‘What did it say, your star sign?’
‘It said to be prepared for the unexpected. Make the most of your opportunities, something like that.’ She didn’t say that she’d read that the moon was in line with Venus, right for romance, or some such rubbish.
‘Well, that’s something.’ He could hear the music drawing to a close. It was as much as he could do to ask her to stay on the floor for another dance. His head was spinning with the drink and the welcome his mother had laid on. He’d had to dare himself to approach Meggie; she seemed different from the girls he usually went out with – a cut above. Ronnie’s short time in the Navy had taught him to divide women into two groups. Meggie belonged to what he called the ‘decent’ sort. ‘Fancy another?’ he said, half under his breath.
She nodded. ‘Then I’ll have to push off.’ It was almost teatime. Walter and Annie would be wondering where she’d got to, and there might be news from Sadie.
The next number was a waltz. It emptied the floor of couples who preferred the fast dances and left space to breathe. Ronnie took the plunge and held Meggie close, ignoring the curious stares of his pals and numerous casual girlfriends. He felt his mother’s beady eye on him from behind the bar.
Meggie swooned to the music and the experience of being in Ronnie Elliot’s arms. She closed her eyes. Was this what it was like to fall in love? She drifted out of the present on a gentle wave of sentiment and disbelief. Was this really happening? Could it be true?
All too soon the waltz came to an end. They’d said very little, and what they had said was unsatisfactory chit-chat. But as he walked her off the floor, Ronnie wasn’t ready to release her. He kept his arm around her waist, steering her to the bar.
‘I have to go.’ She looked round for her hat, not daring to meet his gaze.
‘Here.’ Gertie picked it up from a safe place by the till. ‘I stashed it for you.’
‘Ta.’
‘What’s the rush?’ Ronnie aimed for the casual, off-the-cuff comment. ‘Have you got a train to catch?’
Gertie looked on, evidently amused.
‘Tube. But I have got to get back. I never said I’d stop out late.’
‘Can’t you telephone?’
She could. There was the phone in Walter’s office, but she didn’t want to sound too keen. So she shook her head. ‘I’ve been here ages already.’
‘Well come again, now you know where to find us.’ Gertie stacked glasses into the sink. ‘Mind you, we don’t have a do like this every day of the week.’
‘Only when I’m twenty-one.’ Hands in pockets, he waited for her to gather herself together. ‘I’ll see you out if you like.’
Meggie glanced at Gertie, whose eyebrows had risen, but who said nothing. ‘Ta.’ She said goodbye to the landlady and followed Ronnie through the crowd. Outside all was light, fresh and busy.
‘Where to?’ He turned to wait.
‘Oh, no, you go back in and have a good time.’ She stepped past him into the street.
‘No, I don’t mind.’ He offered her his arm and they began to stroll. ‘I need a breather in any case.’
‘Where are we?’ They’d come out of the Bell on to a different road.
‘Heading for St Martin’s. That’s why the pub’s called the Bell, see: it’s practically in the shadow of the church bells.’ Bleeding fascinating, he told himself. Absolutely bloody riveting.
‘So where’s the tube station?’
‘Where do you have to get to?’
‘Borough.’
He stopped to search in his pockets. ‘Here, never mind the tube. Take a taxi.’ He wanted to give her a handful of change.
‘Oh, no.’
But he’d already hailed a cab. He leaned in and instructed the driver, handed over the money, told him to hang on a second. ‘I don’t know what they call you.’ He turned back to her.
‘Meggie. Meggie Davidson.’
It was now or never. The taxi driver sat with the engine idling, casting his cynical eye over them. ‘Will you come out with me, Meggie?’
‘When?’ Her heart did another mad tilt. She clutched the brim of her hat.
‘Tomorrow. Meet me. You say when.’
‘Afternoon.’ She would be able to fix it, she was sure. ‘Where?’
‘Wherever you like.’
‘Here?’
‘By the church. Righto.’ He ran a hand across his mouth. ‘Two o’clock, then. Champion.’
‘You getting in this cab or not?’ a weary voice cut in.
Startled, Meggie jumped. Ronnie opened the door.
‘Where to?’ The cabbie slid into gear.
‘Ta, Ronnie. I had a lovely time.’
‘Me too. See, it was in them stars.’ He had one arm on the cab roof, leaning in.
‘Happy birthday.’ She reached out to kiss him, looking straight into his hazel eyes.
He kissed her back as the cab eased away.
‘Watch out, don’t fall over!’
He pretended to stagger, and she laughed and waved. ‘See you tomorrow, two o’clock!’ Now he blew kisses, standing in the road.
‘Ronnie, watch out!’ She pulled her head in through the window and collapsed against the seat. He was mad. She was mad. She didn’t care, not now she was in love.
As soon as Sadie saw the state of Bernie and Geoff outside the bone merchant’s shed, she bundled them into Jess’s car. Gordon Whittaker acted the injured innocent; no wonder those boys didn’t know how to behave if this was how their mother carried on. What they needed was a firm hand, not mollycoddling.
‘It’s the luck of the draw,’ commiserated one of the workers from the bone shed. ‘You never know what you’re getting with these evacuees.’
‘Head lice and snotty noses, according to my missus,’ the other chipped in. ‘And she says you can’t turn your back on them for a single second, thieving little devils.’
This was one blow too many for Sadie, who might simply have walked away from the Whittakers and good riddance. But overhearing this, she couldn’t let it go. Asking Grace and Jess to look after the boys, she stalked across the gravel yard and had her say. ‘For your information, my children don’t steal. And they don’t tell lies.’
‘Steady on,’ Whittaker said, uneasy in spite of his bluff manner.
‘No, I won’t steady on. You’re making out things that ain’t true. For a start, what you call a firm hand I call downright cruel. It’s not on to put a seven-year-old boy to work in this filthy place.’ The stink from the barn was fit to make her retch.
‘We’ve all got to do our bit.’ He spread his hands and shrugged. ‘Is that what you call it? And what about giving them a square meal once in a while? Or a hot bath, or running a comb through their hair?’
‘See?’ he appealed. ‘Case proven.’
‘You need reporting, you do.’ Her blood was up. ‘You never even let them see the letters we wrote, let alone making sure they wrote home, ’cos if they had we’d have found out what was going on up here and you’d have been landed in the cart straight off. Look at the state of them!’ She gestured angrily towards the car. ‘I hardly even knew them myself when I set eyes on them, and it’s all your fault!’
‘I said steady on.’ He sniffed, ready to turn his back.
‘No!’ She grabbed his arm and wheeled him round. ‘I wouldn’t treat a dog the way you treated my boys, and that’s God’s honest truth.’ Her eyes blazed, full of contempt. She didn’t care whether or not he retaliated. ‘You tell that wife of yours she can take all their things and stick them on the fire, ’cos she won’t see hide nor hair of my boys after this. And tell her I’m going straight to the billeting officer and I only hope they never let you take in no more evacuees ever again. You ain’t fit to be let loose with children.’
‘Lay off, will you.’ He wrenched himself free.
Beside herself, she stormed away back to the car, before he regained his bullying stance, where the other four peered anxiously out.
‘Feel better now?’ Jess pushed open the passenger door and urged her to get in quick.
‘Loads better.’ Sadie took a deep breath and sank into her seat. ‘Let’s get out of here!’
Jess obeyed. ‘Think twice before you go taking on a fourteen-stone butcher in future, will you?’ She turned full circle in the yard and sped away. ‘Grace and me nearly had to come out and lend a hand!’
They could laugh about it now, from a safe distance, with Geoff and Bertie perched on the back seat of Jess’s car. And they could make plans. Jess was sure she would be able to find a decent outfit for each of the boys, once they got back to Manchester. Her neighbours would help out. ‘And a nice hot bath for you two,’ she promised, glancing in her driver’s mirror.
They made faces. ‘Do I have to have a hair wash?’ It was, as ever, Geoff’s worst dread.
Half laughing, half crying. Sadie said he looked like a scarecrow, not fit to be seen. She told Jess that she would telephone Walter and let him know they hoped to be back late that evening.
‘You sure?’ Jess would have loved them to stay overnight.
‘You’re the best,’ Sadie told her, brim-full of gratitude. ‘And I love you with all my heart, but I gotta get these boys back home. I won’t settle till we’re all together under one roof; me, the boys, Walter and Meggie.’
So they got back to Jess’s house and scrubbed the pair clean, washing off the stain of their experiences as evacuees. ‘Never you mind,’ Sadie told them over and over, ‘we ain’t going to lose sight of you ever again.’ They submitted to the scouring and the soap, gradually understanding that their nightmare was over.
‘I tried to look after Geoff,’ Bertie stammered, ‘only he got sick and I didn’t know what to do.’
‘You did fine. You wrote and told us like a good boy.’
‘Geoff cried at night.’
‘Never mind.’ Sadie got them dry and let them dress in clean clothes.
‘He said it was the witches. They kept coming through the wall in the dark.’
Sadie shook her head. ‘I hope you told him there ain’t no such things.’
‘I hate it there,’ was all Geoff said.
On the train back to London, Geoff wolfed down the ham sandwiches that Grace had packed.
‘I thought you had a poorly stomach?’ As the miles of track lengthened behind them, Sadie began to relax. The long day was drawing to a close, Walter would be there waiting on the platform at King’s Cross and all would be well.
‘It’s better now.’
‘Good.’ She winked across at Bertie. ‘Magic, ain’t it?’ Their second-hand jackets hung loose on their shoulders, their shirt collars curled at the corners, but already they looked more like their old selves. Geoff fiddled with the wrapper of his chocolate bar and shot her a look that was meant to melt her strict heart. ‘Oh, go on,’ she sighed, ‘go ahead and eat it if it’ll make you happy. There’ll be none left for later, mind.’
He scoffed it there and then. Bertie, on the other hand, made a manful attempt to save his. She noticed, however, when she came back from the toilet just before they pulled into the station, that his mouth, too, was rimmed with melted chocolate. ‘Lick your lips,’ she told him, ‘and grab hold of this suitcase for me. Look sharp, we’re here.’
The train drew in with a hiss and a mighty clank of steel. Doors flew open onto the platform, which came alive with rushing feet, flapping coats, people urgently pressing through the barrier. Walter stood waiting for them. Geoff saw him first and flew at him, was gathered up and swung round and round. Bertie looked up, fighting the tears.
‘Well done, son.’ With Geoff still dangling under one arm, Walter ruffled Bertie’s hair. ‘Come on, let’s get you home. Your gran’s waiting with a slap-up supper, and then it’s straight off to bed.’
They rode through the streets in the taxi, too tired, too happy to notice where they were. Only when they came to Duke Street did Geoff peer out.
‘Nearly there,’ Sadie promised.
‘Is the war over?’ he wanted to know.
‘Not yet.’ They stopped outside the Duke. ‘But we’ll look after you from now on.’ Sadie waved at Ernie standing at the door. ‘Go and say hello to your Uncle Ern.’
They stumbled upstairs to Annie’s supper table, dropping asleep over the suet pudding, faces rosy from full stomachs and too much hugging. Frances and Hettie were there, ready to spoil them to death. Sadie had to take a back seat while the others fussed.
‘Happy now?’ Walter sat with his arm around her shoulders. Tomorrow was soon enough to hear the details. She’d got what she wanted, to have them all back together.
‘I am.’ It felt like a proper family again. She gazed round the room. Billy had just called in to collect Frances, George had popped up from the bar, leaving Ernie in charge. ‘Where’s Meggie?’ she asked suddenly.
‘Here.’ Meggie had been busy wrapping presents at home. Now she took the stairs two at a time and burst into the room. ‘Happy Christmas!’ She landed the presents on the boys’ laps; big square parcels, soft squashy ones, things she’d bought in an explosion of goodwill the moment she heard her brothers were on their way home.
‘It ain’t Christmas,’ Geoff tried to explain solemnly.
‘It’s better than Christmas!’ she beamed.
As the boys tore into their parcels; a Meccano set for Bertie, a toy train for Geoff, Sadie came up to her daughter. ‘What got into you?’ she asked.
Meggie gave a sublime smile. ‘Nothing. Why?’
‘You got something up your sleeve.’ Her eyes were too bright, her sense of herself too jubilant to be put down to a simple homecoming. For a moment Sadie thought she might have tracked down Richie Palmer.
‘Honest, Ma!’ It bubbled to the surface, a secret she couldn’t keep. ‘I met someone at a birthday party, that’s all.’
‘And he swept you off your feet?’ She studied the bright face, the bubbling happiness.
Meggie nodded. ‘I’m seeing him tomorrow.’
With a pang of regret Sadie smiled. ‘Good luck to you,’ she whispered.
‘You don’t mind?’
‘I reckon it’s something I’ll have to get used to.’
Meggie squeezed her hand and looked across the room at the torn’paper, the shiny new toys. ‘It’ll be all right, don’t you worry. I got this feeling; everything’s gonna work out just fine.’
Part Two
Taking It
September 1940
Chapter Ten
Ring-a-ring-a roses,
Pocket full of posies,
A-tishoo, a-tishoo,
We all fall down!
Saturday was Geoff’s eighth birthday, and the weather in early September was fine enough for Sadie to give a small party that soon spilled out into Paradise Court. The children played their street games and chanted their songs while the grown-ups looked on.
‘I like these light evenings,’ Annie told Dolly Ogden. ‘I like to see the kiddies making the most of them while they can.’ Soon enough the evenings would close in and their lives would be dominated by the blackout once more.
The circle of children which had collapsed onto the cobbles sprang up with a laugh and a shout, then Meggie stepped in to organize an outdoor version of blind man’s bluff. She gave Geoff first turn with the blindfold, tied it tight, spun him round. ‘No peeping!’ she warned and launched him, arms outstretched, with faltering footsteps. These days, since she’d given up the search for her elusive father, she threw herself into playing with and appreciating her half-brothers.
‘She’s a sight for sore eyes,’ Dolly observed. Meggie wore her hair more elaborately these days, a hidden scaffolding of pins keeping it high off her forehead. She wore a plain dove-grey dress, tailored to show off her waist, with a sweetheart neckline picked out in purple braid. Though it was a hand-me-down from Hettie, Meggie had picked out the seams and remodelled it to suit herself. The cut and the cloth were still good quality. ‘What I mean is,
Sadie had best keep an eye on her, or else.’ Dolly pressed on in the face of Annie’s silence. ‘I hear Jimmie O’Hagan’s sweet on her for a start.’
Geoff blundered into his big brother, Bertie, and made the right guess. It was Bertie’s turn for the blindfold. More squeals, more stumbling and rumbling.
‘I can’t see Meggie being interested though.’ Dolly ploughed on, certain of her target. ‘She’s known Jimmie since they were knee-high, when he was a snotty-nosed little blighter, always hopping the wag. Then, when he was at school, he was always getting into some scrape and getting six of the best. No, if you ask me, Jimmie don’t stand a chance.’
‘But he’s grown up lately and all.’ Annie pictured him, sitting this very minute at the bar in his corduroy trousers and polo-neck, in a haze of cigarette smoke, planning with Bobby which venue would give them the best chance of picking up birds that evening.
‘Too fast for his own good.’ Dolly considered Jimmie a bad influence on her much taller, brawnier grandson. ‘He needs a firm hand, he does.’
‘Well you wouldn’t wish him on Meggie then.’ Annie closed off this avenue of speculation. She knew for a fact that Meggie and Jimmie were pals, but that was as far as it went. She carried on with her plate of sandwiches down the Court to number 32.
Dolly frowned after her. Annie had shut up like a clam as usual, as if Dolly couldn’t be trusted with any scrap of information. Whereas Dolly herself appreciated the candid response. Knowledge was power, she thought, and might allow a person to do some good. Dolly prided herself on her judgment; she’d brought up Amy to be a good wife and mother, hadn’t she? Annie could certainly cast no aspersions in that direction. The ground was laid for more backbiting between the two old rivals. Dolly would go and have a good moan to Amy, Annie would warn Sadie that Dolly might well come poking her nose into Meggie’s affairs.
‘Where you off to?’ Dolly quizzed, as Charlie came down the passage and squeezed past her onto the pavement. His hair was slicked down with Brylcreem, his chin freshly shaven. ‘As if I didn’t know.’
‘Why bother asking then?’ Charlie chucked the remark over his shoulder. ‘If you’re so clever.’ He walked away without altering his pace.
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