Above the Bright Blue Sky

by Margaret Thornton

  Although it was only late afternoon the day was drawing to a close, the sky darkening rapidly with the disappearance of the sun. As the little party continued with their walk, Maisie pointed out that the squire’s terraced garden where, in the late summer, there had been a profusion of colourful flowers, had been now completely dug over.

  ‘I expect they’ll soon be growing vegetables there, not flowers,’ Edith remarked. ‘That’s what they’ll be wanting us all to do, I suppose, to dig over our back gardens. Alf’s real proud of his flower beds, but I reckon they’ll have to go eventually.’

  Lily did not comment; all she had was a small paved yard with a communal lavatory at the end. She had certainly had a glimpse that day of how some other folk lived. To Edith, though, it would not have seemed so much of a contrast, she pondered. She knew she had no choice but to return to her – so-called – home with Sid and to ‘grin and bear it’. It was some solace to her, however, that Maisie had got away and was so contented in her new life. And she now had a new friend in Edith. The future, on the whole was beginning to look a little less bleak.

  When they returned to the rectory the black-out curtains were already drawn, and the village green and the road leading down to the town was in almost complete darkness. All too soon it was time for them to take that road down to the station. They all went, Patience, Maisie and Audrey, as well as their visitors, Luke leading the way, with his torch illuminating a pathway through the blackness.

  The train, fortunately, was only some ten minutes late in arriving. It was cold standing around on the platform and Patience knew that the longer the girls stood there the more sad they were likely to feel. Partings were dreadful at the best of times, but Maisie and Audrey had insisted on coming to say goodbye to their mothers.

  Lily and Edith, sensibly, did not prolong the farewell, although there were tears in both their eyes. The girls, dewy-eyed, too, waved and waved until the train vanished out of sight.

  ‘Never mind,’ said Patience. ‘We have all had a lovely happy day, and I’m sure it won’t be long before you see your mums again.’ Edith, however, had confided in her, woman to woman, about her operation, insisting, though, that she should not tell Audrey. And in spite of her assurances that she was quite well again, Patience could tell that that was not strictly true. The next few months, she guessed, could be crucial.

  ‘Off we go home,’ she said, trying to sound light-hearted. ‘And how about a nice cup of cocoa? And then we can listen to ‘Happidrome’ on the wireless. How does that sound?’

  ‘Great…’ said the girls, both of them manfully trying to hide their tears.

  Chapter Fifteen

  It was Doris Nixon who invited Maisie and Audrey and the fourth member of their little crowd, Ivy Clegg, to join the Brownies. They met in the church hall each Tuesday evening at seven o’clock, with their leader, Brown Owl, alias Mrs Jessie Campion, one of the stalwart members of the Women’s Institute and the WVS.

  The three new members had joined in September, soon after their arrival in Middlebeck, and by November they were proudly wearing their new uniforms; a brown tunic with a leather belt, a brown beret, and a yellow tie on which was pinned a little golden brooch, depicting a brownie. Doris’s tunic already sported several badges on the sleeve, awarded for such things as knitting, recognition of wild flowers, tying knots, and homecraft, which meant making a simple meal of a cup of tea and toast. Doris was a sixer, too, which meant she was the leader of a group of six girls. Maisie was put into her six, whilst the other two were in a different one.

  The sixes had the names of fairy folk. Doris’s six girls were pixies, and there were also gnomes, sprites, fairies and elves. No goblins, it was noted, because those little folk had a reputation for being naughty and badly-behaved.

  ‘Here we come, the friendly pixies,

  Helping others when in fixes…’

  Doris’s six would chant, skipping around the giant papier-mâché toadstool that stood in the centre of the room.

  There were suitable little ditties, too, for the other folk; the helpful gnomes (helping mother in our homes); the sprightly sprites, jolly elves and happy fairies. They learned to say the Brownie promise, which was a shorter version of the more adult Guide promise.

  ‘I promise on my honour to do my best, to do my duty to God and the King, and to help other people every day, especially those at home.’

  They played team games, took part in quizzes, learned to tie simple knots such as the reef knot, and to understand the basic steps in First Aid. The meeting finished soon after eight o’ clock with a cup of orange juice and a biscuit, after a jolly good time had been enjoyed by all.

  Maisie enjoyed it very much, but, if she were honest, she found some of it a bit babyish…well, soppy really, all that stuff about friendly pixies and jolly elves. But she would never have dreamed of admitting it, especially as the Brownies were continually being ridiculed by the members of the little clique led by Gertie Flint. The rivalry had continued – for no good reason except that once it had started in tended to go on – between Maisie’s little crowd, and Gertie and her henchmen, Norma, Paula and Esme. This four tormented the other four, but only when Miss Mellodey or the teacher on playground duty was nowhere in sight. The forming of ‘gangs’ or any sort of bullying was frowned upon, but that didn’t stop it from going on away from adult eyes.

  ‘Soppy old sprites…potty old pixies…’ they would jeer. ‘Do yer best, do yer best… Go and tie yerselves up with yer reef knots…’

  ‘Take no notice of them,’ said Doris, with a haughty shake of her flaxen tresses. ‘They’re just being childish.’ She told her friends that Gertrude Flint and Norma Wilkins had used to belong to the Brownies, but Brown Owl had stopped them from attending any more. There was no room, she had said, for girls who were badly behaved and could not take it seriously.

  As well as tormenting them in the playground and at hometimes, Gertie and her gang sometimes hung around on Tuesday evenings, hiding behind the bushes, then jumping out when the Brownies dispersed, dancing round them and calling silly names. But only to those girls who were finding their own way home. Doris’s mum or dad came to meet her to see her home along the dark country lane to the farm, and Ivy’s Aunty Mabel, the elderly lady she lived with, was usually there to escort her back to her home further down the High Street. Maisie and Audrey were only a stone’s throw away from the rectory, but when Audrey had lived with Miss Thomson she had had to suffer the jeers and insults whilst crossing the village green.

  Ivy Clegg, from Hull, was the most timid girl of the little group, and the other three, knowing this, tried to protect her and her little brother, Timothy. One evening in early December Aunty Mabel was unable to meet Ivy from Brownies. Her husband was out, playing in an important darts match and Mabel had to stay and look after Timothy. Ivy was equipped with a large torch and she insisted that she would be able to get home all right on her own. What she did not tell her aunt was that she was terrified in case Gertie and her gang should be there that evening. They were not always there, though, and she crossed her fingers tightly when she came out of the hall, praying that tonight they would give it a miss.

  She breathed a sigh of relief when she had waved goodbye to her three friends and they had still not appeared. But she had hardly gone twenty yards down the High Street, shining her torch bravely in front of her, when they all jumped out, seemingly from nowhere, and started to prance around her.

  ‘Oh look, here’s one of the potty little pixies… Is that what you are Ivy, a potty pixie?’

  ‘No, p’raps she’s a fluttery fairy,’ said Esme Clough, fluttering her arms like wings and doing a silly little dance.

  ‘Or a gruesome goblin. Grrr…’ growled Gertie. ‘Oh no; they don’t ’ave goblins, do they? They’re naughty, are goblins, like what we are. They don’t know ’ow to behave ’emselves!’

  ‘Actually…I’m an elf,’ retorted Ivy, feeling very scared, but determined to stick up for herself. �
��And I don’t see anything funny about it neither.’

  It was quite the wrong thing to say. The other four hooted with laughter and huddled together in a little group, allowing Ivy, momentarily, to get away. But they were soon after her, having thought up some more ribaldry. They pursued her down the High Street, linking arms a couple of yards behind her and yelling, ‘Here I come, a silly old elf, crying ’cause I’ve wet meself… Silly old elf…soppy old elf…’

  Ivy started to run, but the faster she ran the more they pursued her. Then, when she turned the corner into the street where she lived, close to the market hall, she fell. The torch dropped from her hand, the glass shattering on the pavement, and she felt both her knees landing hard on the stony ground. She put out her hands to save herself, so she was not badly hurt, just winded and very frightened. But when she got up, her knees smarting like mad and one of them bleeding, her tormentors had vanished. She staggered the rest of the way home, luckily only a few yards further down the side street, crying out loud now and grasping the broken torch.

  ‘I fell…’ she sobbed to her Aunty Mabel. ‘I was running and I fell, an’ I’m sorry about the torch…’

  Mabel Roystone was a sympathetic woman who had had children of her own many years ago, who were now living far away from Yorkshire with their own families. She had grown very fond of Ivy and little Tim and had tended to spoil them. She blamed herself for not meeting Ivy from Brownies. She bandaged her bleeding knee and made her a cup of cocoa, and Ivy soon stopped crying.

  But she did not tell Aunty Mabel about the girls who had chased her. Just as, the next day, although she told Maisie and Audrey and Doris all about it, she did not tell Miss Mellodey. Nor did her friends say she should do so. You had to fight your own battles, with your friends helping you sometimes, but telling tales was something that you just did not do.

  In mid-December the first snow of the winter fell, transforming the little town of Middlebeck into a white and wondrous world. It happened overnight, and how different everything seemed when the folk at the rectory drew back the curtains and the blackout blinds the following morning. They looked out on to a changed landscape. A white blanket covered the village green, the early morning sun making it glisten like diamonds. The roofs and chimney pots were topped with white, like the icing on a cake, and the bare branches of the trees, motionless in the still windless air, were touched with a delicate tracery of silvery white.

  Audrey and Maisie – though more particularly, Maisie – couldn’t wait to get out and enjoy it. They had experienced snow, of course, many times, but in the city streets it very quickly turned to brown slush, trodden underfoot by hundreds of tramping feet. Here on the green it was likely to remain for days and days unless a thaw set in. Clad in their winter coats, woolly hats and wellington boots they joined the other children in the playground. They indulged in playful snowball fights and quickly built lopsided snowmen in the time left to them before the whistle was blown.

  Miss Mellodey was quite tolerant that day about little pools of water dripping from coats and wellingtons – most children, fortunately, had brought indoor shoes to change into – and the several pairs of sodden mittens drying on the fireguard. But she did warn them not to be too boisterous when they went out at playtime or their coats would be soaking wet and would not be dry before they went home. On the whole the pupils took heed of the warning. But Miss Mellodey and the other teachers could not prevent what might happen on the way home.

  Audrey, if she were honest, was not all that keen on the snow, except to look at it – it really was very beautiful – and to walk in. She liked to see the footprints that her feet made in the untrodden snow, like an explorer in undiscovered territory. But when Gertie and her crowd started throwing snowballs when they came out of school at the end of the afternoon, she kept close to Maisie, trying to hide her dislike and her nervousness. Bravely she made a snowball of her own and threw it, rather tentatively, in the direction of Norma Wilkins, the least aggressive member of the Gertie gang. But Maisie and Audrey soon made their way towards the rectory and the other four turned away.

  ‘Come on,’ said Maisie, tucking her arm through her friends. ‘I know you don’t like it much, do yer? I can tell. But you did right not to let ’em know, Gertie and them. Oh heck! I hope Ivy’ll be all right, but there’s nothing much we can do about it. Oh look; they’re going after her and Tim…’

  ‘She’ll be OK,’ said Audrey. ‘She’s not on her own. Look, Jean and Peggy are with her. Anyway, they’ve left her alone, haven’t they, since she fell that time on the way home from Brownies?’

  Gertrude Flint and her cronies had been a little scared lest there should be repercussions about their tormenting of Ivy Clegg. They feared she might tell on them, to her new aunt or to Miss Mellodey, and so they had lain low for a while. It was clear by now, though, that Ivy had not said anything; but the fact that she was not a telltale did not deter them from having another go at her. And this snow was a wonderful opportunity. They guessed, being the scared little creature that she was, that she would not like it.

  When Maisie and Audrey had gone the four of them raced after Ivy and her little brother, armed with balls of tightly packed snow. They pelted the brother and sister on their backs, and Timothy, turning round suddenly, caught one on his chin and started to cry. Jean and Peggy, classmates of Ivy, but not close friends, threw a few snowballs in retaliation; then, realising they were not really part of this skirmish, shrugged and made their own way home. Ivy seized Tim’s hand and they ran, blundering and stumbling through the carpet of snow with their assailants in hot pursuit, shrieking with laughter and bombarding them unmercifully. But when Ivy and Tim turned the corner into their own street they ceased their attack. The fussy old woman that Ivy and Tim lived with might be at the door waiting for them.

  So she was; and Tim’s tears were soon wiped away and they were both comforted with a hot sweet cup of tea. ‘I’ll meet you out of school tomorrow,’ said Aunty Mabel, hearing about the snowball fight. ‘Poor little Tim! What dreadful girls they must be.’

  ‘No; please don’t,’ said Ivy, more bravely than she was feeling. ‘It’ll only make them worse, and they don’t mean any harm. It’s only snow…and most kids like it, don’t they?’

  ‘I never did,’ said Mabel smiling. ‘I was like you, Ivy. But…all right, dear, if you’re sure then I won’t come.’

  The next day was Friday and the snow still lay on the ground.

  ‘Are you going to the picture show tomorrer?’ asked Doris of her three friends when they all came out of school. ‘Two o’ clock at the Palace. It’ll be dead good. They’re showing a Charlie Chaplin film an’ a Donald Duck cartoon, an’ I don’t know what else. Try and come, won’t yer?’

  ‘We’re going,’ said Maisie. ‘Aren’t we, Audrey? Aunty Patience says we can go.’

  ‘I’ll ask Aunty Mabel,’ said Ivy. ‘I’ll have to bring Tim with me, though.’

  ‘That’s OK. You’ll like it, won’t yer, Tim?’ said Maisie. ‘See you outside then just before it starts. Oh look, Ivy…Gertie and them are going the other way. You’ll be OK tonight.’

  Gertie, Paula, Esme and Norma, linking arms, were walking off in the opposite direction. For whatever reason, they had decided to leave the Clegg children alone for the moment, and so Ivy and Tim walked home without fear.

  Although Middlebeck was only a small market town it did have a cinema. The Palace, although anything less like a palace would be hard to imagine, was in a side street off the High Street, just beyond where the shops ended. The property had, in days gone by, been a chandler’s shop, then it had been bought in the early thirties by an enterprising family and converted into a small, privately owned cinema. They showed reruns of films that had had their first showing at the Odeons and Empires of the larger towns and cities, and occasionally a Saturday matinee show was put on for the benefit of the children.

  The four friends, and little Timothy, met outside the Palace at ten minutes to t
wo, paid their sixpences to the lady in the cash desk and made their way inside. The cinema had quite comfortable seats – tip-up red plush ones, though a little worn and shabby – at the back for the patrons who could afford to pay a few pence extra. At the front there were rows of forms and that was where the children sat when there was a special film show for them. The seats were more than half filled already with boys and girls, shouting and screaming and bobbing up and down waving to their friends. Maisie and her little crowd found an empty bench half way back and sat down. A surreptitious glance around showed her that Gertie Flint and her bosom pals were seated on the other side of the aisle, a couple of rows further back. Hastily, she turned to the front again hoping that they had not seen her. She did not want any trouble that afternoon, not whilst they had little Tim with them.

  The noise lessened somewhat when the lights were dimmed and the silken orange curtain, a little threadbare in places, was drawn back to reveal the screen. There was a sequence of adverts shown first, for local shops and businesses, through which the children continued to chatter. Then, when the title of the first film appeared there was a concerted cheer from the audience and they settled down to watch the antics of Donald Duck.

  This was followed by a short cowboy film. The cowboys pursued the Indians, galloping like wildfire on horses, sometimes riding in stagecoaches, or running along the roofs of railway carriages, and all the while there was the sound of incessant gunfire. Maisie glanced at Tim, two seats away from her. He was sitting on the very edge of his seat, staring goggle-eyed at the screen from behind his wire-framed spectacles, two fingers of his right hand pointing forwards in semblance of a gun. ‘Pow! Pow!’ he was muttering under his breath; timid little Timothy who wouldn’t hurt a fly and who constantly looked to his big sister and her friends to protect him. The ‘baddies’ were shot dead and the ‘goodies’ remained alive; but Maisie knew that it bore no resemblance to real life, nor was it anything like the war they were supposed to be involved in with the infamous Hitler.