‘She’ll not think that, lass,’ said Alf. ‘It’s just a bad cold you’ve got. Lily’ll tell her. You’ll be as right as rain in a day or two. It’s just bad luck that it should happen just before Christmas.’
‘Don’t worry; I’ll explain to Audrey,’ said Lily. ‘I know she’s sure to be disappointed, but you’ve got some parcels for her, have you…?’
That poor little girl, thought Lily, as she walked home, with Jimmy’s pushchair laden with parcels of all shapes and sizes. So many that they would put her own little gifts for Maisie in the shade, she pondered. But she guessed that Maisie would be more pleased to see her family than any amount of presents. And so, she guessed would Audrey have been…
‘Our mums are coming tomorrer,’ said Maisie to Audrey on the Wednesday, the day before the expected visit. ‘I’m dead excited, aren’t you? And we’ve got all those things that we made at school to give to them.’
‘And my dad’s coming too,’ said Audrey. ‘I haven’t seen him since September, since that day when we first came here. That’s more than three whole months.’
‘Oh yes; yer dad…I forgot about him,’ said Maisie. She looked a mite pensive, and Audrey guessed she might thinking that she hadn’t got a dad, not a proper one, to make the journey with her mother. In reality Maisie was remembering Sid and feeling relieved that he would not be coming.
‘You’ll see your little brother and sister as well,’ said Audrey. ‘And you’ve got some presents for them, an’ all, haven’t you?’
Miss Mellodey’s classroom had been a hive of activity in the weeks leading up to Christmas, as the children made calendars and cards and little gifts, for parents or for adoptive aunts and uncles. There was a shortage of paper and cardboard, or there would be before very long, and these commodities had to be used very sparingly.
Rectangles of card were cut from old cereal packets and covered with wallpaper – from surplus pattern books – to form the basis of the calendars, which were then decorated with pictures cut from last year’s Christmas cards. A tiny calendar showing the days, weeks and months was then glued at the bottom – these were bought by the teacher at a few pence a dozen from Woolie’s – and two holes and a string threaded through the top. The result was a work of art as good as anything that could be bought in a shop and which would grace a proud mother’s kitchen wall from the beginning to the end of the year.
Each child had been allowed a precious sheet of cartridge paper to make a card, on which was their own choice of Christmas symbol – a robin, a plum pudding, a tree or shining stars – cut out of gummed paper, using templates that Miss Mellodey had made. Audrey had chosen a pudding, remembering how her mother had used to make a deliciously rich and fruity one each year, and Maisie a design of stars, a large one, which was the star for Jesus’s birth, and several smaller ones. She loved the stars which seemed to shine extra brightly here in Middlebeck. She liked to look at them through her bedroom window, making sure there was no light visible from inside, of course.
And the two girls, along with all the other girls in the class, had made a little needle-case out of ‘Binca’ canvas, embroidered with colourful cross-stitch. This had been a real labour of love for Maisie who was not much of a seamstress – Audrey had fared rather better – but Miss Mellodey had unpicked the stitches that had gone a bit wonky and helped her to put them to rights. And she knew her mother would be delighted with the finished result. The boys had made raffia mats, with rather less dexterity. All in all, it had been a happy time at school, singing carols and playing games in the classroom with the desks pushed back against the walls; and then, on the last afternoon, they had all gone into the church for a special Carol Service led by the rector of St Bartholomew’s. That was Audrey and Maisie’s very own Luke, and they felt very proud indeed.
Now they had broken up from school and could hardly wait for the excitement to begin; the decorating of their Christmas tree, a real one that Luke had brought home from Mr Tremaine’s estate; the hiding away of secret presents; the Christmas dinner that Aunty Patience was planning; but, before all that, the visit of their parents from Leeds.
Maisie and Audrey skipped and ran all the way down the High Street on Thursday morning, with Patience hurrying along behind them. They were far too excited to try to ‘walk properly’ – as Miss Thomson would have exhorted Audrey to do, although Aunty Patience never bothered. The shops had made a valiant effort in this first Christmas of the war to put on a show of festivity and celebration. Chickens and ducks and strings of sausages hung in the butcher’s window, and at the front, with a selection of the butcher’s own homemade pork pies, there was a pig’s head, staring out with glassy malevolent eyes and with an apple stuck in his mouth; and a hand-printed notice in red and green letters which read ‘A Merry Christmas to all our customers’.
Cotton wool balls representing snow, and paper streamers adorned the windows of the baker’s, the newsagent’s and the Maypole Grocery Store. There did not appear to be any shortage of food as yet. There were fancy tins of biscuits and boxes of chocolates; Christmas cakes and puddings and mince pies – for those housewives too lazy or disinclined to make their own! – as well as such staple requirements as bread, butter, tea and sugar. Food had still not been rationed, although there were rumours that it soon would be. ‘They’ll let us get through Christmas, an’ then we’ll not know what’s hit us, you mark my words,’ said many a Job’s comforter.
They arrived a few minutes early at the station and they knew they might have even longer to wait before the train arrived. Delays were frequent and had come to be expected. ‘Don’t you know there’s a war on?’ was the excuse for this, as it was for all sorts of other things.
Maisie and Audrey kept running to the end of the platform, peering into the distance for any sign of the approaching train. And then at last, ‘Here it is! It’s coming…’ they both shouted.
They stood next to Patience as the huge engine puffed and snorted its way into the station, clouds of acrid grey smoke billowing from its funnel as it slowed down, then halted with a squeal of brakes. Eagerly they scanned the windows of the carriages as the train passed by them and then stopped, but all they could make out was that it was crowded. There was a lot of the familiar khaki and airforce blue to be seen; soldiers and airmen seemed to be always on the move.
‘There she is! There’s my mum!’ yelled Maisie, seeing the red-coated figure emerging from a carriage door some twenty yards away. ‘Mum, Mum…we’re over here…’ she shouted. A soldier was helping her with Jimmy’s pushchair, and then he lifted the little boy down from the big step and put him in the pram. Maisie’s mum was smiling at him and saying thank you, and how pretty she looked when she smiled, thought Maisie. And there was Joanie as well, jumping up and down with excitement.
‘But where is my mum?’ said Audrey, looking puzzled. ‘And my dad. He said he was coming as well. But they’re not here.’
‘I expect they’re in a different part of the train,’ said Patience although she, too, was looking rather anxious. ‘Maybe they couldn’t get seats together.’
Audrey shook her head. It was obvious that all the passengers that were going to alight had already done so. ‘They’ve not come…’ she said, her eyes filling up with tears.
Lily hurried over to them and gave Maisie a hug and a kiss. ‘Hello, love,’ she said. But she didn’t make too much fuss of her daughter, before she turned quickly to Audrey. ‘Audrey dear…’ she said, kissing her cheek as well, ‘I’m afraid you might be a little bit upset. You see…’
‘My mum and dad, they’ve not come, have they? Why? Is Mummy poorly again?’ Audrey’s little face looked anguished as she stared pleadingly at Lily, with her tears overflowing and running down her cheeks.
The two women exchanged anxious glances, then Lily hurried on to say, ‘Well, yes, she is a bit poorly, dear. She’s got a very bad cold. She was coughing and sneezing all over the place when I saw her yesterday.’
‘Oh dear! W
hat a shame!’ said Patience. ‘I’m sure she’s disappointed as well, isn’t she?’
‘She certainly is,’ said Lily. ‘But she knew she would only make herself worse if she came, as well as giving her nasty germs to everybody else. But she’s sent you some Christmas presents, all sorts of exciting parcels, Audrey. And she says to tell you that she’ll come and see you as soon as she can. And yer dad an’ all.’
‘Why didn’t me dad come then?’ Audrey whimpered. ‘He could have come, couldn’t he? I haven’t seen him for ages. He’s not poorly as well, is he?’
‘No…but he has to stay and look after your mum,’ said Patience. ‘That’s how it is, isn’t it, Lily?’
‘Yes…’ agreed Lily. ‘Aw, lovey, I’m real sorry.’ She put an arm round Audrey and gave her a hug. ‘Come on, cheer up now. I’m dying to hear what you and Maisie have been doing at the Brownies an’ at that school of yours. And how’s your nice Miss Mellodey going on?’
Audrey had recovered somewhat by the time the little company had made their way back to the rectory. She was no longer crying, but she spoke very little during the meal that Patience had prepared; tasty shepherd’s pie followed by jam roly-poly pudding and custard. Maisie, watching her friend concernedly, felt very sorry for her; she guessed that her thoughts were far away, with her mum and dad in Leeds. But her lack of conversation was not noticed overmuch because it was Joanie and Jimmy who were doing a great deal of the talking. They remembered Patience and Luke from their last visit – especially Patience’s delicious dinner, it seemed, from the gusto with which they were attacking the food on their plates – and were vying with one another in telling their hosts about their journey.
‘There were lots of baa-lambs in t’ fields…’
‘Don’t say baa-lambs, Jimmy; it’s babyish,’ Joanie corrected him. ‘Anyroad, they’re not lambs; they’re sheep.’
‘All right; sheep…great big woolly ’uns…’
‘An’ there was a reight lot o’ snow on th’ ’ills. We haven’t got none at home now,’ said Joanie.
‘No, it’s all gone now,’ said Lily. ‘Like it has here. I thought it’d be snowing up here.’
‘Oh, there’s still plenty to come,’ said Luke. ‘The sky looks very heavy. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some more on the way.’
‘Yes, we often have a white Christmas up here,’ smiled Patience.
‘An’ we made a snowman,’ chimed in Joanie. ‘In t’ back yard. Didn’t we, Jimmy?’
‘Aye, wi’ an ’at on ’is ’ead…’
‘It were an old one of me dad’s,’ said Joanie.
‘A very old hat,’ said Lily, smiling meaningfully at Maisie. ‘Else I would never have dared. It was one he’d chucked out ages ago.’
Audrey cheered up when it was time, after the meal, for the exchanging of Christmas gifts. There were several parcels for Audrey. Maisie counted four – or was it five? – all done up in bright wrapping paper as her mother drew them out of the big black hold-all.
‘I’ll save them till Christmas Day, shall I, Aunty Patience?’ said Audrey.
‘Yes, I think that’s the best idea,’ replied Patience. ‘And yours as well, Maisie. We’ll put them all underneath the tree. Oh, isn’t it exciting?’
Lily had brought out two parcels for Maisie, and those, too, were gaily wrapped. ‘It’s not much, Maisie,’ she said, shrugging apologetically, ‘but it’s all as I can afford. You know how it is, don’t you, love?’
‘Of course I do, Mum,’ said Maisie. ‘Presents don’t matter. It’s you that I wanted to see… Oh, I’m sorry, Audrey,’ she added, as her friend, at her side, gave a little sniffle. ‘I’m real sorry yer mum hasn’t come, but you’ll see her soon, won’t yer? And don’t forget we’ve got all them things that we made at school. Me mum’ll take them back for you, and the presents you bought for yer mum and dad, won’t you, Mum?’
‘Of course I will,’ said Lily. ‘That’ll cheer your mother up no end, Audrey.’
Lily exclaimed with delight at the calendar, card and needle-case. ‘Oh, aren’t they lovely? And the same for Edith an’ all? Isn’t that nice? She’ll be ever so pleased.’
‘An’ this is a little present for you, Mum, that I’ve bought with me spending money,’ said Maisie. ‘Only I don’t want you to open it till Christmas Day, same as I won’t open mine. And these are for our Joanie and Jimmy,’ she whispered, handing the little parcels over secretly so that her brother and sister would not see. They were playing a game of tig at the other end of the room, with Luke keeping an eye on them.
‘Well, isn’t that kind of you,’ said Lily.
‘Put ’em in their stockings, or tell ’em that Father Christmas has brought them,’ said Maisie.
‘No, I shall tell them that their big sister has bought ’em,’ said Lily, her eyes suddenly feeling moist. ‘It was a lovely thing to do.’
‘I miss them, Mum,’ said Maisie. ‘I never thought I would, not really, ’cause they used to be dreadful little imps; but I do miss them…and you an’ all.’
‘I know, love, I know,’ said Lily, swallowing a big lump in her throat. ‘But it’s best for you to stay here, honest it is. Things are just the same at home…you know what I mean. You haven’t to worry about me though, ’cause I’m OK. I can look after meself, and the little ’uns are behaving ’emselves now.’
‘Mrs Bragg…’ said Audrey shyly. ‘Would you take these back, please, and give them to my mum and dad?’ There were two carefully wrapped presents as well as the things made at school. ‘And tell them I’m sorry they couldn’t come, and I hope my mum is soon better…’
Patience could see that everyone was starting to get emotional. It was only to be expected, but she wanted the day to be as happy as possible. ‘How about a walk before tea?’ she said. ‘The sun’s trying to get out, and it’ll blow the cobwebs away.’
‘And help us to walk off that lovely dinner,’ said Lily. ‘It was a real treat, Patience.’
Patience smiled. ‘Thank you… And I’ll come with you if you don’t mind.’ She wanted to have a private little chat with Lily. She could tell that the woman was putting on a brave face, but she knew, intuitively, that there was something troubling her deeply.
Lily was, indeed, worrying – although she was trying hard not to let it show – about what sort of a reception she would get when she arrived back in Armley. She had told Sid at breakfast time that she was going to visit Maisie that day; she would be setting off soon after he and Percy had gone to work in order to make an early start and have as long a day as possible in Middlebeck. She had mentioned it to him earlier in the week, but he had appeared to take no notice. But this time, when she told him, it was clear that he had remembered.
‘Aye, so you told me, t’other day,’ he said. ‘D’you think I care what the hell you do? Bugger off and take them two little brats with yer.’
‘Of course I’ll take them with me,’ she replied. ‘What else would I do? Jimmy and Joanie are looking forward to seeing Maisie again, aren’t you?’ She turned to the children who nodded, staring fixedly at her and then at their father with their pale blue eyes. They did not react overmuch as they were used to their dad shouting.
‘Oh, it’s Maisie now, is it?’ he jeered. ‘Ne’er mind yer bloody fancy names. Her’s Nellie to me, not that I want owt to do with her neither. I was damned glad to see the back of ’er, ’er and her flamin’ lies, so don’t you dare thing of bringing ’er back.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Lily answered coldly. ‘She won’t be coming back, you can be sure of that.’
‘And you don’t need to come back neither, nor your two brats.’
‘They’re your children as well, Sid…’
‘Aye, so you say. Aye, well, happen they are…’ He cast a glance, that was half apologetic, at the two children before continuing his tirade. ‘But me and t’ lad here can manage very well wi’out the lot of yer, can’t we, Percy?’
His son grinned maliciously. ‘Aye; ’co
urse we can.’
‘So you can stay up in t’ wilds of t’ North Riding, if you’ve a mind, and bloody good riddance to yer. Come on, Percy lad. T’ whistle’ll be blowing, and we’ve been late once already this week, thanks to ’er an’ ’er feckless ways.’
They grabbed their coats and dashed out of the back door. Lily was angry at his parting shot, knowing it was not true, but it was only what she had become used to over the years. She had always made a breakfast for him and his son before they left for the mill, even when she felt very disinclined to do so; and Sid knew that only too well. She guessed, too, that he didn’t mean what he said about her not coming back. It was very tempting to take him at his word, but she knew there would be the very devil to pay if she did so. No; in spite of what he said, Sid would expect her to return and to continue to look after him and his children.
That was what she said to Patience later that afternoon. They were walking together, with the children all running ahead of them, along the country lanes at the back of the churchyard. Patience had enquired, tactfully and very concernedly, about how things were going at her home in Leeds. And Lily was glad to confide in her, but only to a certain extent. Patience was, after all, the wife of the rector, and Lily believed her to be quite an innocent and unworldly sort of woman. She might be shocked to the core about some of the things that Lily could tell her. So Lily thought, but it was not true. Patience was pretty unshockable, and as she listened to the unhappy tale she could read between the lines. Besides, she already knew, from Maisie’s earlier outburst, about the dreadful state of affairs in that household.
‘But there’s nowt…I mean, nothing I can do,’ said Lily. ‘He’s my husband, isn’t he, and those two are his kids. He has his rights, I suppose, and wives can’t just go buzzing off and leaving their husbands…can they?’
‘It depends on the circumstances, I expect,’ said Patience carefully.
Above the Bright Blue Sky Page 26
