by Janet Tanner
Because he was feeling chilly again he fetched an extra pullover and put it on then sat down to begin work once more. But now he found himself quite unable to concentrate.
He remembered the girls going next door this morning and hearing them come back again while he was in ‘the back place’ – the downstairs toilet that was little more than a cupboard, festooned with two garden chairs hanging on nails on the wall, Margaret’s peg bag on the hook behind the door and two old tennis rackets stacked in a corner. For some reason Harry preferred ‘the back place’to the upstairs bathroom, perhaps because it had the same tightly enclosed feel about it that his pigeon house had once had – the pigeon house that had been his haven in the old days when he had lived at home in Greenslade Terrace. Now ‘the back place’ provided him with that same sense of peace. He had taken the newspaper there with him this morning and he had still been there reading it when he heard the girls go out again on their way to school.
That, he supposed, was the reason he had not seen them with Betty’s knick-knacks. Had they come back into the house to take them up to their room? And if so, why? Why hadn’t they taken them directly to school if they were to be priced and put on sale there? Surely they would have been anxious for their teacher to see the treasures they had solicited. So why had they come back into the house and gone upstairs?
Any one of a dozen reasons, Harry told himself, but he was beginning to feel uneasy all the same. Perhaps he would take a look around and set his mind at rest He marked his place in his papers once more and went upstairs.
The girls occupied the small room that had been going to be the nursery. He opened the door and took a step backwards at the muddle facing him. The bed had been ‘covered up’ rather than made, clothes and comics lay about everywhere. I didn’t know they had so much stuff! Harry thought. Margaret must have bought them quite a lot without telling me. He looked around, shifting this and that, then opened drawers and rifled through. Plenty of rubbish but no sign of the purse. He moved the pillows, picking them up and dropping them back into place. Nothing. He turned back to the door relieved, then noticed the boxes containing their gas masks in a corner. Once they had carried the gas masks everywhere with them, nowadays they had ceased to bother. Harry flipped open the top of one box. And there, nestling beside the gas mask, he saw it.
‘Oh no!’ he said to himself.
He picked it up – a black leather purse, slightly worn – and opened it. Inside were the milk tokens Betty had mentioned and a little wad of raffle tickets. But no money. He stood for a moment holding it in his hand and wondering what to do. He should go straight round and tell Betty, he supposed, but he would like a chance to recover the money first – and ask the girls what they had been thinking of.
He glanced at his watch. Almost a quarter to twelve. The girls would be having their dinner hour soon. Although their school was so close they did not come home for dinner – with Margaret working it was not practicable. But today whether they knew it nor they were coming home.
He put on his overcoat and walked down the hill to the Board School. As he approached he heard the bell clang to signify the end of morning lessons and the almost instant chatter of childrens’ voices as they escaped from their classrooms. He went in at the gate and marched straight through the cloakrooms, ignoring the children milling there.
In the first classroom a young woman teacher was cleaning the blackboard with a duster. She looked round, hair falling down from a velvet band which she wore Alice in Wonderland style around her head.
‘Mr Hall! What can I do for you?’
‘I’d like to take Elaine and Marie home with me,’ he said.
‘Oh dear – some trouble is there?
‘A family matter,’ Harry said grimly. ‘Where can I find them?’
‘I expect they’ve gone in to dinner.’
‘Please fetch them,’ he ordered.
‘I think perhaps I ought to tell the headmaster,’ she said, looking harrassed. ‘While they are in school they are our responsibility you see.’
‘I’ll take responsibility,’ Harry said firmly. ‘I want them now.’
‘Even if they’re having their dinner?’
‘Even if they’re having their dinner.’
She went out, looking worried, and within a few minutes was back, following in the wake of the tall spare figure of the headmaster.
‘I understand you want to take your evacuees out of school,’ he began. ‘May I enquire why?’
‘A personal matter. I’d rather not say any more until I’ve spoken to them.’ Harry, in spite of his’flu, was at his most magesterial.
The headmaster nodded. ‘Fetch them please, Miss Lane.’
The moment they came into the room Harry knew they were aware of his reason for being here. The guilt was written all over them. Elaine glaring at him defiantly, Marie hanging her head and looking as if she was about to burst into tears. They were already wearing their coats.
‘Come along you two,’ Harry said. His head had begun to ache again and the throb made him speak even more severely than he intended. They followed him unwillingly. He marched them back up the hill in silence. Then, in the kitchen, he took the purse out of the pocket of his overcoat and held it out accusingly. ‘I would like an explanation of this.’
Marie looked as if she wished she could curl into a small ball like a hedgehog. Elaine stared at the ground and scuffed her toe against the leg of the table.
‘Stop that!’ Harry ordered.
She stopped. She was afraid of Harry.
‘Well?’ Harry demanded. No answer. ‘I found this purse in your room’, he went on. ‘You stole it this morning from Mrs Franklin next door, didn’t you?’
Still no answer. Harry opened the purse.
‘There was money in it this morning. Nearly a pound. Where is it?’
They looked at one another furtively.
‘If you don’t tell me I shall send for Sergeant Button.’
Marie began to sniffle.
‘I mean it!’ he threatened.
‘We spent it!’ Elaine muttered. Her weaselly face was defiant.
‘You’re a liar as well as a thief,’ Harry accused. ‘You have had no opportunity to spend the money. I want it back this instant or I shall certainly call Sergeant Button.’
‘Lainey – get it, please!’ Marie whimpered.
Elaine shot her a disgusted look but she crept out of the room and upstairs. A few moments later she was back, flinging the money down onto the table. A threepenny bit rolled off onto the floor.
‘Pick that up!’ Harry ordered. Marie scuttled to obey. Harry counted the money. It seemed to be all there.
‘Now we are going next door to see Mrs Franklin,’ he said. ‘You are going to apologise for what you did. And you had better do it properly and I hope you can convince her not to call a policeman.’
Elaine’s eyes went dark with terror.
‘But you said if we gave you back the money …’
‘I said I wouldn’t call the police if you returned it. I can’t answer for what Mrs Franklin will do. It was her purse you stole, not mine. But this I promise you. If ever I have cause to suspect you have done something like this again, I shall have no hesitation. There won’t be a second chance for you then. I shall take you straight to the police station and let them deal with it.’ He opened the back door. ‘Are you ready? Come along then!’
White-faced they went with him. But when Harry knocked on Betty Franklin’s door there was no reply. He saw the relief on the sisters’faces and was determined not to let them off so lightly. This had to be a lesson they would not forget.
‘Perhaps she is at the police station now,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing more we can do until she comes home. You two had better go back to school for the afternoon and we’ll discuss this again later. I’ll take care of the purse until we can return it. Come along, I’ll see you back to the school gates.’
Elaine went morosely, obviously still sha
ken by the threat of the police, but with the immediate danger passed Marie had other things on her mind.
‘We’ve missed our dinner now.’
‘It won’t hurt you to go hungry for once,’ Harry said sternly. Knowing Margaret there would be a good meal on the table for them the minute she got in this evening; he had seen the pan of soup simmering on the stove and a cottage pie on the slab in the larder all ready for warming. But perhaps if the girls’bellies rumbled a few times this afternoon it would help to teach them a lesson. Harry was quite determined to prevent a repeat performance of today’s scenario.
He left the girls at the school gates and watched them scuff miserably across the playground. Then he went back up the hill. His head was throbbing wretchedly and his legs felt so heavy it was an effort to move them. As he unlocked the back door he sneezed and the sneeze started a shiver.
I think I’ll have a couple of aspirin and go back to bed for a couple of hours, Harry decided.
He was awakened by Margaret’s voice.
‘Hello! Hello! Isn’t anyone at home?’
He fought through the muzzy layers and opened heavy lidded eyes to see her peeping around the bedroom door. She was wearing a woollen cap; beneath it her face was rosy from the cold.
‘Oh, there you are! You went back to bed did you? Where are the girls?’
He fought the thickness in his head and turned to look at the clock which stood on the bedside table. Six o’clock. He’d slept for five hours!
‘I’m sorry I’m late,’ she said. ‘The meeting just went on and on. I thought you’d all deserted me!’
He sat up. ‘Aren’t the girls home?’
‘No. They haven’t had their tea either. It doesn’t look as though they’ve been in at all.’
‘Where the devil are they then?’
‘I don’t know. That’s what I’m asking you.’
A sense of impending doom penetrated his muzziness. ‘We had a bit of an upset today. I had to get them out of school at dinner time.’ He went on to tell her what had happened and saw her face change.
‘Oh no! I thought they had stopped all that.’
‘You mean something like this has happened before?’ he demanded.
‘Well – yes. Several times I’ve missed money and I’ve suspected Elaine.’
‘Why didn’t you say anything about it?’
‘I wasn’t sure. I didn’t want to cause trouble so I was biding my time.’
‘You mean they’ve been thieving and you’ve let them get away with it?’
‘Not Marie. I’m pretty sure it’s Elaine. But nothing has gone missing for ages now and I thought she’d got out of it.’
‘What rubbish!’ he exploded. ‘If that’s not encouraging her I don’t know what is. I’d have thought you’d have had more sense, Margaret.’
‘Well, all you seem to have done is succeeded in frightening them so much that they haven’t come home!’ Margaret said defensively. ‘Where are they, Harry? That’s what I’d like to know!’
‘Yes, so would I,’ Harry said crossly, getting up. ‘And when we do find them they deserve a jolly good hiding.’
Margaret’s lips tightened. She was firmly against corporal punishment which she did not believe achieved anything.
‘I don’t know what we’re going to do,’ she said. ‘It’s dark and cold and they’ve had no tea. We’d better go out and look for them.’
‘They’ll come home when they’re hungry,’ Harry said stubbornly but privately he was worried. The girls had had no dinner and no tea. They must be hungry already. But they were not here.
‘We’ll give them another hour,’ he said. ‘If they’re not home by seven I suppose we shall have to tell the police. In the meantime, I’d better do what the girls were supposed to do and take Betty back her purse.’
‘Well, I’m going out to look for them now,’ Margaret said.
She walked the streets looking everywhere she could think of but there was no sign of the girls. At seven she returned home. Harry was in the kitchen looking annoyed.
‘Are they back?’ she asked hopefully, though it was clear they were not.
‘No. And since you obviously haven’t found them either I suppose we had better phone Sergeant Button. The little idiots! The whole story will have to come out now and there would have been no need for it to if they hadn’t behaved so stupidly. Betty was prepared to let the matter rest now she has her purse back provided we do our best to make sure such a thing never happens again – though personally I think it probably will. They are bad girls and that’s all there is to it.’
‘They’re not bad, they’re just deprived,’ said Margaret, springing to the girls’defence. ‘I should have thought you of all people would understand that. You are supposed to be committed to fighting for better conditions so that people wouldn’t need to steal.’
‘Elaine and Marie don’t need to steal. They have all they could wish for here – and more. You’re soft with them, Margaret.’ He got up. ‘But there’s no point sitting here arguing about it. I’ll phone Sergeant Button now. He’ll have them back in no time. Wherever they are they can’t have got far.’
Eddie Roberts was working late this evening. Whatever adverse effects the war might have had on other businesses it had certainly done the insurance trade no harm. People were more anxious than ever to insure life and property and Eddie saw no reason to point out the exclusion clauses to them unless they specifically asked. Even then he usually had a platitude to offer. ‘Well – strictly speaking, of course … but this is a very good company, very fair. I know of a case …’ By the time Eddie had finished his client was usually ready to sign on the dotted line. Eddie Roberts was such a nice man, so cheerful, so helpful, it was a pleasure to have him calling.
It was just after eight o’clock when Eddie came out of a house on the main Bath road in Sanderley and walked down the path to where he had left his bicycle on the path by the front gate. With eyes not yet accustomed to the dark he felt for it and realised it was not there. At the same moment a car came along the road and by its shaded lights Eddie saw a bicycle wobbling off along the road in the direction of Bath.
‘Hoi!’ he shouted and began to run after it without much hope. Then there was a crash. Eddie got his second wind and ran harder to find the bicycle – his precious bicycle – lying in the road and two girls picking themselves up out of the gutter.
‘What the devil do you think you are doing?’ he demanded angrily.
They got up, rubbing their grazed knees and looking up at him fearfully. There was a moon and now his eyes had grown used to the dark he recognised them.
‘You’re the two vackies staying with Harry Hall, aren’t you?’ he asked. ‘What are you doing in Sanderley – and where the blazes did you think you were going on my bike?’
The older of the two girls straightened up defiantly.
‘We’re going back to London.’
‘On my bike?’
‘No, stupid. We’re going to Bath. Then we’re going to get a train.’
Eddie almost laughed. ‘You can’t do that! Not without telling anybody. You can’t go back to London anyway. It’s being bombed nearly every night.’
‘We don’t care,’ Elaine said. ‘It would be better than staying here. Anything would be better than that.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘They’re awful to us,’ Elaine said plaintively. ‘Really awful, aren’t they, our Marie? Well, she’s not too bad, I suppose, but him … He says we’ve done things we never have and then he …’ She paused dramatically. ‘He hits us. He does! So we want to go home. Oh, please help us, Mister!’
‘I’m hungry!’ Marie wailed suddenly. ‘Really hungry!’
‘We haven’t had anything to eat all day,’ Elaine went on, prompted by her sister’s outburst. ‘Not a thing. We often don’t.’
‘You mean they don’t feed you?’ Eddie asked. He was beginning to feel strangely excited. He’d never heard anyone s
ay a word against Harry Hall before, usually it was all sickening praise. This was a revelation!
‘Well, we usually have our dinner at school,’ Elaine said. ‘But we didn’t today. He wouldn’t let us. He came and took us home to go on at us again. It was awful. That’s why we’re going, isn’t it, our Marie?’
Marie nodded.
‘Please help us, Mister!’ Elaine said plaintively. ‘You’ve got a kind face …’
Eddie was thinking furiously. What on earth was he to do with two vackie children in the blackout and him with only his bike? But he was determined not to let this golden opportunity slip through his fingers. For years now he had nursed a jealousy of Harry Hall and he had been looking for a way to put him down, Clever Dick that he was. When Harry had put a stop to his little sidelines on the council Eddie had made up his mind that one day he would get his own back, but instead he had been forced to sit quietly back and endorse him as prospective Labour candidate. Eddie had practically sweated with rancour and impotence. No matter how he dug about looking for something to pin on Harry he had always been unsuccessful. In all his dealings Harry seemed above reproach. And now suddenly this had been presented to him.
In secret Harry Hall was cruel to children. Helpless evacuee children placed in his care. Hitting them. Starving them. Treating them so badly they were prepared to face the bombs in London rather than spend another night under his roof…
‘You can’t go to London, tonight,’ he said. ‘You’d better come home with me. You can have a meal and I’ll look after you until we get something sorted out.’
‘What about him?’ Elaine asked. ‘He’ll make us go back with him!’
‘No he won’t. When the authorities hear what you have to say about his treatment of you I’m sure no one will make you go back there.’
‘They might not believe us!’ Elaine said. For the first time she sounded frightened. ‘He’ll call us liars – he will!’
