fix up some sort of black-out at the windows to ensure no crack of light showed once the lamps were lit at night. And petrol rationing was announced to come into operation the following week �
�� ‘Lord knows how we’ll manage,’ Amy said to Herbie. ‘Let’s just hope the Hauliers Association can sort something out.’
But in spite of Harry’s resolution that it should be otherwise, the young evacuee sisters remained still installed in his spare bedroom at the end of the week.
To begin with, he supposed, the girls had remained simply because it was easier to let them stay rather than find alternative accommodation for them. By the time she had risen earlier than usual to cook them a breakfast and hurried home from school to prepare an evening meal, Margaret was too tired to go out knocking at doors to find someone willing to take them, and for all his good intentions Harry could not see that it was his place to do it. But as the days went by he sensed that Margaret did not intend to try very hard to rehouse the girls. They were both still reserved and resentful, but as a professional where children were concerned Margaret regarded this as a challenge and, ungrateful as they might be, they did seem to be settling in – more than could be said for some of the children, Margaret had told him – or in fact some of the women. Already two of them had returned home saying they preferred to face the threat of bombs to staying a moment longer in this alien place. And the big boy for whom they had managed to find accommodation in Market Row had been caught trying to stow away in a coal lorry which he thought might take him to Bath from where he could catch a train back to London.
The two girls installed in Harry’s spare bedroom showed little sign of wanting to follow suit, however. The little one, Marie, still cried sometimes at night, it was true – through the bedroom wall he could hear her soft sobs and her older sister’s sharp reprimands – and though he and Margaret tried to draw them out they positively refused to hold a conversation of more than a few words. Yet they ate heartily, wolfing down everything that was put in front of them, and they seemed to be treating the spare room as ‘their’territory.
‘They really are making themselves at home,’ Margaret said and Harry knew what she meant, though he would have put it less kindly. He had had to go into the room to fix a lead for a table lamp for them – Margaret had insisted they needed to be able to put on at least a small night light if they woke in the night and became frightened by the strange surroundings – and he had felt almost like an intruder. They had pitifully few possessions yet somehow they had imprinted themselves on the room like an animal on a new lair. Stepping across the threshold was like entering alien territory, something which, in his own house, was an unnerving experience.
‘I think we ought to let them stay for a bit,’ Margaret went on. ‘It’s a shame for them to be pushed from pillar to post again just as they’re settling in. And they’re no trouble. We’ve managed this week very well.’
Harry sighed. ‘What about all the extra washing they’ll make?’
‘I’m going to send it down to Molly Clements to do. And I can send our sheets as well, so I shall have less,’ Margaret said. ‘And there’s another thing. They don’t seem to have a change of clothes, Harry, apart from a spare pair of knickers – and they’re in such a state I would be ashamed to put them on the line. I shall have to take them to shop and sort them out before I can let them go to somebody else.’
‘Surely “somebody else” can take them to shop if they need clothes?’
‘I wouldn’t feel right about it,’ she said determinedly. ‘But can you imagine, coming all the way from London with only a pair of holey knickers and no clean vest – especially since they sleep in their underwear!’
‘No, I can’t,’ Harry said truthfully. In his home, like Margaret’s, he had always been exhorted to make sure his underwear was decent – in case he was run over and taken to hospital. ‘I just don’t see why it has to be your problem.’
‘You’ve changed, Harry,’ Margaret reprimanded him. ‘There was a time when you wanted to help those less fortunate than yourself.’
Harry brought his hand down hard onto the table.
‘Dammit, as Miners’Agent I spend my whole working life sorting out other people’s problems and since I’ve been on the Council, most of my spare time too. But you have to keep a sense of proportion about these things, Margaret. I don’t want you overdoing things, just when you should be taking life a little more easily.’
‘I’m fine!’ she assured him. ‘I’m a perfectly healthy young woman! Just think, when your mother was expecting you she had a household to look after, not just two little girls.’
‘Well, they’ll have to go before the baby comes,’ Harry said. ‘We shall need to get the room ready for it.’
Margaret smiled, knowing she had won the first round of the battle.
‘The war might be over by then, you never know.’ The first opportunity she had for taking the girls to buy the clothes they needed was on the Saturday morning and Margaret woke them at the usual time with a cup of tea.
‘What’s this for? Is bleedin’ Hitler here?’ Elaine said rudely, humping the bedclothes over and burying her head.
‘No, but I want you to get up all the same. Come on now,’ Margaret urged.
‘But it’s Saturday, ain’t it? We don’t go to bleedin’school on a bleedin’Saturday.’
‘That’s true. But I want to take you to shop.’
‘What for?’
‘To buy you some underclothes.’
‘We’ve already got bleedin’underclothes.’
‘And what are you going to do while they’re being washed? Stay in bed? Come on now, drink your tea and get up like good girls.’
‘Bleedin’ stupid,’ came the muffled voice from beneath the bedclothes and the enormous brown eyes of Marie, the younger child, seemed to echo the sentiment.
As she prepared breakfast Margaret heard the thud that announced that the girls were out of bed and a few minutes later they came into the kitchen, wrinkling their noses at the delicious aroma which had done far more than Margaret’s words to persuade them to get up.
‘Smells good, doesn’t it?’ She smiled over her shoulder and popped the plate piled high with bacon rashers and fried bread back into the oven’to keep warm. ‘I still have the eggs to do though so you have time to brush your hair and wash the sleepy-dust out of your eyes.’
The girls exchanged glances. Not a day went by but this stupid woman insisted on them washing themselves – why they simply could not imagine.
‘Draw yourselves some water,’ Margaret instructed. ‘You know how to do it.’
The girls approached the kitchen sink with some trepidation. They had been shown how to use the contraption over the sink, but that didn’t mean they liked it. As Elaine swung the long spout so that it suspended over, the small tin bowl in the sink Marie hung back nervously, anticipating the spurting gas when the tap was turned on. As it came even Elaine jumped and two pairs of brown eyes stared wide and frightened as if hypnotised by the small blue flame.
‘That will do! You’ve got enough there now,’ Margaret said and reluctantly Elaine turned off the tap, saw the small blue flame die, and ran some cold water into the bowl.
While they washed and dried their faces on the kitchen towel Margaret cooked the eggs and dished them up onto the piping hot plates. Then she set them one each side of the kitchen table.
‘There you are then. Come and get it.’
They dropped the towel on the rag rug by the sink and piled into their places, picking up the crisp bacon and bread whole in their fingers and dipping it into the egg yolk.
‘Elaine – Marie – use your knife and fork!’ she admonished. They eyed her resentfully. They didn’t like using knives and forks. Food tasted better eaten with their fingers. But they had had this battle before and lost. Awkwardly they armed themselves with cutlery, holding their knives like daggers.
Margaret sighed and shook her head. She could only get so much into them at a time and if they were actually using the knives and forks, that was something.
When they had eaten Elaine retired to the lavatory and Margaret decided to take the opportunity to establish a
little rapport with the younger girl. When her sister was there the child aped her sullenness, but once they were separated Margaret felt she had some hope of getting through to Marie.
Now she turned from washing dishes in the bowl at the sink and passed a wiping up cloth to the little girl.
‘How would you like to dry some things for me? Be careful not to drop the plates – and the knives and forks go in this drawer here …’
Marie took a plate, her tongue creeping out of the corner of her mouth with intense concentration as she dried it and Margaret smiled to herself. Oh yes, Marie was quite sweet once away from her sister’s influence. It wasn’t her fault that she had been brought up in a deprived environment and Margaret thought how rewarding h would be to teach her to enjoy some of the good things of life.
The moment was short-lived, however. Elaine, returning from the lavatory, stopped in the doorway glaring at the domestic scene.
‘What d’you fink you’re doing, our Marie?’ she demanded.
Marie immediately looked guilty. ‘Helpin’wiv the dishes, Lainey.’
‘Well don’t – see!’ Elaine’s face had gone weaselly and her voice shrill. ‘You’re not her skivvy.’
Marie, still holding the cloth, looked from one to the other of them uncertainly.
‘Nobody here is a skivvy, Elaine,’ Margaret said briskly. ‘Not Marie and not me either. I’ve just cooked your breakfast and Marie is helping me to clear it up again.’
‘But you’re paid to do it,’ Elaine said defiantly. ‘Our Mam said to watch out for people like you.’
Margaret began to feel angry, not so much because of what Elaine had said as because the hostile look was back on Marie’s face once more.
‘I assure you I am not making money out of you being here, Elaine,’ she said forcefully. ‘In fact I very much doubt if what I shall get will cover the bacon and eggs you have just enjoyed, and it certainly won’t coyer the cost of kitting you out with new clothes. So let’s not fight about it, shall we?’
Eventually they were ready to leave for the shops and set out, the girls lagging behind so that Margaret found it impossible to carry on a conversation with them.
