by Nina Bawden
She said, ‘Look, now! You can see the whole of the town from here.’
They had left the wooded slopes behind them and the valley had opened out. Springy, sheep-cropped turf, criss-crossed with dry stone walls, ran down to the back yards of the houses. Narrow, straight streets; one long, thin one, like a spine down the middle and short, stumpy ones leading off, steeply climbing the hillside. It was peaceful enough and the slate roofs shone in the soft, evening light, but it was still a hideous place, the oldest boy thought: ugly houses and black pit machinery and smooth cones of slag, meanly dark against the green mountain.
Carrie said, ‘See that slag heap? The one over there? We used to slide down on a tray, though we were in trouble if he caught us, mind! Wearing out our good clothes or wasting hot water to wash them!’
‘Who’s he?’ the oldest boy asked, but she didn’t seem to hear him. She was gazing down at the town and smiling her private, remembering smile.
‘That’s the pub where we’re staying,’ she said after a minute. ‘The Dog and Duck. And that building there, the one with the green roof, that’s Ebenezer Chapel where we used to have lessons some mornings because there wasn’t room for us all in the school. It was only a small school, you see, not big enough to take all the extra children from London. And here, where we’re standing now, this is the exact place where the train always whistled when it came round the bend. A simply enormous whistle that echoed in the valley. More like a volcano erupting than a steam engine blowing its top, Nick always said, but he was touchy about it because it made him sick the first time. Though of course it wasn’t only the whistle. It was partly because he was tired and unhappy, leaving home and our mother for the first time …’ She seemed to think about that for a moment – how sad it had been – and then started to laugh. ‘But it was mostly because he had eaten so much. He really was quite dreadfully greedy when he was young.’
‘Still is,’ the oldest boy said. ‘What’s new about that? Get on with the story.’
‘I’m trying to,’ Carrie said, so impatiently that she sounded, he thought, more like a cross girl his own age than his mother. ‘But the story starts with Uncle Nick being sick …’
Chapter Two
He threw up all over Miss Fazackerley’s skirt. He had been feeling sick ever since they left the main junction and climbed into the joggling, jolting little train for the last lap of their journey, but the sudden whistle had finished him.
Such a noise – it seemed to split the sky open. ‘Enough to frighten the dead,’ Miss Fazackerly said, mopping her skirt and Nick’s face with her handkerchief. He lay back limp as a rag and let her do it, the way he always let people do things for him, not lifting a finger. ‘Poor lamb,’ Miss Fazackerly said, but Carrie looked stern.
‘It’s all his own fault. He’s been stuffing his face ever since we left London. Greedy pig. Dustbin.’
He had not only eaten his own packed lunch – sandwiches and cold sausages and bananas – but most of Carrie’s as well. She had let him have it to comfort him because he minded leaving home and their mother more than she did. Or had looked as if he minded more. She thought now that it was just one of his acts, put on to get sympathy. Sympathy and chocolate! He had had all her chocolate, too! ‘I knew he’d be sick,’ she said smugly.
‘Might have warned me then, mightn’t you?’ Miss Fazackerly said. Not unkindly, she was one of the kindest teachers in the school, but Carrie wanted to cry suddenly. If she had been Nick she would have cried, or at least put on a hurt face. Being Carrie she stared crossly out of the carriage window at the big mountain on the far side of the valley. It was brown and purple on the top and green lower down; streaked with silver trickles of water and dotted with sheep.
Sheep and mountains. ‘Oh, it’ll be such fun,’ their mother had said when she kissed them good-bye at the station. ‘Living in the country instead of the stuffy old city. You’ll love it, you see if you don’t!’ As if Hitler had arranged this old war for their benefit, just so that Carrie and Nick could be sent away in a train with gas masks slung over their shoulders and their names on cards round their necks. Labelled like parcels – Caroline Wendy Willow and Nicholas Peter Willow – only with no address to be sent to. None of them, not even the teachers, knew where they were going. ‘That’s part of the adventure,’ Carrie’s mother had said, and not just to cheer them up: it was her nature to look on the bright side. If she found herself in Hell, Carrie thought now, she’d just say, ‘Well, at least we’ll be warm.’
Thinking of her mother, always making the best of things (or pretending to: when the train began to move she had stopped smiling) Carrie nearly did cry. There was a lump like a pill stuck in her throat. She swallowed hard and pulled faces.
The train was slowing. ‘Here we are,’ Miss Fazackerly said. ‘Collect your things, don’t leave anything. Take care of Nick, Carrie.’
Carrie scowled. She loved Nick, loved him so much sometimes that it gave her a pain, but she hated to be told to do something she was going to do anyway. And she was bored with Nick at the moment. That dying-duck look as he struggled to get his case down from the rack! ‘Leave it to me, silly baby,’ she said, jumping up on the seat. Dust flew and he screwed up his face. ‘You’re making me sneeze,’ he complained. ‘Don’t bounce, Carrie.’
They all seemed to have more luggage than when they had started. Suitcases that had once been quite light now felt as if they were weighed down with stones. And got heavier as they left the small station and straggled down a steep, cinder path. Carrie had Nick’s case as well as her own and a carrier bag with a broken string handle. She tucked it under one arm, but it kept slipping backwards and her gas mask banged her knee as she walked.
‘Someone help Caroline, please,’ Miss Fazackerly cried, rushing up and down the line of children like a sheep dog. Someone did – Carrie felt the carrier bag go from under her arm, then one suitcase.
It was a bigger boy. Carrie blushed, but he wasn’t a Senior: he wore a cap like all boys under sixteen, and although he was tall, he didn’t look very much older than she was. She glanced sideways and said, ‘Thank you so much,’ in a grown-up voice like her mother’s.
He grinned shyly back. He had steel-rimmed spectacles, a few spots on his chin. He said, ‘Well, I suppose this is what they call our ultimate destination. Not much of a place, is it?’
They were off the cinder track now, walking down a hilly street where small, dark houses opened straight on to the pavement. There was sun on the mountain above them, but the town was in shadow; the air struck chill on their cheeks and smelled dusty.
‘Bound to be dirty,’ Carrie said. ‘A coal-mining town.’
‘I didn’t mean dirt. Just that it’s not big enough to have a good public library.’
It seemed a funny thing to bother about at the moment. Carrie said, ‘The first place was bigger. Where we stopped at the junction.’ She peered at his label and read his name. Albert Sandwich. She said, ‘If you came earlier on in the alphabet you could have stayed there. You only just missed it, they divided us after the Rs. Do your friends call you Ally, or Bert?’
‘I don’t care for my name to be abbreviated,’ he said. ‘Nor do I like being called Jam, or Jelly, or even Peanut Butter.’
He spoke firmly but Carrie thought he looked anxious.
‘I hadn’t thought of sandwiches,’ she said. ‘Only of the town Sandwich in Kent, because my granny lives there. Though my dad says she’ll have to move now in case the Germans land on the coast.’ She thought of the Germans landing and her grandmother running away with her things on a cart like a refugee in a newspaper picture. She gave a loud, silly laugh and said, ‘If they did, my gran ’ud give them What For. She’s not frightened of anyone, I bet she could even stop Hitler. Go up on her roof and pour boiling oil down!’
Albert looked at her, frowning. ‘I doubt if that would be very helpful. Old people aren’t much use in a war. Like kids – best out of the way.’
His grave tone
made Carrie feel foolish. She wanted to say it was only a joke, about boiling oil, but they had arrived at a building with several steps leading up and told to get into single file so that their names could be checked at the door. Nick was waiting there, holding Miss Fazackerly’s hand. She said, ‘There you are, darling. There she is, didn’t I tell you?’ And to Carrie, ‘Don’t lose him again!’
She ticked them off on her list, saying aloud, ‘Two Willows, One Sandwich.’
Nick clung to Carrie’s sleeve as they went through the door into a long, dark room with pointed windows. It was crowded and noisy. Someone said to Carrie, ‘Would you like a cup of tea, bach? And a bit of cake, now?’ She was a cheerful, plump woman with a singsong Welsh voice. Carrie shook her head; she felt cake would choke her. ‘Stand by there, then,’ the woman said. ‘There by the wall with the others, and someone will choose you.’
Carrie looked round, bewildered, and saw Albert Sandwich. She whispered, ‘What’s happening?’ and he said, ‘A kind of cattle auction, it seems.’
He sounded calmly disgusted. He gave Carrie her suitcase, then marched to the end of the hall, sat down on his own, and took a book out of his pocket.
Carrie wished she could do that. Sit down and read as if nothing else mattered. But she had already begun to feel ill with shame at the fear that no one would choose her, the way she always felt when they picked teams at school. Suppose she was left to the last! She dragged Nick into the line of waiting children and stood, eyes on the ground, hardly daring to breathe. When someone called out, ‘A nice little girl for Mrs Davies, now,’ she felt she would suffocate. She looked up but unfocused her eyes so that passing faces blurred and swam in front of her.
Nick’s hand tightened in hers. She looked at his white face and the traces of sick round his mouth and wanted to shake him. No one would take home a boy who looked like that, so pale and delicate. They would think he was bound to get ill and be a trouble to them. She said in a low, fierce voice, ‘Why don’t you smile and look nice,’ and he blinked with surprise, looking so small and so sweet that she softened. She said, ‘Oh, it’s all right, I’m not cross. I won’t leave you.’
Minutes passed, feeling like hours. Children left the line and were taken away. Only unwanted ones left, Carrie thought. She and Nick, and a few tough-looking boys, and an ugly girl with a squint who had two little sisters. And Albert Sandwich who was still sitting quietly on his suitcase, reading his book and taking no notice. He didn’t care! Carrie tossed her head and hummed under her breath to show she didn’t either.
Someone had stopped in front of her. Someone said, ‘Surely you can take two, Miss Evans?’
‘Two girls, perhaps. Not a boy and a girl, I’m afraid. I’ve only the one room, see, and my brother’s particular.’
Particular about what, Carrie wondered. But Miss Evans looked nice; a little like a red squirrel Carrie had once seen, peering round a tree in a park. Reddish brown hair and bright, button eyes, and a shy, quivering look.
Carrie said, ‘Nick sleeps in my room at home because he has bad dreams sometimes. I always look after him and he’s no trouble at all.’
Miss Evans looked doubtful. ‘Well, I don’t know what my brother will say. Perhaps I can chance it.’ She smiled at Carrie. ‘There’s pretty eyes you have, girl! Like green glass!’
Carrie smiled back. People didn’t often notice her when Nick was around. His eyes were dark blue, like their mother’s. She said, ‘Oh, Nick’s the pretty one, really’
Miss Evans walked fast. She was a little woman, not much taller than Carrie, but she seemed as strong as a railway porter, carrying their cases as if they weighed nothing. Out of the hall down the street. They stopped outside a grocery shop with the name SAMUEL ISAAC EVANS above the door and Miss Evans took a key from her bag. She said, ‘There’s a back way and you’ll use that, of course, but we’ll go through the front for the once, as my brother’s not here.’
The shop was dim and smelled mustily pleasant. Candles and tarred kindling, and spices, Carrie thought, wrinkling her nose. A door at the back led into a small room with a huge desk almost filling it. ‘My brother’s office,’ Miss Evans said in a hushed voice and hurried them through into a narrow, dark hall with closed doors and a stair rising up. It was darker here than the shop and there was a strong smell of polish.
Polished linoleum, a shining, glass sea, with rugs scattered like islands. Not a speck of dust anywhere. Miss Evans looked down at their feet. ‘Better change into your slippers before we go up to your bedroom.’
‘We haven’t got any,’ Carrie said. She meant to explain that there hadn’t been room in their cases but before she could speak Miss Evans turned bright red and said quickly, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, how silly of me, why should you? Never mind, as long as you’re careful and tread on the drugget.’
A strip of white cloth covered the middle of the stair carpet. They trod on this as they climbed; looking back from the top, Carrie saw the marks of their rubber-soled shoes and felt guilty, though it wasn’t her fault. Nick whispered, ‘She thinks we’re poor children, too poor to have slippers,’ and giggled.
Carrie supposed he was right. Nick was good at guessing what people were thinking. But she didn’t feel like giggling; everywhere was so tidy and clean it made her despair. She thought she would never dare touch anything in this house in case she left marks. She wouldn’t dare breathe – even her breath might be dirty!
Miss Evans was looking at Nick. ‘What did you say, dear?’ she asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Here’s the bathroom,’ she said – proudly, it seemed. ‘Hot and cold running water, and a flush toilet. And your room, just by here.’
It was a small room with two narrow beds and a hooked rug between them. A wardrobe and a wicker chair and a large, framed notice on the wall. The black letters said, The Eye Of The Lord Is Upon You.
Miss Evans saw Carrie looking at this. She said, ‘My brother is very strong Chapel. So you’ll have to be especially good, Sundays. No games or books, see? Except the Bible, of course.’
The children stared at her. She smiled shyly. ‘It may not be what you’re used to but it’s better to get things straight from the start, isn’t it? Mr Evans is a good man, but strict. Manners and tidiness and keeping things clean. He says dirt and sloppy habits are an insult to the Lord. So you will be good, won’t you? You look like good children.’
It was almost as if she were pleading with them. Asking them to be good so that she wouldn’t get into trouble. Carrie was sorry for her, though she felt very uncomfortable. Neither she nor Nick were particularly tidy; at home, in their warm, muddly house, no one had expected them to be. Milly, their maid, always picked up their toys and made their beds and put their clothes away. Carrie said, ‘We’ll try to be good, Miss Evans.’
‘Call me Auntie,’ Miss Evans said. ‘Auntie Louise. Or Auntie Lou, if that’s easier. But you’d best call my brother Mr Evans. You see, he’s a Councillor.’ She paused and then went on in the same proud tone she had used when she showed them the bathroom, ‘Mr Evans is a very important man. He’s at a Council meeting just now. I think I’d best give you your supper before he comes back, hadn’t I?’
They had a good supper of eggs and milk and crunchy, fresh bread in the kitchen which was as clean as the rest of the house but more cheerful with a big range fire that threw out heat like a furnace. Miss Evans didn’t eat with them but stood by the table like a waitress in a restaurant, taking the plates to the sink as soon as they’d cleared them and sweeping up crumbs round their chairs before they had finished drinking their milk. She didn’t actually say, ‘Please hurry up, oh, please hurry up,’ but she might just as well have done: her mouth twitched as if she were muttering it inwardly, her eyes kept darting to the clock on the mantelpiece and there were red, nervous spots on her cheeks.
She made the children nervous too. When she said, ‘What about bed, now?’ they were more than glad to escape from the kitchen where the Very Important Councillor Evan
s might appear any minute. As they went upstairs, Miss Evans rolled up the drugget behind them. ‘Mr Evans doesn’t like to see it down,’ she explained when she caught Carrie’s eye. ‘I just put it there while he’s out to keep the carpet spick and span. It’s a new one, you see, lovely deep pile, and Mr Evans doesn’t want it trodden on.’
‘How are you supposed to get up the stairs, then?’ Nick said. ‘Walk on the ceiling, or fly like a bird?’
‘Well. Well, of course …’ Miss Evans laughed, rather breathlessly. ‘Of course you have to walk on it sometimes but not too often. Mr Evans said twice a day would be quite enough. You see, four of us going up and down twice a day, morning and evening, makes sixteen times altogether, and Mr Evans thinks that’s quite enough traipsing. So if you could try to remember to bring down all the things you’ll want for the day, in the morning …’
‘But the bathroom’s upstairs,’ Nick said in an outraged voice.
She looked at him apologetically. ‘Yes, I know, dear. But if you want to – you know – go anywhere, there’s one at the end of the yard. Mr Evans doesn’t use it, of course, it wouldn’t be dignified for him to be seen going there, not a man in his position, when all the neighbours know he’s got one indoors, but I use it, and though it’s an earth closet it’s quite nice and clean.’
Nick stared as if he couldn’t believe his ears. Carrie nudged him gently and said, ‘That’ll be fun, Nick, won’t it? Like the one at that farm where we stayed last summer.’
‘Spiders.’ Nick’s eyes rounded with remembered horror. ‘There was spiders!’
‘God’s Creatures,’ Miss Evans said. ‘Just like you, dear.’
‘Not like me. Not like me at all!’ Nick’s voice rose in a loud, breathy cry. ‘I don’t have hundreds and hundreds of creepy-crawly legs and I don’t eat flies for my dinner or spin sticky stuff out of my tummy. That’s disgusting, spiders is disgusting, horrible and yakky and disgusting …’
